The Emerald Isle Express: A 10 Day Ireland Itinerary For The Chronically Charmed

Day-By-Day: Your 10 Day Ireland Itinerary Mapped Out

This 10 day Ireland itinerary avoids the classic tourist mistake of trying to see the entire country in a single trip—an ambition that leads to spending most of your vacation watching countryside blur through car windows while developing an intimate relationship with gas station sandwiches. Instead, this route forms a strategic loop hitting key highlights while allowing enough time to actually experience each location beyond a hasty photo and gift shop visit.

Days 1-2: Dublin’s Fair City, Where Wallets Get Quite Empty

Begin in Dublin, where jet lag meets Guinness in a combination that scientists should really study. The capital city welcomes you with walkable streets (think Boston’s layout but with more pubs and fewer sports arguments) and accommodations ranging from budget hostels ($80-120/night) to mid-range comforts ($150-300/night) to luxury splurges that’ll have you eating toast for the remainder of your trip ($300+/night).

The Trinity College Library houses the Book of Kells ($18 entry), an illuminated manuscript so ornate it makes modern graphic designers question their career choices. The Guinness Storehouse ($30 entry) provides the illusion of receiving a “free” pint after paying the equivalent of a six-pack for admission. Time your visit for late afternoon when tourist crowds thin and the Gravity Bar offers sunset views over the city that almost justify the price.

Skip the tourist-packed Temple Bar area where international visitors pay premium prices to stand elbow-to-elbow with other international visitors. Instead, venture to The Long Hall or O’Donoghue’s, where locals actually drink and the background noise isn’t exclusively American accents discussing how “authentic” everything feels. For Instagram-worthy moments without the crowds, Ha’penny Bridge and St. Stephen’s Green offer classic Dublin backdrops, particularly in morning light when they’re not serving as impromptu street performer stages.

Day 3: Belfast and the Titanic Experience

Cross an international border so subtle you might miss it if not for your phone’s helpful “Welcome to the UK” text message and suddenly exorbitant data rates. Belfast sits just two hours north of Dublin, accessible via organized tour ($60-80) or rental car (remember: still driving on the left, now with pound sterling for parking).

The Titanic Belfast museum ($25 entry) commemorates history’s most famous transportation failure with surprising cheer, showcasing Belfast’s shipbuilding prowess through interactive exhibits that tastefully avoid dwelling on that unfortunate iceberg incident. The museum’s exterior, designed to resemble four ship hulls, provides one of Ireland’s most striking modern architectural photo opportunities.

For a sobering contrast, visit the Peace Wall murals for a visually striking introduction to The Troubles. These powerful street art pieces illustrate the complex history that locals can discuss with remarkable nuance and minimal awkwardness with American visitors who understand approximately 2% of the context. If staying overnight, accommodations range from $100-250, with the Europa Hotel offering the conversation starter of being Europe’s most bombed hotel during The Troubles (since elegantly refurbished, thankfully).

Day 4: Causeway Coast – Where Giants Clearly Had Architectural Training

The Giant’s Causeway represents one of nature’s most impressive geometric exercises—40,000 interlocking basalt columns rising from the sea in perfect hexagonal formation. Scientists explain this as volcanic activity and cooling lava, while Irish storytellers offer the far more entertaining tale of giant Finn McCool building a pathway to Scotland for a fight. The visitor center charges $15, but the actual stones are free to access, a loophole exploited by budget travelers and locals alike.

Nearby, the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge ($12 entry) tests both physical balance and psychological composure as visitors cross a 66-foot chasm swinging 98 feet above jagged rocks and churning water. The bridge, originally built by salmon fishermen apparently unconcerned with workplace safety regulations, now exists primarily to produce social media content of terrified tourists.

Complete this day with either a tour of Bushmills Distillery ($25 including tasting) or the haunting ruins of Dunluce Castle ($7 entry), a medieval structure perched so precariously on coastal cliffs that its kitchen once collapsed into the sea during dinner service (possibly the most dramatic restaurant complaint in history). Overnight in Bushmills or Portrush ($120-200/night), where BandBs offer the quintessential experience of making awkward morning conversation with fellow guests while a cheerful proprietor serves portions of breakfast that would sustain a small farming community.

Days 5-6: Galway and Connemara

Drive west across the country (approximately 4 hours from Northern Ireland) to reach Galway, Ireland’s capital of street music and arts. This vibrant university city feels like what would happen if Berkeley, California had been founded by medieval fishermen and then heavily influenced by traditional Irish music. The pedestrianized core buzzes with buskers, international food options, and shops selling everything from authentic Aran sweaters to completely inauthentic leprechaun memorabilia.

Accommodation in Galway City ranges from $130-250/night, with the sweet spot being family-run guest houses just outside the center, offering parking (a precious commodity) and breakfast substantial enough to fuel a day of exploration. For dinner, expect to pay $18-28 for main courses in mid-range restaurants, with seafood commanding premium prices but justifying every cent—the oysters have probably traveled further in your digestive system than they did to reach your plate.

Dedicate day six to Connemara National Park (free entry), where the landscape shifts between mountains, bogs, and heathlands with the atmospheric mood swings of a teenager. Nearby Kylemore Abbey ($18 entry) offers the classic Irish combination of breathtaking natural beauty, Gothic architecture, and a gift shop selling impossibly expensive handcrafted items. Before returning to Galway, stop at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, a labyrinthine haven where book lovers can happily disappear for hours among towering stacks and emerge with literature they had no intention of purchasing.

