Ireland Road Trip Travel Guide – How To Travel Around Ireland

As an extension to the full 7 day itinerary, this is meant to be a comprehensive Ireland road trip travel guide that will help you with your own vacation planning.

When preparing for a big Ireland road trip, it helps to know from someone who’s been there.  During our own trip around the country, we meticulously kept track of all the random bits of information that we learned along the way that we knew would be immensely helpful for any traveler planning their very own adventure.

Ireland Road Trip Travel Guide

We never expect to have a “flawless” trip and the intent of travel is never to be perfect because part of what makes travel so great is discovering and learning as you go.  That being said, there are still things we wish we knew to help better prepare for the trip.

The following sections in the Ireland road trip travel guide are a breakdown of everything we learned that we know will allow you to travel smarter and be as prepared as you want to be.

Table of Contents

Driving in Ireland

Having done Iceland just the year before, we felt pretty prepared coming into Ireland. However, we learned pretty quickly that things are quite literally the opposite and there are a bunch of factors you’re going to want to think about.

Driving in Ireland is personally the best way to truly see the country.  It’s the only way that gives you the freedom to plan out an itinerary that meets your interests and timing.  It’s also the only way to get you out to the picturesque country roads or small towns by the coast.

The left side

Perhaps the most obvious difference is the fact that Ireland drives on the left side of the road.  If you’ve never done it before, this is going to be the biggest adjustment that you’ll have to stay conscious and almost vigilant about.

Driving on the left side of the road means everything is the opposite. To get yourself in the right frame of mind, and hopefully, we don’t overwhelm anyone here, here is what this means for you:

• The steering wheel is on the right side of the car
• If you get manual transmission car, you’ll be shifting with your left hand and not your right
• Left turns are easy (you only need to look right) and right turns are hard…