Recap of 2018: A Long Weekend Road Trip in Northern Ireland

So my 2018 started well, I started by visiting Malta in March, Santorini in April and then in May we visited Northern Ireland for a friend’s wedding. Of course we also found time in our long weekend to explore this corner of the island! In this post I’m sharing with you our road trip for seeing many of the sights of the Causeway Coast and beyond.

We arrived early on Saturday morning and picked up our car straight away. We then drove straight to Belfast city centre where we joined a famous Black Cab Tour with some friends. I would say that visitors to Belfast should definitely try to join one of these tours for a journey around some of the political murals. They depict a difficult but important part of Northern Ireland’s history and you will get a local’s invaluable insight into growing up through the Troubles.

We stayed in a charming AirBnb in Ballymena (about 40 minutes from Belfast) and Northern Ireland is small enough that I would recommend choosing somewhere that’s ‘in the middle’ of the general area you want to focus your time in. Sunday was the day of the wedding – a beautiful spring day in lovely grounds and the next day wasn’t necessarily a particularly early start! On the Monday we started by heading to (London)Derry since it was the longest drive from Ballymena. Here some of the main things to check out here are the Peace Bridge, the city walls and St. Eugene’s cathedral.

From here we went to the Bushmills Distillery (1 hour drive) and hopped on the last tour of the day. I’m not a whiskey fan but my boyfriend is so I think he enjoyed it a lot more than me. At the end of the tour you can take advantage of a free drink (whiskey obviously) at the bar so take advantage if you DO like whiskey! From here we went to nearby seaside town of Portrush for some dinner. Even by 6pm there were still families on the beach enjoying the gorgeous late-May weather. As I always say, being by the sea is definitely therapeutic so even our short evening here was a lovely part of the few days in Northern Ireland.

Tuesday was the REAL action day that I had been waiting for! Our flight was in the evening so we had a lot to fit into a short period of time. We were up super early and our first stop was the Dark Hedges, made famous from Game of Thrones. It’s important to make this your first stop as it will get busy with tourists and coach trips from very early on. We had the whole place to ourselves when we arrived and we probably only spent 5-10 minutes taking pictures but as we were leaving there was already a small line of cars/vans coming down the road.

Our next priority was the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge and our aim was to arrive for the first visit of the day. We did so with about 30 minutes to spare and there was already a queue! It could be worth pre-booking a slot as some people were able to walk straight through when the site opened. The walk along the coast from the car park to the rope bridge was almost the best bit! It was an absolutely stunning day (we got real lucky with that Irish weather!) and the lush green against the blue/turquoise water was enough to make me stop every metre for a photo. The only thing that kept me going was getting to the rope bridge before the other tourists! The whole experience of walking out to the island on the wobbly bridge and admiring all of the sea birds and the UNREAL waters below was really a highlight of the whole weekend.

Our next stop on our busy road trip day was the famous Giants Causeway – for many people the only location on their trip to the Causeway coast. We did have some difficulty with parking but parked just down the road at the Giants Causeway (to Bushmills) railway station. Be aware that you do not need to buy tickets to enter if you have parked elsewhere like we did. The walk from the visitors centre to the iconic rock formations (is that the right thing to call it?!) is pretty long but just hold tight because when you come across it, there’s quite a large area to explore and find your own spot. Make sure you read up on the legend of how this area was formed!

We had time for one more site on the Causeway coast and this was Dunluce castle, a ruined castle right on the cliff edge. You buy an entry ticket and explore the site in your own time. Before long though, it was time to head back to Belfast. We ended up with some time before we had to go back to the airport so we headed to the south part of the city centre where Belfast Queen’s University’s impressive buildings are located. Right next door to this is Belfast Botanic Park which was full of young people enjoying the weather.

All in all we really enjoyed our long weekend and you can definitely pack a lot into a long weekend thanks to the close proximity between lots of key sites. Given that it’s so close to get there from my part of the world there’s no excuse for others in my area to take the trip!

I hope you find this guide useful if you take the trip and let me know in the comments if you have any other questions!