Three best places to visit in Ireland

Ireland is somewhere I’ve been keen to visit for a while. Having just returned from an eight day European road trip with kids, I have travel on the mind. Does travel do that to you too? Even whilst we are travelling we become inspired to travel more, thinking up more and more places we’d love to see.

One of these places, for me, is Ireland. It’s already on my ultimate travel bucket list as somewhere I must see in my lifetime. It seems so ridiculous that I live in England, but I haven’t yet explored our neighbouring countries of Ireland or Scotland.

Scotland does look stunning and I would love to see the scenery, but for some reason Ireland appeals more to me. It may be because I have family history in Ireland. My Grandad is Irish, but moved here as a young adult. The rest of his family stayed in Ireland so I have family out there such as my mum’s uncles and cousins. I’ve met some of them at important family events in the UK when they’ve travelled here, but I’ve never been there when my mum has visited.

I’d love for Ben, me and the kids to do a road trip to Ireland. We’d get a ferry and take the Mazda Bongo to potentially camp in as we travel. There are a lot of beautiful scenic drives in Ireland, so it would be perfect to take our car and drive there!

The three top road trips in Ireland

Chill Insurance has a great resource for those travelling to Ireland – it’s called Irelands Beautiful Drives eBook which is full of inspiring road trip ideas throughout the country. They asked over 400 Irish people where are the best places to drive to in Ireland and share the most voted for results.

The top three road trips in Ireland, as voted by 400 Irish, are:

Dingle Peninsula – full of breathtaking dramatic scenery, beaches, coves, mountains, lakes
Galway to Westport – picturesque towns and mountainous backdrops
Bantry to Killarney – you’ll pass quaint villages, colourful buildings and beautiful lakes

What are the three best places to visit in Ireland?

There are so many amazing places to visit in Ireland upon researching; it can be hard to choose just three. But if we go for only a short break then these are the top three places I want to visit in Ireland:

Giants Causeway

Giants Causeway is one of the most famous and popular tourist attractions in Ireland. It was caused by a volcanic eruption 65 million years ago and is a cluster of around 40,000 basalt columns all joined together! I’ve seen so many pictures of this natural formation, but it would be amazing to see it in person! There’s nothing quite like seeing and experiencing nature in person.

Connemara National Park

Connemara National Park has amazing reviews on TripAdvisor and looks so stunning. I love exploring mountainous trails and this national park looks like it has plenty. It looks to be very green with mountain views and gorgeous lakes. Lots of people recommend climbing to the top of Diamond Hill where there are different trails to suit all abilities.

Wicklow Mountains

Wicklow Mountains National Park is another rugged mountainous landscape with lakes, waterfalls and more to see and explore. It looks like a great place for hiking, but there are also three roads for scenic drives through Wicklow Mountains which sound great for a road trip idea in Ireland.

Just researching Ireland for this blog post and seeing the recommendations in the Chill eBook makes me want to book our trip now! Who knows, perhaps we will add Ireland to our travel plans in 2020!

This blog post is in collaboration with Chill Insurance. All words and opinions are my own. Images are from Canva.