Road Trip 02 - Cork (Corcaigh) - Kerry (Kiarrai) - 4 days

                                          Cork & Kerry

"Sweet Kerry you know I love you,

And the mountains up above you.
The rivers and streams I played as a boy.
Of the places so grand, In my native Ireland.
Sure I love my County Kerry,

And that's where one day I'll be."

Seamus Moore- Sweet Kerry

This time we are going to visit Cork and Kerry Counties, one of the most incredible areas in Ireland. 

This is a 4-day Road Trip starting in Cork town and travelling for all peninsulas of the south-west Atlantic coast. 

If you are doing the trip by motorhome, camper-van or your plan is sleep in your tent, you are gonna see a lot of beautiful places to sleep in the middle of nowhere. You can download the phone app "Park4night" to find a lot of places to sleep like camping, motorhome areas, parking… with good information and traveller's comments with pictures and valuations.

For the other hand, if you prefer to sleep in a real bed, there is big offer of Airbnb houses. I recommend you to search in the area near of Killarney, or even in the town, you are gonna find wherever you look for there.

As all routes in this blog, you can find a map with all the interest points you can visit. Most of them are in the route, and other are optional to visit if you have more time and money I had when I did the trip.

And remember, you can extend the map below to use it in your phone in your Google Maps app as a GPS during your travel.

As In this trip, the distances of each stage must be very short, less of 300 km because there are more places to stop than in other place of this country. Have ready your camera because you are gonna take infinite pictures!

Let's start!!

How to use the map

In this map you can see different colour flags, green flags means nature places, and gray/ black flags towns and villages. The intensity of the colour means if I think the place is more important to see (more intensity) or is more skip-able  (less intensity).

Clicking in each flag you can see the name of the place, and maybe a small description and picture (I'm working in it ;-).

You can use the map as a GPS clicking the up-right button, or following this link:

Go to MyMaps Route 02





Cork Town: You are gonna need at least one complete day to see this city so, do it if you have time, the city deserves it.

But if you don’t have more days, you can spend some hours around the centre to make an idea of the city, or just don’t stop in Cork and make a plan to visit it in the future for 2 or 3 days. You are gonna enjoy the city.

Kilsale: Is a very Small town with beautiful buildings and views.

Castletownsend (Cork / West Cork Whale Watch): If you can spend few hours and around €50 each, you can take a boat to see whales, they say is possible to see them easily, I never tried but it must be amazing! 

Beara Peninsula: my prefer peninsula on the south-west, even over Dingle and Kerry ring because is more authentic, less touristic and it has also incredible places and landscapes

Dursey Island: This place is in the extreme of the Beara Peninsula, to go to the island there is not bridge, only a Cable transport that looks like is 200 years old, but it’s still working! For only €10 you can take the cable and go around of the Island for one of the multiple paths that are there (If you dare).

Once in Kerry county you are gonna start to find tourists for all places, is not possible to avoid so, be ready for traffic jam in your next destiny, the Killarney national park, where you can spend few hours visiting the lakes, the castle, the abbey but overall, the waterfall, very good place to refresh you if you are luckily in a warm day.

Next step is the Ring of Kerry. Try to avoid the most touristic days, like weekends during the summer. You can follow the interest points on the map and enjoy the views! These are some of them:

Kells Bay House and Gardens (Skywalk rope bridge): This place is not very well-known but I think is amazing, is a huge botanic park where is there the longest bridge of rope in Ireland.

 Skelling Islands: I haven’t had the opportunity to see this island but again, if you have time and money, you must go to these islands, the place where Star Wars VII was filmed. If you wanna go, you need to take the tour in Portmagee (Kerry ring).

The other place I want to talk about is the Gap of Dunloe:

Gap of Dunloe is a road, no longer than 11 km and is one of the most incredible roads I drove, but you need to know something. This road is usually full of people going hiking and horse carriages so if you want to drive your car there, you must do it at the final of the day, near of the sunset. The road is very narrow and is open two-way traffic so, even without hikers and carriages you are gonna be in difficult situations when cars are coming but don't worry, there are a lot of spots to pull over to allow other vehicles to pass but remember, in an uphill, give the preference to the car is going up. No too many people know it but is very useful for the drivers and the clutch of the cars are trying to go up.

Following the route, next step is the peninsula of Dingle. Its fantastic place too and I can show you more pictures and comment more places there but I don’t want to break the surprise.

You have the map with all points of interest, follow it and don’t forget to stop in any place that you want also if is not in the map. And if it’s nice, please send it me to include it in the map.

Good travel!!