Updated: September 2018
Are you thinking about taking a vacation in Ireland but wonder what there is to see and do? Ireland has so much to offer visitors! In this travel podcast episode, get some Ireland vacation ideas as Laura from the Amidlife Traveler podcast and Cindy from One Perfect Day In travel sit down to share and compare their stories of three favorite favorite experiences from vacationing in Ireland. Enjoy!
Listen to “Great Ireland Vacation Experiences w/Cindy of One Perfect Day In Travel” on Spreaker.
The List: 6 Great Vacation Experiences in Ireland
- Take a boat ride around Ireland’s Eye, which can be discovered in a short day trip from Dublin.
- Enjoy Irish pub session music, food & drink in Killarney.
- See some of the world’s oldest writings of religion across a many faiths at the Chester Beatty museum inside Dublin Castle.
- Explore ancient sites like stone cairns and hieroglyphics such as Loughcrew Cairns and Newgrange.
- Tour the Dingle Penninsula area, hold a baby lamb, hear local music and see a Star Wars film location.
- Active adventures of biking, hiking and kayaking opportunities in Killarney National Park, Giant’s Causeway and The Port of Cork.
THE MAP OF GREAT VACATION EXPERIENCES
For help planning your Ireland vacation, here is an interactive map showing locations in Ireland talked about during this travel podcast. Click the location to get an experience photo plus helplful Google listings with links to more information. Enjoy!
Are you looking for help planning a vacation to Ireland?
We have a terrific list of Ireland Vacation Ideas and travel planning resources on our website.
THE STORIES OF IRELAND VACATIONS IN THIS PODCAST
Prefer to read instead of listen to the podcast? Here are some show notes from transcriptions of the podcast recording. It is not written in in a first person story format, but hopefully the travel tales and recommendations come through nonetheless.
Travel Friends Meet Again
Laura: We’re doing something different with this podcast episode, and I’m happy to be sitting here with one of my travel friends, Cindy Loe, who I met in Killarney Ireland. Cindy writes travel guidebooks, travel blogs, and is also a travel podcaster. Cindy has the fantastic ability to organize trips and find unique experiences. We are going to share and discuss some of our favorite experiences in Ireland.
Cindy: Great to be here Laura, we just struck up such a good friendship and I think it’s because we’ve both loved travel so much and realize how much it benefits our lives in so many ways. My blog, books and podcasts are called One Perfect Day In travel. As a busy person all my life in my career as an educator I always would really value my valuable tribal time and I would try to figure out how to plan everything so that when I got there every day would be perfect. But sometimes the things that don’t go well are actually the things that make it the most perfect, so it’s a little tongue in cheek. My goal is to help other people who maybe are busy like I was when I was working so hard. Now others can take advantage of my research to have the best trip that they can, and find those special experiences that maybe they don’t have time to research in advance.
Example Travel Tip: Wine Tasting in the London Eye with your Private Sommelier
Cindy: Did you know that every Saturday night the London Eye at five thirty has a wine tasting tour? Yes, you can book that in advance and while you’re visiting London as part of your one perfect day. On Saturdays, you not only get to learn about London as you take that tour but a Sommelier rides in your car with other wine tasters on the London Eye. Enjoy great views while you taste of a variety of wines as well.
Laura: Wow, that’s a great experience and a good example of the a unique ‘secrets’ type guidebook that Cindy puts together and writes. Cindy is getting ready to publish a new book on Dubli soon, we will do a couple of episodes featuring Cindy and talking about some of these secrets.
TOP IRELAND EXPERIENCES
1. Ireland’s Eye, Howth (Cindy)
One thing I did on this trip to Ireland that was really fun… We took a day trip out of Dublin to a little town called Howth on the Irish Sea and I would recommend everybody that goes to Dublin try to take a half day for this. You take a metro train out to Howth then catch a short boat ride out around an island that has a structure in the middle of it, like a little stone mountain, and it’s called Ireland’s Eye. The ancient Irish believe that basically it was the eye to the heart of Ireland. When you go around on these little boats and the sea captain is storytelling, it is almost a mystical type experience. It costs maybe 20 euro cash and departure depends on when they get enough people and if the weather is calm enough. But it is just a great fun thing in the little town of Howth and there are good restaurants right there on the water to enjoy a delicious seafood meal too.
