Ireland 10-day Itinerary Input

Day 3 - You can reach Kinsale on this day. You should choose either Glendaloch or Rock of Cashel. Both will be busy. You can drive through the Wicklough mountains over Sally Gap on the way to either site. Skip a stop in Kilkenny. This will be a super long day so don't linger too long.
Day 5 - Too much. Skip Blarney Castle, Ross Castle, Muckross, and Killarney. The Ring of Kerry will take up your entire day by the time you get to Dingle.
Day 7 - Galway is ok for an overnight. Not much to see there compared to smaller towns.
Day 8 - Consider skipping Aran Islands and drive to Kerry to overnight.
Day 9 - You can tour the entire Antrim coast and get to Belfast. Def go to Giant's Causeway. I'm not sure how much time the Dark Hedges take. Skip Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. Gimmicky and long lines.
I'm sure others will have different thoughts. We took 4 weeks in September to cover this ground.

Hello glad to hear you are visiting Ireland. We are from there originally but have lived in Canada for over 40 years. Since retiring we have spent up to 6 mths of the year there having bought a flat in a village just outside Belfast. Now to your upcoming trip. Are you interested in sightseeing or checking historic sights (maybe a little of both?). Is this your first visit?
You will be amazed at how much you can see and do given the size of the island...It’s only around 300 miles from top to bottom. Still you likely will have to make some cuts to your itinerary based on distances and taking time to stop and look at various sights.

You didn’t say when specifically you will visit Ireland but be mindful of marching season in the north as around the 11th and 12th you could hit traffic delays as the Orange marches take place. We did a similar route to the one you are planning last summer. Here’s what our trip looked like (I will try not to go into too much detail but happy to expand or answer any questions).
Day 1 tour Dublin sights - take in GPO, Trinity College, Kilmainham Jail
Day 2 - Wicklow Mountains to Avoca (Sally’s Gap), Glendalough lovely place to hike
Stayed night at the Old coach house. You might want to skip Avoca and stop closer to your next destination.
Day 3 - drove to New Ross (toured famine ship and John F Kennedy memorials. I would skip if I was doing the trip again. Wouldn’t recommend place we stayed at.

Day 4 - headed to Waterford (toured Crystal factory..very interesting).

Stayed Viking hotel. Was a good place to stop
Day 5 - Headed to Cashel (via) Kilkenny. Toured Kilkenny Castle
Stayed Amber Hotel in Thurles (great hotel restaurant)
Day 6 - headed to Blarney
Stayed at White House B&B (would stay there again)
Day 7 - Cork (busy and lots of traffic so if you don’t like cities maybe skip round it in the interest of time)
Day 8 - Kinsale (highly recommend the B&B Rivermount House. About 10 mins outside town but a lovely spot. Try Dino’s for fish and chips.

Day 9 Kinsale to Kenmare.
Day 10 Kenmare to Dingle. If you can try to stay at Pax House in Dingle it was the best place we have ever stayed. We splurged for an upstairs room overlooking the Bay and it was beautiful. Breakfast was amazing! Dinner try Fenton’s meal was delicious and atmosphere very cosy.
Glenbeigh is close to Dingle and you might want to check out horse riding on the beach in that area.
Others may disagree but we found the Ring of Kerry somewhat disappointing and it took a long time to drive. Some beautiful beaches as you got closer to Dingle but overall Given your time constraints maybe save for another trip. Also keep in mind the driving in terms of distance may look fine but a lot of your travel will be on smaller, narrow roads, and if you aren’t used to driving on that side of the road may take you longer. If you are renting a car highly recommend an automatic. A bit more expensive but your legs will thank you as it’s exhausting shifting gears all day.

If you are big GOT fans check out Castle Ward in County Down (about 35 min south of Belfast) where they filmed the show and they also run various GOT activities. Our place is in Co.Down getting into Belfast is very convenient.

Belfast is a lively city, it has really thrived in the last 10 years. Lots of nightlife for your age group.
Let me know if I can help.

Wow this is all amazing information!! I am going to try to adopt some of this for my family trip in February. Thank you!!

Wow! Thank you both for your replies. Yes, we will be renting an automatic car - we don't know how to drive manual and it would be a nightmare to add that on top of driving on the opposite side. We're interested in doing a little of both sightseeing and historic sites. This is my second time but my husband's first. I studied in Waterford for six weeks about eight years ago, fell in love with the country, and knew I would want to come back. I was able to explore some smaller towns close to Waterford, Dublin, and the Cliffs but was unable to spend as much time on the west coast or get up to Northern Ireland like I wanted.

