We recently did a two week trip to the UK and Ireland with our three kids (ages 7, 5, and 9 months)! While this wasn’t our first international trip with all three (we went to Aruba for spring break), it definitely felt like a more complex one! We were gone for 14 days between four different destinations and did a LOT of on-the-go adventuring: three flights, a train ride, two different rental cars, several double decker bus and subway rides and quite a few long travel days.
We were in the UK for the first part of the trip and Ireland for the second part, but I’m sharing our Ireland portion first! 🇮🇪 Our time in Ireland was honestly some of my favorite days of the entire trip. There’s something absolutely magical about Ireland – the beautiful green countryside, the kindest people you’ll ever meet (so many people offered to take photos for us, gave the girls little treats, etc!), the castles around literally every corner, and that slower pace that works well when traveling with kids.
FLIGHTS, RENTAL CAR, & OTHER TRAVEL LOGISTICS
We were in the UK before Ireland, so we flew from there to Dublin and rented our car from there. We brought our own carseat for Daisy and the Ride Safer vests for the girls. Nashville Airport (BNA) recently added more nonstop international flights (yay!) which made this trip possible – we’ve never gotten to fly direct to Europe from Nashville before! We flew direct Nashville to London, and then flew home direct Dublin to Nashville.
Here was the breakdown of how many days we stayed in each place: London (4 days), Bath/Cotswolds (4 days), Kilkenny, Ireland (3 days), Kilkenny, Ireland (2 days)
Getting to Ireland from the UK: We spent the first few days in London, then took a train to Somerset and rented a car from there. We made Bath our home base for the second part of our trip as we explored the English countryside. We then drove from Bath to Bristol, dropped off the rental car, and took a quick flight from Bristol to Dublin. Once we were in Dublin, we picked up our second rental car and were ready to explore! We knew we wanted to explore the Killarney area, which was about 4 hours from Dublin. It made for a very long travel day in the middle of our two week trip, but was very worth it to get to explore Ireland and specifically, drive the Ring of Kerry!
We could have definitely spent the entire two weeks in Ireland exploring. We honestly just scratched the surface on all there is to do and explore here! Here’s our Ireland adventure breakdown:
WHERE WE STAYED
We split our time in Ireland between two areas – Killarney and Kilkenny – and stayed in two hotels. We loved both! Here’s some info about both spots:
Our first hotel in Ireland was The Lake Hotel in Kilkarney. This was a perfect place to stay as a home base for our Killarney and Ring of Kerry adventures. The hotel is centrally located and sits right on Killarney’s Lower Lake with the most stunning views and even it’s own castle ruins. We’d sit outside in the evenings while watching the older girls run around and explore the castle – truly so idyllic.
A few things we loved about the hotel:
- The location was very central in Killarney – we could walk or do a quick drive to restaurants, shops, and it was right along the Ring of Kerry
- The grounds were so pretty! Our room faced the lake and the castle ruins (Castlelough Castle) and it was fun to explore the area near the lake, as well as other parts of the property. There was a sweet fairy trail which the girls loved also!
- The interior was so charming with lots of areas to hang out in outside of our room. There are a bunch of cozy seating areas with fireplaces, a library (with games and blocks for kids), a lounge, a pub, restaurants, and outside picnic tables.
- Breakfast was included in our stay and it was a HUGE and delicious spread! A huge perk for Winnie was the automatic mini pancake maker. 🥞
- There’s two onsite restaurants in the evenings – we had dinner one night at the hotel and it was so nice to be able to eat and let the girls wiggle and wander around outside. After exploring all day, it was nice to just eat at the hotel and let the girls play
- We had a family suite, so our room had a queen bed, plus two twin beds so worked well for our family! There was also a jacuzzi style bathtub and small balcony so we could sit outside after the girls went to bed.
Our second hotel in Ireland was in the Kilkenny area at Mount Juliet Estate. This spot is more of a splurge (thank you, Marriott points!) and it was such a nice way to end our Ireland adventure and entire Europe trip. It felt like we were staying in our own Irish castle!
