Travel itinerary 6 days in Ireland - suggestions

For routes and travel times use www.aaroadwatch.ie and/or www.viamichelin.com. Add up to 50% to viamichelin's times, especially on secondary roads. Starting today, the ferry across the Shannon River from Tarbert to Killimer runs every hour on the half hour. See www.shannonferries.com. Ennis would be a good place to stay overnight enroute from Dingle to Galway. Several pubs have traditional music sessions.

Just to be clear, there is no ferry to Galway from Dingle. The ferry crosses the Shannon River at Killimer/Tarbert. You can then follow the coast road past the Cliffs of Moher, perhaps staying in Doolin. Doolin is considered the capital of trad music in the west. Could you elaborate "would like to visit east coast to Dingle"? What do you want to see in the east? Or did you mean west? If your Day One is arrival day, you won't get out of the airport area until late morning - get bags, get money, do the car rental paperwork, shuttle to the rental car, etc. And you want to spend the last 24 hours in Dublin - do you leave on Day Six or Day Seven? I also use www.viamichelin.com to estimate driving times, but I find the adding 25% is enough to be accurate most of the time. You don't say when you plan to go, but in the west traffic is rarely an issue. Animals and farm equipment on the road can be, though.

Thank you for the info on ferry..just a generality statement. Doolin sounds like a place we would enjoy for the trad music. We were thinking of driving from Dublin toward Waterford etc.; b ut were unsure which town would be attainable that second day. We will spend the first night in Dublin and would like to work our way to the Dingle area and then Galway. Know it is going to be a short, whirlwind trip. Thanks so much for the info on arriving at the airport. We thought we might do a hop-on/hop-off tour that day. We leave Dublin on the 7th day. Glad to see you think www.viamicheli's estimate of driving times will only need to be increased by 25%. We are leaving within the next two weeks....sort of procratinators. Any suggestions will be helpful; all our travel has been independent so we are comfortable with just about anything. Again thanks.

You can travel along the southern coast or cut through the country to get to Dingle from Ireland. Kilkenny is a nice town about an hour and 1/2 from Dublin. If you go along the coast, you have Tramore, Kinsale, Ardmore. Kenmare would also be a good stopping point. Loved Ennis and my favorite part of Galway was Salt Hill. Do stay in Dingle Town, we stayed at Murphy's B&B. Reasonably priced, clean & very friendly owners. There a ton of places for a sing song. My favorite pub was Johnny Foxes, it didn't have live entertainment but the locals more than made up for the lack of music.

We did a 20 day car trip of Ireland in April, 2012. IMHO, the best bits of Ireland are Connemara in County Galway, Dingle, and Kenmare. You might consider two days in each location. Kenmare offers a lot of trad music and also has good shops and restaurants; Virginia's Guest House is very centrally located. In Dingle we stayed at Castlewood B and B. Lovely place, easy walk along the waterfront to the restaurants in town; easy drive west to Slea Head Drive. From Dingle, you can get to Galway in a few hours, using the Limerick tunnel to bypass Limerick. We skipped Galway town and stayed at Ballynahinch near Roundstone. Both Roundstone and Clifden make good bases. If you go to Connemara, don't miss driving through the Delphi Valley. It's incredibly beautiful. If you have more questions, feel free to send me a private message.