Galway day trips?

There's so much you can do that can be reached in a day trip from Galway it's hard to list it all without knowing what type of activities you enjoy. Would also help to know if you are planning to do the day trips on your own with a rental car, you want to hire a car and driver, or you want to join up with a group tour operator that specializes in day trips.

A sampling of some of the places you can visit on a day trip from Galway: Aran Islands, Cliffs of Moher, The Burren & Poulnabrone, Ailwee Caves, Cong/Ashford Castle, Connemara, Croagh Patrick, Kylemore Abbey...the list goes on. Help us narrow down your choices by telling us what you are interested in.

Ceidleh,

Good question. We're going to be relying on public transportation mostly, and go for outdoorsy and historic sights. Hope that helps. Thanks for answering!

Jared,

I highly recommend renting a car, though I'm not sure what rental agencies are available in Galway. I know you can rent at the Shannon airport, but first you gotta get there. If rental agencies ARE present in Galway, get a car and you'll be able to see much more of the countryside.

Mike

Jared, We're staying in Galway in September, and our plan is to take public transportation to Cliffs of Moher. Either that, or take a bus tour out of Galway. I looked up the bus from Galway to Cliffs of Moher, and it's about 2 hours. Depending on the weather, we'd like to go to the Aran Islands and maybe see Connemara.

Budget has an office at the airport at Galway and also one in the city

I'm going to Galway at the end of April and I will be taking 2 tours from Galway Tour Company. They covr alot of sights over a day and are very affordable. I'm doing the Connemara & Cong and the Cliffs of Moher & Burren trips. The people on Trip Advisor have really enjoyed trips with this company. I'm emailed them with other questions and they are very helpful and you can even plan your own trip with them when you have a group. That might be something for you to check into.

Galway has convenient rail and bus transport and tours via bus to lots of places and via boat to the Islands.

We are there as I write this. Skip the car. Wish we had. While distances are short, the roads and traffic (and worse, the locals who park everywhere they shouldn't) make driving a slow arduous task not enjoyable for the driver. Since you don't know where the best parking is, it's real difficult to find places to park, take pics, etc. Parking in cities and even small towns is mostly pay. Leave the driving to them. We did that the first days (Dublin and Kinsale) and wish we did the rest of the time.
Seems like roads have shrunk in width since the last time we were here and in Western Ireland, they are really worse than I remember.

Charity, I'm so glad you've made a recommendation for tours. I'm going to check that tour company out. And John, thank you for giving an argument AGAINST driving in Ireland. I feel like an outcast on here because my husband and I have no desire to drive there, but feel like we're weird because so many encourage renting a car there. But, we're not going to Dingle Peninsula, so perhaps it won't be too big of a deal. I guess there are some parts of Ireland that would be practically impossible to reach by public transport, and we won't have that problem with the destinations that we're going to.