2. Ancient sites and hierogliphics at Loughcrew Cairns (Laura)
My first experience was part of a day tour that I took out of Dublin to see ancient Ireland and Celtic history sites. We went to the Hill of Tara, toan old Abbey and to Trim Castle (film site for Braveheart) but my big experience was Loughcrew Cairns. It’s part because I overcame a fear. Loughcrew Cairns is a five thousand year old cairn in Couny Meath and inside there are hieroglyphics. I think the largest ancient cairn in Ireland might be Newgrange… this is likw a mini Newgrange that’s lesser known. I’ve always been a little nervous about closed spaces like claustrophobia and I wasn’t even sure if I would go in because you need to go through a tunnel and look around with flashlights to see hieroglyphics. But when I got in there it was so darn cool that I wasn’t even scared at all. It was dark and cramped in the five thousand year old cairn, but discovering the hierogliphics with a flashlight gave me a sense of awe. With many ancient sites, they are places that you feel when you are standing there, you feel a history while standing there.
3. Irish Session Music, People plus Fish & Chips at Murphy’s (Cindy)
So another cool experience on a different level happened when we were in Killarney. We had heard about a place called Murphy’s bar that is also a restaurant, a pub and a little hotel. My husband and I went there and every night there are different musicians show up to play session music, real Irish music that they all join in on. It’s just so authentic and we loved it plus had a great fish and chips dinner there as well. But just being part of the moment with a lot of locals plus tourists as well, joining together and enjoying great Irish session music, that was a real highlight for us.
Laura: So that’s right on the main street of Killarney right? It’s one of the first places on the main street, right there in the heart of town? One thing about Killarney that I appreciate is that it’s just such a cool walking town and the party’s in Killarney. And I don’t mean that everyone’s getting just blitzed and partying… I just mean people in a good mood, and like you said there’s music with locals and new friends.
Cindy: And that I was going to write one blog on Killarney but there is so much to do there that I can’t remember how many I did. It is such a wonderful place and I’d love to go back there. I could easily spend two weeks in that Killarney area and just explore.
4. Dingle Penninsula, a Baby Lamb and Music (Laura)
A tour out to the Dingle Penninsula is my next experience, which is a great drive. You travel out on a coastline and can make a pit stop at a locals beach called Inch Beach to grab a coffee, walk on the sand or watch people surf. It’s just one of the stops on the way with a relaxing day and gorgeous drive to Dingle.
They even have a pet dolphin in Dingle, I think the name might be Furbie? I might be getting the name wrong, but they literally there is a dolphin that was abandoned as a baby nearby and now around Dingle is where the dolphin hangs out. And oh, I had the best fish and chips of my life in Dingle. Plus I met the bossiest seagull of my life there too,because I made the mistake of feeding the seagulls.
Beyond Dingle we went to Cybil Head and Slea Head which is where they filmed a lot of the last Star Wars movie. Our guide told us that a story about the prior movie showed Luke Skywalker on a remote island that in real life is called Skellig Michael. But just the waves of tourism after that little glimpse of Skellig Michael on that one Star Wars drove tourists there and tourists were taking pieces… they were desecrating a thousands of years old monastery. So, when Star Wars came back and said, “OK we want to film again now”… our tour guide told us the story and rumor has it that they replied, “we can’t have you filming at this UNESCO heritage site because the tourists are basically destroying it. But, you can create a replica.” And so, they created a replica of the Beehive huts over near Cybil Head in that area. It’s just a gorgeous coastline and you can see in other parts of the movie where this region actually inspired the show..
But one of my favorite moments was not just seeing all of the beautiful scenery but were human moments. At one point, we pulled over to take pictures of the ocean and I looked up to see a sign that said, “Hold a baby lamb.” It just had an arrow and it went across the street. I followed the sign to a little farm with beehive stone huts, and I think I paid three euros to hold this little baby lamb and walk through their beehive huts. And the baby lamb cried when I left, It was an emotional touch for me to hold that baby lamb.