A few things we loved about the hotel:
- The grounds are absolutely stunning – truly like a fairytale! There’s several walking/hiking trails and we spent a morning exploring and wandering around. There’s also a kids playground, a fairy trail, and lots of gardens.
- A huge highlight for the girls was the POOL! There was a large indoor pool and we spent a lot of time there. E and I would trade off and take turns using the (wonderful) sauna and steam rooms while the other watched the kids. We didn’t do any spa services, but I’m sure they would be really nice too.
- There were adult and kids bikes you could borrow to explore. Lucy loved this!
- Breakfast was included in our stay and it was really tasty with a lot of variety!
- There’s multiple restaurants and restaurants on property (we ate dinner at the hotel both nights to keep it easy)
- ~15 minute drive into Kilkenny
DAY 1: RING OF KERRY
This was probably a little aggressive to do the day after a ~10 hour travel day with three kids BUT…it ended up being a really special day! We both wanted to drive the Ring of Kerry – it felt like a very iconic Ireland thing to do. There’s a ton of options for doing guided trips/bus tours, but we always like doing our own thing. We had a bunch of cool spots saved on Google Maps (based on personal recommendations, ChatGPT recommendations, TikTok and FB travel group searching, etc.). We tried to plan it so we weren’t in the car for longer than a one hour stretch at a time and that ended up working well for keeping the girls entertained and excited about the adventure. Here’s where we ended up stopping along the Ring of Kerry!
Ladies View was our first stop to soak up the views and take a quick photo!
Sneem – we stopped in this little town for about an hour. We grabbed a coffee, wandered around and shopped for some souvenirs, and walked along the cute ‘fairy trail’ in town to a playground (despite the rain!)
Skellig Ring – another quick stop along the side of the road for a photo! The girls were (shockingly!) all sleeping at the same time, so E and I just snapped a photo together 💛
Kerry Cliffs – This was the big stop and main destination of the drive! The cliffs are incredible and the view was breathtaking! It was definitely some uphill walks to get to the two main lookout points, but the girls did great and it was well worth it!
Lunch at The Moorings in Portmagee – we stopped in this cute little town for lunch. I LOVED the seafood chowder!
Ballycarbery Castle – quick pitstop here to explore the castle ruins. I actually stayed in the car while Daisy snoozed and Eric and the girls explored!
Rossbeigh Beach – We ended our Ring of Kerry drive at this special beach. The views were so pretty and the girls were TICKLED to run in the sand and collect seashells.
Once we were back in Killarney, we stopped at Killarney Brewing Company for dinner and local beer! We loved it here and it was a great casual stop after our very long adventure!
DAY 2: EXPLORE AROUND KILLARNEY
After our very long adventure day driving the Ring of Kerry, we decided it would be best to stay a little more local for our next day in Ireland. While I would have loved to see the Cliffs of Moher, we didn’t want to do yet another big driving day and decided to pivot. It ended up being a really sweet day!
Our first stop was at Muckross House and Gardens. This Victorian mansion was beautiful and the gardens were absolutely stunning! We don’t usually do a lot of museums/history-type stuff on trips, but it was raining so we decided to tour the house too. The gardens are free, or you can buy a ticket to tour just the house or the house plus farm. We did all of it! The girls actually really liked the house tour part – they asked so many questions and were really curious and interested in who lived here and what happened in each room, etc. There’s gardens are beautiful with a huge greenhouse, but the biggest hit for the kids was the farm. We got to walk through and see original farm structures, sample Irish soda bread made on the fire inside the cabin, and see and touch sooooo many baby farm animals (sheep, bunnies, cow, kittens, ducks, chicks, pigs, donkeys, and more!). There’s also a cool outdoor playground here! We spent more time at Muckross than I expected – it was awesome!
From there, we drove to Torc Waterfall right down the road. It was a super quick ~10 minute walk from the car to the waterfall. Super doable with kids and pretty!
Our big afternoon adventure was seeing the sheepdog demonstration at Kessane Sheep Farm. Both of the girls said this was their favorite part about Ireland! It was wild and really cool to learn about the dogs and see them corralling the sheep. The farmer was very engaging and explained everything really well and afterwards, we came inside and learned more about the sheep farm overall. Again, didn’t think the girls would love this AS MUCH as they did – it was a huge hit!
