Long Weekend in Ireland
There is a guy on TikTok (@kevindroniak) who goes on these CRAZY day-trips from New York (think, Egypt, Paris, Puerto Rico, etc). I would love to be that insane and financially stable to make that work for me, but I’m a girl who needs and loves sleep and gets anxiety when I have to wake up early LOL.
Instead, my best friend and I decided to take a long weekend trip to Ireland and see how this would work!
Timeline
We left on a Wednesday and returned on a Monday, with Monday being a holiday and a day off. We flew out Wednesday evening and arrived Thursday morning around 8:30am ready to hit the ground running! Our breakdown of days looked like this:
Thursday - Dublin
Friday - flew to Kerry on west coast, visited Dingle, Slea Head Drive, then drove to Cork
Saturday - drove back to Dublin and evening in Dublin
Sunday - Dublin
Monday - departed
Where We Stayed
Our home base was The Hoxton, Dublin - a newly opened hotel in the heart of Dublin. Since they were a new hotel, I received 50% off my stay as a dis-loyalty member (read my benefits listed here), so we kept our room from Thursday check-in until check out Monday (total was around $550). This hotel included 3 bars, a sandwich/coffee bar, and a Peruvian restaurant with a great breakfast. They also let us check-in early + gave us so many passes for pints on the house! The location is unbeatable - on the same street as Brown Thomas department store, across the street from a grocery store, surrounded by shops (like COS, & other stories, Rails, etc) and pubs/restaurants.
We also stayed the night in Cork during our road trip at Hayfield Manor. A VERY different vibe - tucked away in an old manor (read: HUGE house, beautiful but old money…) Our one night here cost around $250. Breakfast was included, along with multiple bars and restaurants on-site, Elemis products in the bathroom (love).
I would stay at both hotels again and have no negatives about either one!
Itinerary
I shared above a breakdown of where we were each day, but I’ll share the full itinerary below. We had plans to drive from Dingle to Killarney and visit the Gap of Dunloe and ride horses at sunset through the Gap; however, we accidentally wrecked into a ditch and had an unplanned excursion to a dairy farm waiting for our car to be pulled out. So according to the itinerary, we went to Gap of Dunloe, then Cork - but instead we played with cows and learned about dairy farming (shoutout Kerrygold), and then went to Cork.
What I Would Change
I wish we had mapped out which pubs close early so we could be sure to hit those before they closed, or chosen to stay in Dingle instead. However, the trip was so beautiful and fun, I don’t think I would make any major changes!
Is it worth it for a weekend trip?
I definitely think so! We could’ve left after work on Wednesday and not taken that day off, but I think the time we spent was well-spent and we had a great time!