The Cliffs of Moher From Galway: Sleep in the City, Drive to the Cliffs

The Cliffs of Moher are a half-day trip from Galway. Treating them as a destination in themselves produces a long drive for ninety minutes of standing in wind.

Base yourself in Galway and they become one good morning inside a much better few days.

Walk ten minutes past the paved path

The cliffs run for about fourteen kilometres along the Clare coast and reach roughly 214 metres at the highest point. There are walking trails along the edge in both directions from the visitor centre, and most people never leave the first few hundred yards of paved path.

Walk further than that. The crowds thin within ten minutes and the views improve.

Go early or go late. Coach tours arrive late morning and leave mid-afternoon, so before ten and after four are quieter, and the late light is better for photographs.

The weather decides the day. In low cloud you will see nothing at all, so keep the cliffs flexible in the itinerary rather than fixing them to one morning.

There are stretches without railings, close to a sheer drop, in reliably strong wind. Treat it seriously, particularly with children.

The drive to the Cliffs of Moher from Galway

The route runs through rural County Clare and is a large part of the point: stone walls, farmhouses, and the limestone of the Burren, which looks like nowhere else in Ireland.

Allow longer than the map suggests. The roads are narrow and you will stop.

Why Galway, and not a hotel on the cliffs

Galway is a small city you can cross on foot, and the most Irish-feeling city most visitors will reach. It is one of the few places where you will hear Gaelic spoken in shops and bars.

Eyre Square is the centre. The streets running off it are pedestrianised, painted, and full of music. Not scheduled sessions for tourists, but musicians playing in bars because that is what happens there.

The food has become genuinely good in the last decade, with a strong seafood bias given the harbour.

Three or four days without moving hotels

From Galway you can reach Connemara National Park and Kylemore Abbey in a day, the Aran Islands by ferry, and the Burren and the cliffs to the south.

That is three or four days of driving without moving hotels, which is the whole argument for a single base.

This is the pairing we send couples and first-time visitors to Ireland on. Families with small children usually do better with Killarney, where the days are shorter and the drives are too.

How many nights in Galway

Three nights is the minimum that justifies the drive west. Four lets you do Connemara properly and still have a slow day in the city.

If Ireland is the whole trip rather than one leg of it, our Ireland travel guide covers how the regions fit together. If Kerry is the other half of the trip, the Gap of Dunloe is the best half day in it.

Call Exquisite Travel Group on (916) 757-6300 and we will build the west coast around the weather rather than against it.