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Itinerary help for Family of 5.

Posted by on

Our family’s summer travel plans changed last week to going to Ireland. Been feverishly Rick Steve’s book on Ireland and this forum.

Priorities for our family are : Skellig Michael, 3 of us want to be sleeping at least 3 nights per place at a time, and minimal driving as much as possible. (College kids less than 21, and Dad can’t, so it’s brave Mom behind the wheel ;) )

Our tentative itinerary:

5/25 4 out of 5 of us Arrive at Shannon early morning. Rent car. Taking account jet-lag and learning to drive left side, sleep in Limerick or Killaloo (to visit local friends)

5/26 Drive to Portmagee. (3 1/2 hours drive?) Sleep in Portmagee or nearby for next 3 nights

5/27 Skellig Michael Try #1 or Cliffs of Kerry

5/28 Skellig Michael Try #2 or Cliffs of Kerry

5/29 Dingle Penisula

5/30 Dingle Penisula

5/31 Dingle Penisula

6/1 Drive to Dublin airport to return rental car and pick up one Daughter #1 arriving at 6PM from West coast US. Sleep in Dublin

6/2 Dublin

6/3 Dublin

6/4 Dublin

6/5 3 Family members fly out of Dublin to home.
Mom & Daughter #1 rent car at Dublin airport and continue on for another ten days. Probably limit to just South & West of Ireland (skipping the very Southwest areas of Dingle and R of Kerry areas family visited earlier) We’re thinking of visiting Kilkenny, Rock of Cashel, Kinsale, County Clare, Cliff of Maher, Galway, Connemare. (The two of us don’t mind the faster pace and sleeping 1-2 nights a place if need be).

6/15 Mom & Daughter Fly home from Shannon (Hopefully on same flight!)

Any and all Comment/Suggestions would be much appreciated. Mainly, with 3 different flight itineraries involving 2 different airports, we want to book our flights as soon as possible.

Posted by
359 posts

Wow - thats a great itinerary. Time in each area and not overloaded. Your going to really enjoy it ! Even at the end though I'd try to avoid the one night stops. It tends to blur and waste time with check outs and check ins and a frantic pace. What's so cool is you can pick a spot for a 2-3 night stop and easily use that as a base to see TONS of fun stuff. Ask locals to when there...they gladly direct you to awesome sights or events that aren't the major tourist sights. We found Timnafinogue Woods and the amazing Dyin Cow pub that way in Tinahely. Just awesome.

If your planning on hiking up Skellig Michael book as soon as you can....the spots fill up fast. While there drive the rest of the Skellig Ring.....it isn't long and its so pretty. And try to hit some of the southern Part of the ROK ....the area above Caherdaniel is insanely beautiful and towns like Waterville and Sneem are great !

Have a great trip .....looks like a great job on the itinerary !

Posted by
69 posts

Thanks, ewewoolknit!

Thanks to your suggestion of booking Skellig Michael early, I got on it! Daughter now wants to go to Skellig Michael so we shifted our dates to later so she could join family for whole trip.

Question, is the drive from Dingle Penisula to Dublin a hard 6-7 hours as we've heard? The only reason we would want a car is to visit Bru Na Boinne area. Our other option (to cut down on driving ) is return car to Shannon airport, take the train to Dublin, and take a day tour from a tour company to Bru Na Boinne, which sounds complicated for 5 people rather than drive there.

If we drive from Dingle Penisula to Dublin, is it possible to stop at Rock of Cashel en route, or is that too long a day?

Posted by
359 posts

My wife and I only drove Dingle to Dublin once (actually Castlemaine) and that took us about 5 1/2 hours without any sightseeing stops. Others with more experience could be more definitive but I would think 6 hours would be about right. It is mostly good roads though.

You could certainly do a Cashel stop but it would be a long long day. Say 4 + hours to Cashel, a couple hours at the site, an hour for food and another 2-3 hours to Dublin. So maybe a 10 hour day ? It's a lot. Cashel is amazing. Really depends on the car tolerance of everyone. Two of our kids would have thrived on it - they loved car trips and do to this day. Another one car trips made her miserable so that kind of day would be brutal for her.

The tour bus out to Newgrange though is easy to deal with and quite comfortable. Dublin driving was not easy for us and I LOVE driving in Ireland.....Dublin is a major headache. Depends on how much driving you want to do in Dublin and surrounding area. When you go to Newgrange do you also want to visit the Battle of the Boyne battlefield and/or on to Tara ..........or just Newgrange and Knowth ? Is the car just for that or are you on another Dublin day heading out to Wicklow and seeing magical Glendalough ? Personally for me if its just Newgrange I'd skip the Dublin driving hassle and use a bus.......but you might be a calmer big city driver than I am.

Good luck with the trip....you'll love it. We are going back this spring with two of our adult daughters and for 5 days of the trip with my mother in law which is fulfilling her life dream. We can't wait !

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