Hi everyone,

I've got a four night / four day trip coming up in Ireland, flying in and out of Dublin. Will stay in Dublin the first night, but then would like to head somewhere else to experience more country / coast / smaller towns. We (my boyfriend and I) will NOT have a car, so we're depending on busses, trains, and hopefully bike rentals to explore.

I'm trying to decide between heading southwest to Cork and exploring the city of Cork plus West Cork/Kerry/peninsula/coast area down there for three days, OR, heading west to Galway and the surrounding coast/cliffs area there.

Any suggestions as to what might make for a nicer overall trip? We're interested in a mix of pubs, drinking, traditional music, seafood, hiking, biking, scenery, outdoors, etc. After the first night in Dublin, we'd travel Cork or Galway and either choose one base hostel/b&b and stay put for three nights (with day trips via bus), or possibly do two nights somewhere and then one night somewhere else, to cover a little bit more ground. We just don't want to hit a new place EVERY night and burn ourselves out or spend too much time traveling. We'll head back to Dublin on our forth day to catch our flight that night.

Thanks for your help!

Have you already booked your tickets? If not, since you seem to be far more interested in the west, I'd suggest flying in and out of Shannon rather than Dublin.

It's been a long time since I've been in Cork so I can't really address that other than to say that I'm not sure how much of the southwest you'd be able to explore from there without a car.

But I know that you can take a bus or train to Galway and use that as a base. When my daughter did a four month internship there two years ago she spent her first week at Kinlay House Hostel http://www.kinlaygalway.ie/ There's a company on the ground floor of that building that sells tickets for the bus/ferry to the Aran Islands. She and a visiting friend also did a bus tour to the Cliffs of Mohr that they enjoyed.

And Galway itself is a nice city with a very lively pub scene. There's a university there so lots of young people. Music is easy to find. And there are good restaurants.

However, if you're already committed to flying in and out of Dublin, with so little time you might want to consider just making it your base and exploring that area. There are good day trips out of Dublin. You can go south through the Wicklow Mountains to Glendalough. Or north to Newgrange.

Thanks for your advice! Yes, we already booked our tickets although now that I know more I realize I could have done it better through another airport. But we'll make the most of it -- thank you for your suggestions, i will definitely look more into Galway and also the area around Dublin.

"But we'll make the most of it"

It's certainly not a disaster!

Galway is only three to three and a half hours by train or bus. And, as you look into it more, you may just decide you'd enjoy staying in the Dublin area this trip. You can fly into Shannon the next time!