To really wits Ireland – you need to finger it – finger its land, its rain, its temperate climate, and most of all – its soul. This is a country that cannot be rushed and exploring it on foot is one of the weightier ways to wits it. This allows you the opportunity to meet the locals, come squatter to squatter with thousands of years of history, and see what it is that makes Irish people so unique.
I have partnered with guide extraordinaire, Rachel Nolan of Rachel’s Irish Adventures, to put together an Ottsworld tour that would bring Country Mayo’s landscapes, hiking, local culture, and unique touches together in an incredible customized tour.
Overview and Map
Dates: April 20 – 27, 2024 - Cost: €2,780* (€450 single supplement)
This is a small group tour – only 7 people me! The space will fill up fast so sign up quickly.
*All prices will be charged in the Euro – some USD price fluctuations could occur by the time of your final payment – however you can pay in full at any time and lock in the price.
This is not your run-of-the-mill Ireland tour. This is an sectional customized Ottsworld tour in the visitor of me as your host, accompanied by our professional local Irish guide – Rachel. Our small group of 7 people will get to visit some of Ireland’s best-kept secrets, hike on remote trails, stay in shop lodging, meet locals, wits unique Irish culture, and enjoy the lush untried of the Ireland landscape in the spring.
How to Typesetting This Tour
Note: This tour is currently fully booked. However if you’d like to be widow to the wait list – please email me at info@ottsworld.com.
I’d like to talk to you first to wordplay any of your questions prior to your booking. Therefore follow these steps to book:
- Send me an email at info@Ottsworld.com letting me know well-nigh your interest. We will set up a undeniability to discuss any questions you have. This will be on a first come first serve understructure – there are only 7 spots misogynist on this tour.
- I will send you a payment link to Rachel’s site where you can typesetting your petrifaction and secure your spot for this custom tour. A 500€ nonrefundable petrifaction is required to secure a spot.
- Final payment is due January 21, 2024 (90 Days prior to April 20, 2024)
Cancellation Policy and Fee
- If you cancel increasingly than 90 days surpassing the starting stage of the holiday, you will lose the petrifaction amount.
- If you cancel between 89 – 42 days surpassing starting stage of the holiday, you will lose 50% of the holiday cost
- If you cancel less than 42 days surpassing the starting stage of the holiday, you will lose 100% of the holiday cost
I highly recommend that you get travel insurance to imbricate any risks of cancellation. I normally use Allianz Travel Insurance for my own travels and it is very reasonably priced.
Daily Itinerary
The itinerary is one-of-a-kind and is packed with included experiences such as multiple ‘spa’ experiences, visits to sheep farms, archway to warmed-over sites, lamb cuddling, cooking experience, falconry, whiskey tasting, and the endangerment to meet a lot of locals. In addition, we have included plenty of hikes, walks, and plane some cycling!
Note: The trip starts in Ballina and ends in Westport. You will be responsible for your own transportation to the start and from the finish, however, there is a regular train and buses that are easy to take from Dublin with multiple departures times during any given day.
Day 1 – April 20 – Inrush in Ballina Ireland
Your holiday kicks off in the mannerly town of Ballina in County Mayo where your guide will meet you on inrush and transfer you to the hotel. Settle into your room and take in the magnificent view over the River Moy and Belleek Woods, visit a museum, and enjoy a river walk.
Enjoy an afternoon sultry wits in Marjorie’s Kitchen, hosted by Rachel’s mother in her kitchen. Marjorie is the tragedian of 4 cookery books and loves nothing increasingly than to share her passion in the kitchen, followed by savoring the fruits of your labor over a hot cuppa tea.
We will enjoy a welcome dinner for the group to get to know one another. Without dinner if you have any energy left, we will hit the town and visit Pat Rouse’s bar, Ballina’s oldest family-owned pub where a traditional Irish music session and singsong will go on late into the night. You may plane get the endangerment to pull your own pint of Guinness.
Day 2: Sligo Tailspin – Following the traces of the Warmed-over Queen Maeve of Connacht
After a refreshing sleep and a succulent breakfast. It’s off to hit the trails of Mayo and get our boots dirty for the first time. Today we will hike the wonderful Knocknarea hill and add a stone to the thousands uplifting the imposing grave or tombstone of Maeve, the unconfined warrior queen, which overlooks Strandhill.
