Traveling in Ireland

It's hard to tell if you have enough time when you aren't specific about what "3-4 days" means. Is that 3-4 full days on the ground? Two full days and two half-days? It also depends on what you want to do in Dublin (if anything) before heading for Dingle. The Rock of Cashel can be sort of on the way (and only takes an hour or so to see), but without more specifics it's hard to give you a good answer to your question.

Driving times between locations can be found at www.viamichelin.com, but add maybe 25% to their times, plus whatever you feel you might need for stops along the way.

My gut feeling is that it's not enough time to see anything in Dublin and also spend adequate time in Dingle, particularly if you wanted to do anything in the Shannon area (i.e. Cliffs of Moher) besides flying out.

Our last trip to Ireland, we spent several days in Dublin. We had 4 days of travel after that to head west and then back to Dublin seeing our list of sites. Wasn't nearly enough time. Never made it as far as we had planned and we ended up cutting things from our list. As earlier poster advised, if you are looking at websites for driving times, definitely add 25% to 35% to those estimates. Driving in Ireland was much slower than we had anticipated. Lots of small roads that you really can't make good time on.

Denice, can you clarify your itinerary a bit so that we can give you a better answer?

We haven't quite figured that out, that's really the problem. We are planning on arriving in Dublin, doing a bit of sight seeing, then heading to Shannon for our trip out. We are stopping in Killarney on for one night, and I was thinking of stopping at the
Rock of Cashel the first night, but not sure if that is too ambitious from Dublin to there. This whole trip planning is stressing me out.

Dublin to Rock of Cashel isn't too far for one day. ViaMichelin calls it two hours, but it's more like three. Rock of Cashel to Killarney is about the same distance. Can you clarify your timing a bit? Day #1 would be driving to Rock of Cashel, Day #2 would be driving to Killarney? (You didn't mention Killarney in your original post.) Will you have three or four full days, or three full days and your flight-out day, or what?

Dublin to Cashel is easily done in a day. Cashel to Dingle is at least a 5 hour drive (without stops for sight seeing factored in). OK if you can share the driving and get an early start.

We are lucky enough that we have not booked our flight out yet, so we are flexible which day it is. That's why I am trying to be sure of traveling etc, before we book it. So right now it is Dublin for a few hours (we are not trying to see everything) then driving to Cashel for the night. See the Rock on the second day, then drive to Killarney for the night, then to Dingle, then to Shannon. Do you think we need another night's stay in Dingle or are Killarney and Dingle close enough not to worry? Sorry this is just so confusing to me, I have never traveled outside the U.S.

Killarney and Dingle are maybe an hour and a half from each other, so the drive won't take much of your sightseeing day. And as for your few hours in Dublin, I would recommend the hop-on, hop-off bus tour as a good orientation to the city. The whole tour takes about an hour and a half if you just ride the whole thing (there's commentary along the way), and the ticket is good all day so you can get off at whatever you want to see and continue on when you are ready.

I would definitely recommend another night in Dingle. An entire trip of one-night stands gets pretty tiring. Dingle is beautiful and aa wonderful place to settle in.

Denice,

Your itinerary as you describe it is doable BUT I would definitely extend your trip by a few days if I could. Assuming that you can't, I would say you're OK as long as you are not flying out of Shannon too early. You need to leave time to get out of Dingle in the morning and make the long drive to Shannon airport with enough time to return your car (shouldn't take long) and still be 1.5 to 2 hours ahead of your flight. If your flight is late in the day, this is doable.

Don't stress. It sounds like you're doing a good job planning. And it was smart not to book your tickets until you checked out your itinerary. Too many folks come here after booking their flight and it's too late to help them revise a misguided itinerary.

Best of luck.