And then the very next stop I closed my eyes (I wanted to see if I could I smell the salt in the air) and realized there was music playing. So, I turned to follow where the music was coming from and discovered a man (who I’m going to assume was a fisherman because of his gear) sitting on the side playing an instrument. I think he was playing a type of flute. Just playing music for anyone there enjoying the view. I stopped and talk to him for about five minutes and bought some of his music on USB. It was a really wonderful experience to hear that.
Cindy: That’s really good. So when we went to Dingle we were in Dublin and one thing that I figured out we could do is you can take a train from Dublin early in the morning to somewhere nearby. And Paddy Wagon tours have vans that will take you out to Dingle. They take people every day. They will come pick you up at the train station take you on the all day tour of Dingle bring you back and you take the last train back to Dublin. For people who are listening that might say, “Well I’m in Dublin I don’t really have time to get to Dingle and it is kind of hard to drive to.” I want you to know that you can do a day trip. You just have to get from Dublin to whatever the nearest town is with the train and Paddy Wagon will pick you up.
5. Historic Religion Writings, Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle (Cindy)
My third favorite thing (well I don’t know there is probably 20 more) that I really enjoyed in Dublin is visiting the Chester Beatty library in Dublin Castle. It’s free to visit. And it has the oldest religious writings in the world. I had the opportunity to interview the curator of Western collections. One of the things I was interested in they have the oldest writings of the books of the Bible. They have the oldest collection of Matthew Mark Luke and John on Papayrus of writings that’s ever been found that date to the year 150 A.D.. They also have one piece of text of the book of Revelation that was the oldest piece that’s ever been found of that book and it dates to around 100 A.D.. So, it was really interesting seeing those documents and learning a little bit about the history so I know you’re writing a book about Devlin.
Laura: Is this something we are going to hear about in your Dublin book? Because I’ve never heard of this before.
Cindy: Yes I said it’s a free that you can do free and it’s part of Dublin Castle. Chester Beatty was an American, but he also became an Irish citizen. His mission in life was to collect the oldest religions religious writings in the world. So the library also contains some of the oldest writings from Islam Buddhism Judaism as well as Christianity and the Dublin tourism association has opened the library to the public for free so definitely that will be in my book as well as of course visiting the Book of Kells and all of the wonderful things that there are to see and do in Dublin. I could spend a month just in Dublin.
6. Being in Nature: Biking, Hiking, Kayaking (Laura)
I’m really having a hard time on my number three because I have three things tied in my head. So I’m going to kind of cheat on this because they are physical activities; a bike, a hike and a kayak.
The bike is biking through Killarney National Park. I rode about two and a half hours in the park, including to Ross Castle, and barely touched the surface. In that park, it’s possible for bike, hike, kayak and do a jaunting carts… there’s so much you can do.
The hike is Giant’s Causeway. It was just pouring down rain, but that didn’t stop me. Our guide said “Okay you can go down below and get shots like this and take a shuttle. Or, if you hike up over there, you get spectacular views.’ So mostly everyone on the bus went down below. And I take off on the hike, to the path on the right hand side. I literally just hiked straight out in the rain for about 40 minutes and saw stunning views of cliffs. Maybe it’s because I was soaking wet and worked to get there, but it felt very impactful plus I was isolated with few people out there. It was really cool experience.
Finally, for the kayak, I got to meet a really cool couple John and Marie who own Atlantic sea kayaking down in the Cork area. They do kayak tours and I think their nighttime kayaking tour is one of the top rated tours on TripAdvisor. We didn’t get to do the nighttime tour, but I did a short tour on the Port of Cork. I mentioned earlier that I was a little afraid of claustrophobia, and well, I’m also kind of nervous around deep water. And there I was in a kayak, paddling between two massive standing fishing vessels on the port of Cork at sunset and it was cool.
PLANNING A TRIP TO IRELAND? HERE ARE 9 COOL TOURS FROM DUBLIN
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Big List of Vacation Ideas for Ireland
Looking for Ireland vacation ideas? Check out this list and listen to the Ireland travel podcast episode for recommendations and ideas for your Ireland vacation. Dublin, Killarney, Ireland’s Eye, bike riding and kayaking in Ireland, Cliffs of Moher and cairns at Newgrange and Loughcrew. Ireland.