Distance: 7.5km | Elevation proceeds 404m | 2-3 hours
Day 3: Traditional Irish Trades & Treats
Start the morning meeting and handling birds of prey. The Birds of Prey Wits is a unique opportunity to meet and handle a variety of Birds at the Mount Falcon Aviary. Get a fascinating insight into the lives of these magnificent creatures and get the endangerment to hold and revere them tropical up; it’s a very visceral and satisfying experience!
Tour the Foxford Woollen Mills and learn the history of the mill as well as how important it is to the nearby village. Have a endangerment to purchase any wool mementos. Enjoy lunch at the Woolen Mills Cafe.
Head when to Ballina and get fitted for bikes at Rachel’s velocipede shed. We’ll trundling to the Monasteries of the Moy, and explore the Belleek woods, and Rosserk Abbey. There will be lots of occasions to stop off and take pictures and learn well-nigh the history and traditions of the region…like the Fairy Trail!
Day 4: North Mayo tailspin (The Ceide Coast)
Depart Ballina with a scenic momentum to the tailspin where we will take an easy walking route withal the tailspin to a subconscious beach. We’ll moreover make a stop at the iconic Downpatrick Throne where your guide will bring this place to life with facts and sociology well-nigh time gone by.
Now it’s time to reward you for your morning’s venture with some succulent lunch and home-baked treats at Mary’s Cottage Kitchen. The perfect place to stop for some tasty home cooking is situated in the coastal village of Ballycastle. Mary’s Cottage Kitchen was built in the early 1800s and maintains many traditional features such as the stone wall exterior, unshut loft, exposed beams, flag floors, and a good unshut fire.
Included: Breakfast, Dinner
Day 5: Off the Beaten Path
After a refreshing sleep and a succulent breakfast. It’s off to hit one of the most stunning trails in County Mayo. This region of the Wild Atlantic Way has some of the most dramatic coastlines to be found anywhere in Ireland. The hike we will enjoy today was described in Lonely Planet as “The finest sustained coastal walk in western Ireland, with a profusion of precipitous cliffs, crags, caves, chasms and islands withal the remote North Mayo coast”.
County Mayo Cliff Hike - Distance: 7km | Elevation gain: 300m | 2-3 hours
After the challenging hike reward yourself with a traditional warm whiskey and lunch at Connoly’s Pub and enjoy meeting some locals at this tiny, remote establishment.
Drive to Ballycroy National Park. Located on the Western seaboard in northwest Mayo, the park covers a vast 15,000 hectares of uninhabited and unspoiled wilderness, dominated by the Nephin Beg mountain range. To the west of the mountains is the Owenduff Bog, one of the last intact zippy wrap bog systems in Western Europe. If time permits we’ll do a short walk there.
Drive to Achill Island, the largest of the Irish isles yet it only has 2500 inhabitants. Here we’ll stay at the secluded Bervie B&B. The magical beachside house was once a tailspin baby-sit station, and since 1932 has been the ultimate escape for the many guests who have stayed here. It’s a low, tucked-in kind of place with a little wicket gate giving uncontrived wangle to the beach. There is an other-worldliness well-nigh the Bervie that is very rare these days.
Included: Breakfast
Day 6: Achill Island & Clew Bay
After enjoying the weightier breakfast on Achill Island, we’ll momentum to Keem Waterfront which is honored as one of the weightier beaches in the world. From there we’ll hike up to Ireland’s highest sea cliffs (it’s steep – but short)!
Next, we’ll visit the Deserted Village at Slievemore which consists of some 80 – 100 stone cottages located withal a mile-long stretch of road on the southern slopes of Slievemore Mountain. Settlement in this zone dates from at least early Medieval times and we’ll get to walk through the village on an easy road walk.
Included: Breakfast
Day 7: Killary Fjord & South Mayo
Morning momentum withal Clew Bay and stop at the iconic Croagh Patrick to enjoy views of the infamous peak that thousands pilgrimage to the top of.
Lunch outdoors if weather permits. For unprepossessing lovers, we get to visit an iconic Ireland sheep farm. The Killary Sheep Sublet in Connemara is a traditional working mountain sublet with approx 200 ewes and lambs roaming freely in the mountain overlooking Killary Fjord, on the Wild Atlantic Way. Here we’ll get to see a sheepdog demonstration, learn well-nigh the farm, and plane get to petting some spring lambs!
