What can I say! Ireland has absolutely stolen our hearts. Insane beauty, incredibly friendly people, and surprisingly decent weather considering it was October/November! We ended up extending our stay here by three more weeks because the initial three weeks we’d planned to have here were definitely not enough.

We pretty much followed the Wild Atlantic Way starting in the south in County Cork and up to the mid west coast in County Clare. We were planning on heading to County Galway and potentially further north but we had an unexpected extended stay in County Clare for the last three weeks of our trip because our dog, Bruce, broke his toe. Thankfully we were near a surf beach so we had plenty to do whilst he recovered. P.s if you want to know what vanlife is like with a doggo, I’ve written all about it.

Nerd stats

• Start point: Dunworley Beach, County Cork
• End point: Spanish Point, County Clare 
• Total kilometers: 591
• Total days: 43
• Nights at campsites: 5 nights, 97 euros 
• Unexpected cottage stay: 17 nights, 1,100 euros
• Nights at free spots: 21
• Money spent on day parking: 50~ euros 
• Times asked to move on: 0 (woohoo!)

Things to do

From rugged beaches, surfing, hiking, coffee shop hopping, to wild swimming, Ireland has been our dream adventure land. We had one storm whilst we were which meant all plans were on hold whilst we hunkered down in a sheltered spot. But other than that we had surprisingly little wind and lots of sunshine! 

How much we spent

Oft, I actually don’t, and will not, be looking at the total cost of our stay in Ireland. Not only did we have unexpected vet bills and 17 nights in a cottage (although the vets in Ireland are a lot cheaper than the UK), especially compared with Spain, everything is A LOT more expensive. I can’t actually think of a single thing that was the same price or cheaper than Spain. So definitely a tougher one on the bank balance. 

Driving a campervan or motorhome in Ireland

We had no issues driving around. There are quite a few narrow lanes but with a quick check on google maps before we set off, we could avoid these and found it fine. BUT… one thing I will say about being in a campervan is you have to be very strategic about waste! Especially in County Cork and County Kerry, there were 0 bins. Not even any bins to put dog waste in. We ended up making sure campsite nights aligned with when we really needed to do recycling and empty our rubbish. However, we did find Lidl to be really good to get rid of recycling as they seemed to be consistent with having recycling bins in store.

Would we go back?

Absolutely. If you can’t tell from what I’ve said up above, my goodness we would come back. It feels like you could spend a year here and still wake up everyday with energy to explore. And it’s been so incredible for surfing. I’m already thinking about when we can come back again. 

Highlights

• The people! The friendliest county I’ve ever been to by a mile
• Incredible surf spots
• Quiet beaches (in the off season)
• Super mild weather for October & November, didn’t even have to get my big coat out (apart from mountain climbs)

Lowlights

• Very expensive – I think one of the most expensive places we’ve been to so far in the van (the other countries being the UK, France, Spain and Italy) 
• Not very campervan friendly – there are hardly any aires and campsites were expensive! (about 35 euros a night minimum)