DINGLE Peninsula: Hire a Local Guide or not?
 

How shall we enjoy the Dingle Peninsula? With a local guide? On our own?

We have 3 nights in Dingle on our 2-week family trip to Ireland. Leave in a coupla days! No kids under 18.

I'm going to take Michele Erdvig's Best Little Guide to Ireland and Rick Steves Ireland guidebook with me. (Have Fodors guidebook too but it's too fat to pack!):-P

Three nights gives us only 2 full days to enjoy Dingle town and drive the peninsula. Our time is precious. Is hiring a guide worthwhile? (I heard there was a local father and son team doing mini-van tours. They are in the Rick Steves guidebook.)

Thanks for your opinionions or experiences. How do we know we are looking at a real "ruin" or one of the fake ones?!

I did the mini-van tour a couple of years ago and it was very nice. They took us to a couple of places that tourists cannot usually get into. Having said that I was in Dingle last week with an old aunt and four cousins and we took a day long drive around the Peninusla on the Slea Head Drive and over the Connor Pass. We had great Wx. and stopped at all the marked sites including the Heritage Center which was very nice. The Connor pass road has been greatly improved and is not as scary as it was a couple of years ago. We had great food at Paudies and real Trad. music at the Small bridge Pub at the top of Mall street. Have fun

if want to take a tour, be sure to book ahead, when we drove on our own (3 years ago in late June), one tour was booked and other tour did not run because there were not enough people...and didn't tell us ahead of time so wasted a couple of hours waiting on tour.

also the tour is 2 hours...we spent atleast 5 hours doing just the loop...wanted time to stop at the blasket center and at all of the scenic pull-outs and other sights on way, nice pub in ballyferriter for lunch stop, blasket center has a nice cafeteria too.

the rick steves book give a great guide to follow so you don't miss any of the sights

I would do on own, so you could take time where you want and get those perfect photo stops.

Thank you! I decided we will use the Rick Steves guidebook and Michele's Best Little Guide to Ireland and do the Dingle Peninsula on our own. (But I'm hoping to hire a guide for the Burren area in County Clare...leaving soon!)

Melissa5

You can pickup some very good guidebooks for the Dingle Pen., when you get there. The Burren is a much more difficult challenge. A guide that lives there, is qualified, and licensed is hard to find. The real history, there, is still evolving. The qualified guide will be known at the Burren Centre in Kilfenora, so I would start there. Or -- www.burren-tours.com