Day 7: Cliffs of Moher and The Burren

The Cliffs of Moher ($10 entry) stand 702 feet at their highest point, offering views that simultaneously inspire profound spiritual contemplation and the practical concern of “how close to the edge is too close?” These iconic cliffs feature in countless photographs, films, and near-death experience stories from visitors who underestimated the powerful Atlantic gusts. Visit early morning (before 10 am) to avoid tour buses and catch the dramatic interplay of sunlight on the cliff faces.

Nearby, The Burren presents what appears to be Ireland’s failed attempt at a lunar landscape—a vast limestone plateau where Arctic, Alpine, and Mediterranean plants somehow coexist in defiance of botanical logic. This geological oddity features ancient portal tombs and stone forts, evidence that humans have been puzzled by this terrain for millennia.

End the day in Doolin, a tiny village with a disproportionate concentration of traditional music venues. Accommodations range from $100-180/night, with most offering views of either the ocean or fields of mathematically improbable sheep densities. The traditional music sessions (not “shows”—a distinction locals will gladly explain at length) begin around 9:30 pm and continue until either the musicians tire or the publican stops serving, whichever comes later.

Day 8: Dingle Peninsula – Where Dolphins Have Better PR Than People

The Dingle Peninsula offers the classic Irish coastal experience condensed into a manageable drive circuit. Beginning with Inch Beach (a misleadingly named three-mile stretch of sand), continue to ruins like Minard Castle before reaching Dingle Town itself, a colorful fishing community that gained international fame through Fungie, a bottlenose dolphin who chose to live in the harbor for 37 years. Though Fungie disappeared in 2020, his legacy lives on through merchandise, boat tours, and locals who speak of him with more fondness than some family members.

Accommodation in Dingle Town ranges from $120-220/night, with harbor-view rooms commanding premium prices. For dinner, seafood remains the obvious choice, though Murphy’s Ice Cream provides the evening’s most surprising culinary experience with flavors like brown bread, sea salt, and Irish coffee that somehow transform traditional Irish ingredients into desserts worth queuing for.

Traditional music abounds in Dingle’s pubs, but sessions at O’Sullivan’s Courthouse create the authentic experience visitors hope for—musicians playing for the joy rather than tourist tips, spontaneous singing, and the increasing probability of being invited to participate as the evening progresses (polite declining is perfectly acceptable and sometimes preferred).

Day 9: Ring of Kerry – The Most Photogenic Traffic Jam in Europe

This famous scenic drive delivers postcard-worthy views approximately every 90 seconds, interrupted only by tour buses attempting three-point turns on roads barely wider than a grocery store aisle. Drive clockwise (opposite of tour buses) and start early to minimize traffic frustration. Key viewpoints include Ladies View (named after Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting who admired it in 1861) and Moll’s Gap, where the panoramic mountain vista justifies pulling over despite limited parking.

Killarney National Park offers a serene contrast to the Ring’s busy road with walking trails around lakes and to Torc Waterfall. Muckross House ($10 entry) presents a perfectly preserved Victorian mansion where Queen Victoria once stayed, prompting renovations that bankrupted the owners—perhaps history’s most expensive houseguest.

Accommodation in Killarney ranges from $130-250/night, with the town offering a curious mix of authentic Irish culture and tourist-focused enterprises that have perfected the art of seeming authentic without actually being so. Weather precautions bear repeating here—Kerry averages over 200 rainy days annually, a statistic that sounds impossible until you experience four distinct rain types within a single afternoon.

Day 10: Cork and Return to Dublin

Begin your final day with a visit to Blarney Castle ($18 entry), where visitors perform backbends to kiss a stone that supposedly grants eloquence, despite the stone’s questionable hygiene record even before global pandemics entered public consciousness. The castle grounds actually offer more interesting exploration than the famous stone, with poison gardens and woodland walks that visitors rushing to lip-lock with limestone often miss entirely.

If time allows, Cork City deserves a brief exploration for its food markets and distinctly non-Dublin character—Cork residents will happily explain their city’s superiority to the capital with passionate detail. The English Market dates from 1788 and remains the ultimate food shopping experience, offering everything from traditional tripe (for the adventurous) to artisanal chocolates (for everyone else).

The return drive to Dublin takes approximately three hours, though strategic stops can break up the journey while adding final Irish experiences. Accommodations near Dublin Airport range from $120-200/night and provide convenience for departing flights while offering one last opportunity to purchase Aran sweaters, whiskey, and shamrock-emblazoned items that seemed charming in Ireland but will inexplicably lose their appeal once unpacked at home.

Transportation Logistics: The Physics of Moving Through Ireland

This 10 day Ireland itinerary requires wheels—whether they’re yours to control or attached to public transport. Rental cars provide maximum flexibility but come with challenges beyond the already-mentioned left-side driving. Narrow country roads feature stone walls placed with mathematical precision to be exactly as wide as your side mirrors, while parking in cities requires spatial reasoning skills typically reserved for NASA engineers.

Gas (called “petrol”) costs approximately $7-8 per gallon, making fuel efficiency suddenly fascinating to even the most disinterested driver. Navigation requires both GPS and common sense—when technology directs you down a road where sheep appear to have right-of-way, human judgment should prevail.

For public transportation, trains connect major cities comfortably but buses become necessary for coastal regions. The Dublin-Belfast Enterprise train offers advance tickets for as little as $15 one-way (compared to $30-40 regular price), while bus services like Bus Éireann connect smaller towns but require schedule flexibility and occasional zen-like patience with delays.