Kay - 4 weeks in Ireland?! I'm sure y'all had a great time! May I ask why you say to skip the Aran Islands? Did you not find them worth a visit? And thanks for the input on skipping Carrick-a-Rede rope Bridge. Not a fan of waiting in lines so that wouldn't be an ideal way to spend our time.

Sallygemini - Spending 6 months a year in Ireland sounds like a dream! Thanks for the other GoT recs - I know my husband will love! It looks as if you have done both the Wicklow Mountains/Glendalough and the Rock of Cashel. Did you have a preference? I visited the Rock of Cashel on my last visit and thought it was absolutely beautiful. I'm trying to visit some new sites which made me think of Wicklow Mountains/Glendalough but I also know my husband would love to see Cashel as well.

I was actually wondering if the Ring of Kerry may be disappointing... is there something else you would recommend?

If all you did was drive the ROK you might find it disappointing. For me, the best parts of the ROK and the Dingle peninsula are those parts where you get a little bit lost. So maybe choose one or the other and give yourself time to get a little bit lost.

Step One: Start being honest with yourself.

My husband I will be spending 10 days in Ireland in July

No, you won't. You will be spending 9 days there, not 10. And your last day will be spent getting from Belfast to Dublin, so you really only have 8 full days to spend as your choose. (And one could argue that on your first full day there, what you're calling "Day 2", you will be jetlagged and not at 100%, but let's let that slide for now).

This may sound petty, pedantic and picayune, but it's very easy to tell yourself little white lies (like "we have 10 days"), that encourage you to try to do too much, and then you end up racing from place to place without enough time to enjoy any of it. And on such a short trip (as yours surely is), the difference between having 8, 9 or 10 days to spend makes a big difference. So you are best served by being brutally honest with yourself from the start. Ireland is best savored at a somewhat leisurely pace (and getting around takes longer than most people expect), so you are not doing yourself any favors by trying to squeeze in too much in too short a time.

With just 8 full, usable days, you are going to be stretched v-e-r-y thin trying to squeeze in Dublin, Northern Ireland, the west coast with multiple stops including Dingle, and the Arran Islands. That's more-than ambitious IMHO. If you cut out Northern Ireland entirely it would still be a very, very fast-paced itinerary, with lots and lots of driving, but doable (barely).

Just my opinion, but I think you need to cut something. Of course, the best fix for this is to just add more days to your trip if you can. Sorry, I know this isn't what you want to hear.

We went in 2014 and had only 10 days. Based on the recommendations of a good friend who goes to Ireland regularly, we decreased the places we planned to stay by half and had a great time.
Since we flew into Shannon, we made our way to Galway, great university town. We stayed in Galway, a good starting place when you are tired.

Consider the "wild Atlantic way" which is the west coast. We loved Cong (Quiet Man country) and if i went again i would try to stay at Ashford castle at least one night. There is a great hike in the woods there, which contain an unusual assortment of trees brought from many places, including redwoods. Then we stayed outside of Clifden at a place called the Dolphin house which was magical. I wish we had stayed in that area for 2 days, but it was raining like crazy when we tried to hike so we moved on.
We drove from Clifden to Kinsale in one day and it was rough, almost 8 hours because of traffic, an accident, and small roads. We were 2 couples and we established a rule, you could not sit in the front seat if your spouse was driving. It worked well!!!
We loved Kinsale, Dingle, and the Dingle peninsula. Our friend suggested to choose one, either Kerry or Dingle. We hired a driver so we could enjoy the peninsula and stop at the beehive huts and other fun places. Dingle is a great little town, lots of pubs and restaurants.
We crossed the Shannon river on the ferry and the captain slowed down for a few minutes so we could all enjoy the dolphins that were swimming next to the boat. Only in Ireland!
As we got off the ferry, we took a detour and stopped in the seaside town of Kilkee to see the pollock holes. You'll understand if you see them. So unusual.
We loved the Burren because it is such a strange landscape unlike anything I had ever seen.
Our last 2 nights we spent in Ennis, but a bit far out of town. It was an easy drive back to the airport and to the Burren so that was why we chose it. We tried hard to stay 2 nights everywhere we went and we all packed light. Still it was a lot.
My one recommendation is to not overplan in Ireland. The pubs and people are so friendly they will be an important part of your memories on this trip.
One other suggestion, we wanted to see the Aran Islands, but our friend helped us calculate how long it would take to get there and back to the Galway area. It was too much time for us. When planning look at the timetables for distance. Travel is slow in the Republic. Slainte.