We grabbed lunch at a pub in town and then our last stop before heading to our hotel for play time and an early dinner was a visit to Murphy’s Ice Cream. It’s a local ice cream shop and was super tasty. Obviously Vacation Winnie was obsesssed.
Here’s a few other spots in the Kilkarney area that we saved but didn’t get a chance to visit: Ross Castle, Forgotten Castle, town of Kenmare, Gap of Dunloe, Wishing Bridge, and Cahersiveen
DAY 3: TRAVEL DAY & CASTLE STOPS
We would have loved more time in Killarney, but it was onto our last stop! We had breakfast at our hotel and decided to break up our 3.5 hour roadtrip into smaller chunks and make it more of a fun adventure day vs just long roadtrip to the next hotel.
Stop 1: Mallow Castle Playground – there was an AWESOME playground next to Mallow Castle. I wandered around the castle grounds (didn’t go inside), grabbed a coffee in town, and we let the girls play for about an hour. The playground had tons of things to do and definitely was a favorite from the trip.
Stop 2: Cahir Castle – our next stop on the roadtrip was Cahir Castle. We bought tickets to explore inside – it was really well-preserved and the kids loved exploring all the rooms and towers.
Stop 3: Rock of Cashel – this was our last stop before our hotel. This castle was more ruins vs. a preserved castle (like our earlier stop at Cahir Castle) but really beautiful!
DAY 4: KILKENNY
At this point in the trip, we’d been away from home for 12 days and could tell the girls could use some down time. Our hotel was amazing, and we spent most of the day exploring the property, going on walks, swimming, and eating. We did leave for a few hours and explore downtown Kilkenny. We had lunch at a really cool pub called Left Bank at the recommendation of a local, went to the playground near Kilkenny Castle, and grabbed ice cream before heading back for (more) swimming and dinner!
OUR ROUGH ITINERARY
Here’s how we actually spent our four days in Ireland:
- Day 1: Ring of Kerry drive – Ladies View, Sneem, Kerry Cliffs, lunch in Portmagee, Ballycarbery Castle, Rossbeigh Beach, dinner at Killarney Brewing
- Day 2: Muckross House & Gardens/Farm, Torc Waterfall, Kissane Sheep Farm sheepdog demonstration, Murphy’s ice cream
- Day 3: Drive to Kilkenny with stops at Mallow Castle playground, Cahir Castle, Rock of Cashel, check into Mount Juliet
- Day 4: Explore downtown Kilkenny, lunch at Left Bank, Kilkenny Castle and playground, and a lot of hotel time!
THINGS THAT WORKED WELL WITH KIDS
Rental Car: Having our own car was essential for this trip! Eric drove the whole time and there was definitely a learning curve to driving on the other side of the car AND the other side of the road, but he did great. We love having the flexibility to stop wherever and whenever needed, especially with the kids.
Kids Travel Entertainment: I stocked the girls up on fun travel activities and games (shared them all HERE) so they had something to do/play in the car. Sticker books, games, little figurines, coloring supplies, stuff like that! We also did a lot of ‘Spotify DJ’ and family singalongs to make the long drives more fun for everyone! We did have their iPads, and tried to use those at the very last stretch of the drive.
Planning Drives The Night Before: We used ChatGPT to plan out our drives on the travel days and find cool spots we could stop throughout the journey. We tried to make it so we’d stop every hour or so and this made the long drives WAY more manageable for the girls – and
Flexibility: We didn’t overschedule ourselves and planned to have some downtime at the hotel for the kids to chill, play, and not be always exploring and in the car.
Picnic Meals: After a long day, often times, the last thing the girls want is to have to sit down in a restaurant for dinner. Earlier on in the trip, we would get flexible when they weren’t ‘being good’ at dinner (after dragging them around adventures allllll day long). So we decided to reset expectations and also find ways to make some meals more casual – picnics it is! We went to the grocery store and picked up baguettes, cheese, fruit, nuts, and other snacks and did several picnic lunches and dinners!
That’s all for now!
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Amazing! Any tips on what to pack for kids? Were going in July with 2 daughters.