Things to do in Dublin, by driving time

Dublin has the opposite problem to Barcelona. The city is small, the big tickets are inside a fifteen-minute walk of each other, and the famous day trips are not day trips at all: the Cliffs of Moher are three hours each way, the Giant's Causeway the same, Galway two and a half. This page draws rings of driving time from O'Connell Bridge and stops at two hours, which is where a day out stops being a day out. Inside twenty minutes is the city and almost everything with a ticket. Between twenty and sixty minutes are Howth, Malahide, Dún Laoghaire and Newgrange. Between one and two hours are Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains, Kilkenny and, oddly, the Game of Thrones studio in Banbridge.

Everything listed here is a real, bookable thing with real reviews. We only show places with at least 150 traveller reviews, we mark what is likely to sell out, and each booking goes to the partner that runs it. No made-up lists, no hidden fees.

How the rings work

The inner ring is the city, and in Dublin the number that matters inside it is the timed slot at the Guinness Storehouse and the queue at Trinity College. Both are booked by the half hour, and the Storehouse in particular decides your afternoon. Everything inside twenty minutes is walkable or a short Luas ride; the hop-on bus is for the two things that are not, Kilmainham Gaol and Phoenix Park. Kilmainham is not on this page because its tickets are sold only by the state heritage service, not by any partner, so book it directly and early. [prüfen]

The middle ring, twenty to sixty minutes, is the coast and the Boyne Valley. Howth is thirty minutes on the DART and has the best cheap day in Dublin: the cliff path, the harbour, a boat to Ireland's Eye. Dún Laoghaire and Dalkey are the same distance south. Newgrange is fifty minutes north and the one place in this ring where a tour genuinely helps, because entry to the tomb is by a timed shuttle that sells out.

The outer ring, one to two hours, is Wicklow. Glendalough is an hour and ten by coach, the Sally Gap road on the way is the point, and the full-day tours continue to Kilkenny with a sheepdog demonstration in between. There is no train to Glendalough and one bus a day, so this is the ring where the tours earn their price. Beyond the outer ring, the Cliffs of Moher, Galway, Belfast and the Causeway, we do not list, because a fourteen-hour coach day is a different product and the radar would have to lie about the distance.

What to book first

The Guinness Storehouse. It sells out on weekends and school holidays, the late-afternoon slots first, and a sold-out Storehouse rearranges the whole day. Second is Newgrange, if you want it: the tomb entry is capped and the tours that include it book up a week or more ahead in summer. [prüfen] The Book of Kells is the third; it rarely sells out but the walk-up queue on Nassau Street can be an hour, and a fast-track ticket is the difference between seeing it and not.

If you have one evening

A distillery, then a pub. Jameson in Smithfield and Teeling in the Liberties both run tours until early evening; the Whiskey Museum opposite Trinity is the one to choose if you want the comparison rather than the brand. After that, a food walk or a pub crawl through the streets behind Temple Bar, where the music is real and the prices are not.

If you have one day

Wicklow. The Wild Wicklow tour or one of the Glendalough half days, with the Sally Gap, Lough Tay and the monastic valley, back in the city by six. If you have already been, take the DART to Howth, walk the cliff path to the Baily lighthouse and back through the village, and take the boat out to Ireland's Eye if the sea is flat.

If it rains

It will, for an hour, most days. Dublin in the rain is the Storehouse, EPIC in the docklands, the Book of Kells, the National Gallery and the distilleries. Glendalough in rain is atmospheric rather than lost; the Howth cliff path is not, and the boats do not sail in a swell. The filter above the list keeps to places with a roof.

With children

The zoo in Phoenix Park, Croke Park with the stadium tour, the bikes along the canal, the boats from Howth. EPIC works from about ten upwards. The Storehouse is fine for children and free for the under-fives, but the tasting floor is not the point for them. [prüfen]

How the prices work

Every price is a "from" price per person in euros as the partner showed it on the day we last checked. The Storehouse ticket alone is the same everywhere; what varies is the guided tour on top, which pairs it with Jameson and triples the price. The Wicklow days are cheap because they run coaches of fifty; the small-van versions cost twice as much and the reviews say they are worth it for the Sally Gap. Where a page has the same ticket from two partners, we list both.

Why we show reviews and not stars alone

A rating of 4.9 with three hundred reviews and a rating of 4.7 with twenty-six thousand are not the same product. The second is the Storehouse ticket, which cannot disappoint because the building does the work. The first is a small operator doing something particular. We show the count next to the star so you can decide which one you want today.