We’ll throne when to Westport where you’ll get time to do some final souvenir shopping and enjoy increasingly of the colorful town. We’ll have our goodbye dinner (how did it go so fast?!) in Westport that evening where we can share our favorite Ireland memories and revel in our new friendships.
Included: Breakfast, Dinner
Day 8: April 27 – Throw-away Day
After breakfast, you can reservation the train when to Dublin, or maybe you’ll decide to stick virtually and enjoy increasingly of Ireland’s west coast!
Train to Dublin (direct):
- 07:15 – 10:27
- 09:45 – 13:04
- 13:10 – 16:29
- 18:20 – 21:36
(Times might be slightly variegated in 2024)
Bus to Galway:
- 06:18
- 09:19
- 12:27
- 15:19
- 18:19
(Approx. 2 hours)
What’s Included
- 7 nights stay in an en-suite room at our premium hand-picked accommodations.
- Delicious Full Irish breakfast each morning, and 3 Dinners.
- 7 days of activities with an expert Irish guide who will trailblaze the group for the elapsing of the holiday
- All experiences as outlined in the itinerary; Whiskey Tasting, Foxford woolen mills, sultry class, Seaweed bath, Ceide Fields, sheepdog demonstration, Sauna Achill Island, and velocipede rental.
- Courtesy transfers to and from each day’s walking locations and all transport as outlined in the itinerary.
- Basic photography instruction during the trip.
- Access to a full gallery of photos (shot by me!) of the unshortened trip, which you can use for personal purposes.
What’s Not Included:
- Flights to/from Ireland
- Transportation to Ballina and throw-away from Westport
- Travel Insurance
- Some dinners and lunches
- Personal drinks
- Medical costs
- Gratuities
Our Awesome Local Guide
When you have the right guide, it can ‘make’ an unshortened trip! Rachel is the ultimate outdoor guide. She’s an incredible athlete and such a wonderful well-wisher of her home region in County Mayo. One of my favorite things well-nigh staying in Ballina is that it is the town she grew up in (and still lives there) and with that comes incredible local connections. In fact, we will have a special cooking matriculation from her mother. It doesn’t get much increasingly local than that! Plus, Rachel ensures that we know everyone in town introducing us to the bartenders when we go into a pub, restaurant owners, and plane the local guy who smokes fish.
Reviews
What makes this tour ‘Ottsworld’? This is not your stereotype tour…it’s an Ottsworld tour. I must confess – that I am sort of a travel snob. I don’t like to do the ‘expected’ or see the typical sights; I like to seek out the unusual, and less traveled. I’ve worked together very closely with Rachel to put together a tour that impresses plane me! It has all of my favorite elements in it: hiking, local travel, booze, hands-on local experiences, and photography. Yes – all of this in only 8 days! Here’s what past guests had to say below.
“Definitely a 10! I really enjoyed the fact that the tour was a ‘white glove delivery’ experience- everything was so meticulously planned so we didn’t have to worry well-nigh transportation, meals, what we’re doing for the day, or if we’re trying to too much or not enough. I went when to reread the unravelment of the tour (published in May) without we returned home and couldn’t believe that we hit EVERY. SINGLE. ITEM. AS. PLANNED.”
“It was just right for me, a bit challenging but that’s what I like. The first day was the most beautiful, second the most challenging, third very interesting with the steps through the woods.”
“Definitely met expectations and moreover exposed me to things I’m sure I would not have considered if I was planning a trip.”
“Food was AWESOME – way largest than expected. Appreciated doing things I would not have washed-up on my own.”
“Thank you for your patience in helping us capture wondrous memories! The only thing I knew surpassing your matriculation was the rule of thirds, and now I have a unconfined foundation of knowledge to build upon – no increasingly point and shoot! Instagram watch out!”
Who Should Consider This Tour?
- People who like to explore lesser-known places, and be venturesome and active.
- People who are flexible. You should be willing to walkout flexibility, as itineraries may transpiration due to weather, and it helps if you have a ‘willing to try new things’ attitude.
- People who don’t mind getting wet or enjoying the excitement of ripply weather.
- People who finger well-appointed hiking 3 to 5 miles in uneven terrain.
