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First trip to Ireland

Posted by on

Hello all,

My siblings and I are planning a trip to Ireland next year. None of us have ever been to Ireland before. I was curious if you had any recommendations on must sees, best length of a trip ( 1 week seems like not enough), and time of year and any other helpful advice?

Not sure that we want to do a tour as we are wanting to spend time and experience Ireland together as a family. We really want to see the country side, stay in a castle( is that possible?), learn about the history and cultire of Ireland and do what the locals do and not feel so touristy. :)

Thanks for all your help!

Posted by
171 posts

Buy Rick Steves Ireland guidebook. He lays out itineraries you can use if you don't want to go on a tour!

Posted by
11294 posts

General questions like yours are very hard to answer without writing a book. So, start by getting some books - look at Rick's and as many others as you can. Use the library, or browse at a bookstore. For this preliminary stage, don't worry about using the latest editions.

Also, look at guided tours (again, not just Rick's - see Trafalgar, CIE, Tauck, etc) to get ideas of what are considered "the highlights" of Ireland.

Once you have some rough ideas, this board is a great place to get help - refining itineraries, sights for special interests, etc.

Posted by
1172 posts

I can tell you a little from our experience....

We went for 14 days and after much research decided to stick to the South of Ireland so that we could do a good job of seeing/doing without feeling like we were racing.
We travel with our kids aged 11 and 8. They are great travellers.

We did 3 nights in Dublin ( need to go back as this was not enough for us), rented a car on our way out of Dubin and then did
- 1 night in kilkenny
- 2 nights in Killarney
- 2 nights in Dingle
- 2 nights in Galway
- 1 night connamera
- back to Dublin for one night by the airport before flying home

We loved the freedom of having our own car. There are quite a few castes that you can stay in.. just book early as they are quite popular.

We had a full list of must sees and dos and we got through most if i but did miss the Aran Islands due to weather. Out travel philosophy is that you cannot do it all and sometimes, you have to make changes on the fly so we were all ok with that.

We went in late July/early August. For us, it made sense based on the kids school schedule. I know that it is high season so I am sure that we paid more for accommodations but it never felt busy or overcrowded to us ( Maybe we are used to the mayhem of places like Disney!)

Places and things we loved:
- Kilmainham gaol tour in Dublin
- Trinity College, book of kells and long library
- Dublinia
- medieval ill walk in Kilkenny
- Blarney Castle
- biking through Killarney national park to muckross house and farm
- driving the ring of kerry and stopping along the way
- driving the sea head and stopping along the way
- all of the beautiful scenery everywhere
- Dingle town.. quaint shops, restaurants etc.
- School of Falconry hawk walk at Ashford Castle
- Kylemore Abbey

As you can see there is a lot. We liked the mix of city and country that we had.

We always feel touristy but I don't have problem with that. Realistically, what I want to see is probably what others will want to see as well so I expect to see tourists where I go. We did however meet a ton of local people though by virtue of where we ate, where we attend an the fact that the Irish are just the friendliest people ever.

I did buy the Rick Steve's book to plan our trip and found it to be an awesome reference guide as was this site.

Have fun planning!

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