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Information Overload - help with Itinerary

Posted by on

We have 6 days in Ireland (not counting travel days) and I'm on information over load as to what to do when we get there. I've had some say Galway for sure and others that have said Dingle is a must. I know we want to do the cliffs and hubby wants to do a castle, also several friends have suggested Kylemore Abbey. We would like to do some sight seeing, but to also to sit back and enjoy the local culture. We have traveled Europe before, first trip to Ireland, but for some reason I just can't get this itinerary down, overthinking it most likely. Is this too much driving? Should we just choose Dingle or Galway as a base? We most definitely want to relax some. Here is what I have, please let me know your recommendations.

Day 1: Land 11:00am stay day night in Dublin
Day 2: Pick up car and drive to Ennis - see Bunratty Castle
Day 3: Drive to Dingle and see cliffs of Moher on way
Day 4: Day in Dingle to explore
Day 5: Drive to Galway
Day 6: Galway

Day 7: Drive to Dublin
Day 8: Fly Home

Posted by
8170 posts

If you're on the Dingle Peninsula, drop south and take a day to drive around the Ring of Kerry. It is very beautiful too. We were there in May. All in all, Ireland is a pretty quiet place and good to recharge and take it easy.

Posted by
19 posts

If you want to see the Kylemore Abbey, you're going in the wrong direction. You'll have to go north to Connemara. If you stay in Dingle, I recommend the Lighthouse B&B, just a short walk into town.

Posted by
7454 posts

Not to add to the overload, but if you’re mainly looking at western/southwestern Ireland, have you looked at flying into and/or out of Shannon Airport, rather than Dublin, and saving the extra driving and travel time? Save Dublin for your next trip?

Posted by
6788 posts

If you want Rick Steves' advice for how to spend your time, look here...

On this page, in the upper-left corner, click Explore Europe; under Countries, click Ireland; on the Ireland page, next to "Plan" click the Plus symbol; in the expanded Plan section, click Ireland Itinerary. Or here's a shortcut.

Rick says this:

Depending on the length of your trip, and taking geographic proximity into account, here are my recommended priorities:
3 days: Dublin
5 days, add: Dingle Peninsula

There you go.

You don't need to follow every Rick recommendation slavishly, but it's usually a good guideline to start from. If your itinerary includes a lot more things than his suggested itinerary does, you might ask yourself who knows better.

Just a suggestion. Good luck.

Posted by
2 posts

I do wish we would have flown into Shannon but we are flying in to Dublin. Thanks for the input, very helpful.

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