I did a search on this topic earlier and didn’t come up with any relevant threads that hadn’t been closed due to inactivity, so I’m starting a new one.
My wife and I are hoping to travel to Ireland this coming June to see a folk musical that my daughter-in-law wrote and is musical director of (see my separate post on the Irish folk musical “In the Midst of Plenty”). Either before or after seeing one of their performances in either Derry/Londonderry on June 20th or in Roscommon on the 24th or 25th, we’re thinking about doing a week or so long self-guided walking tour somewhere on the west coast, such as the Dingle Peninsula and Killarney National Park.
I’m in my early 70s and my wife’s in her late 60s. We’re both experienced hikers/backcountry travelers (though I have to admit we haven’t been doing much of the latter in recent years). We’re both still capable of covering, say, 15 miles or more a day; but we’re birders and natural history nuts, so we tend to want to stop and linger a lot along the way. We also love to take extended lunch breaks, when the weather’s not too awful (we live in NW Washington State, so have a fairly high tolerance for rain). Given those predilections, an average of more like 10 miles a day or perhaps even less probably makes sense. Wildness (mountains, rugged coasts, ancient forest, etc) is a big draw for us, but we also love to visit small towns, historical sites, and archaeological sites. And pubs (did I mention pubs?), especially if there’s likely to be some musicians about.
We’d love to see people’s comments and recommendations on such trips, especially if you have experience from the last couple of years.
John