The Ring of Kerry

The Ring of Kerry is one of Ireland's most popular Tourist destinations - and for good reason, it is absolutely incredible. The Ring is an 185 km scenic peninsula loop in south-western Ireland, usually driven. We knew it was going to be busy so we started scheming how to avoid the crowds a few days beforehand.

Rick Steves recommended driving the ring in reverse but we were sceptical after our experience on the Dingle peninsula a few days earlier. Our AirBnb host in Killarney strongly advised against driving the opposite way and instead pointed us toward the island of Valentia which is only accessibly by a small ferry and thus void of tour buses. The ferry to Valentia leaves from just past Cahersiveen next to O'Neills The Point which she touted as the best fish restaurant in Ireland. This formed the basis for our first plan.

We started driving from Killarney around 9:30. The road wasn't busy yet and while being a scenic drive we didn't feel the need to stop anywhere and ended up in Cahersiveen by 10:30 in the morning. So much for our initial plan - it's way to early for lunch. We came up with a new idea: take the ferry to Valentia, explore the island, continue through Portmagee and eventually backtrack slightly to grab lunch at O'Neills before finishing the rest of the ring.

Timelines for the Ring are all over the place. Our host gave us an average time of 7-8 hours. Some of her past guests had done it much quicker in the 4-5 hour range and we do tend to be on the efficient side of things. She also quipped that if we were German she'd be telling us plan on 9-10 hours because "they have to see everything".

We took the ferry over to Valentia and stopped in Knights' Town for coffee and a bathroom break. Our first destination was the lighthouse on the north of the island. The roads were super narrow and steep but getting down to sea level was totally worth it. The waves crashing on the rocky coastline was amazing. I could have stayed there all day just watching the ocean.

After the lighthouse we went to the Fogher Cliffs and walked around there for a bit before driving further down the island to the Bray Head. This is where I took my best photo of the day looking South-West out to sea.

At this point it was already past noon and we were only just approaching Portmagee. Plan two needed to be tossed. Luckily Valentia is super small so we drove back to Knight's Town, parked our car and did a round trip by foot on the ferry all to have lunch at O'Neills. Some of our group was doubting the merit of this backtracking but all shreds of doubt were gone once our food arrived.

After lunch we ferried back to our car and headed for Portmagee with a brief stop at the Valentia Ice Cream Parlour along the south side of the island. Through Portmagee we made our next stop at the Kerry Cliffs - my second favourite spot after the lighthouse.

We opted to take the fork towards Kenmare with the plan of stopping there for dinner. It was a cute town and well worth the stop. The last section of the ring included the famed Lady's view was also supposed to be very impressive. It didn't do as much for me as the rest but it was also a bit rainy when we passed through. We finally arrived back home in Killarney 10 hours later.

And that's how we did the Ring of Kerry. Our route worked really well for timing lunch at O'Neills and dodging crowds with the only downside being the extra ferry ride. We spent most our time on Valentia followed by the Kerry Cliffs. If we'd known how easy it was going to be to loop back to O'Neills I probably would have added the short walking loop at the Bray Head to our day as well.