The whole Ring of Kerry in one private day, from your door in Cork and back again.
Start Point
Your Hotel Or
Address In Cork
Duration
9 Hours
Difficulty
Easy
If one drive sums up the southwest of Ireland, it’s the Ring of Kerry, and this private Ring of Kerry tour from Cork lets you do it properly. There’s no coach to keep up with and no timetable to watch. We head for Killarney, loop out around the Iveragh Peninsula to the edge of the Atlantic, and bring you home through the mountains, stopping wherever you’d like along the way. It’s a long day, and a very good one.
We start in Killarney National Park, where the lakes sit beneath the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks, Ireland’s highest mountains. Muckross House and its gardens look straight out across Muckross Lake, and a short walk away are the ruins of Muckross Abbey, a 15th-century Franciscan friary with an old yew tree still growing in the middle of its cloister. The road also runs close to Torc Waterfall, a few minutes’ walk from the car. It’s the kind of place that makes you lower your voice without anyone asking.
Heading west, the first town on the loop is Killorglin, on the River Laune. Every August it hosts Puck Fair, when a wild mountain goat is crowned king of the town for three days. Ask your guide about it. The rest of the year it’s an easy-going market town and a good place for a coffee.
Out at the far end of the peninsula, we cross the bridge at Portmagee onto Valentia Island. This is where the first transatlantic telegraph cable came ashore in 1858, the first time Europe and North America could talk without waiting on a ship. On a clear day you can pick out the Skellig islands on the horizon, and it feels like the very end of Europe.
Coming round onto the southern side of the Ring, Sneem is a natural place to stop for lunch. The river tumbles over rocks under the bridge on its way to Kenmare Bay, and brightly painted houses gather around the village’s two greens.
On the way back toward Killarney, the road climbs through Moll’s Gap and past Ladies View, looking down over the lakes and valleys where your day began. Ladies View is named after Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting, who stopped here to admire it, and you’ll almost certainly want the car to pull in too.
We’ll collect you from your hotel or address in Cork and have you back at the door at the end of the day. This is one of our private day tours from Cork, so it’s just your group on board: if you want longer at Muckross or an extra stop above the Atlantic, you have it. We like to say “come as you go,” and on the Ring of Kerry that matters. Coming in on a cruise ship? We can plan it around your time in port at Cobh, though Kerry needs a long day ashore.
Your driver-guide knows these roads and the stories behind them, right down to the best place for a pint and a bowl of chowder, and those food and pub tips come up often in our guests’ reviews. You’ll travel in a Mercedes from our own fleet, sized to your group. Creagh Travel is a family business that has been guiding visitors around Ireland since 2006, led by a certified, badged tour guide, and rated 5.0 from reviews on TripAdvisor.
The Ring of Kerry itself is a loop of roughly 179 km (about 111 miles) around the Iveragh Peninsula, starting and finishing in Killarney. Add the drive from Cork to Killarney and back, and it makes for a full day out, which is exactly why doing it privately helps. On a coach tour the day is set by the timetable; on a private tour the driving is shaped around the stops you care about, and your driver-guide knows where the road is slow, where the views are best and where it makes sense to linger. If you would rather have a shorter day, we can concentrate on Killarney National Park and one side of the peninsula instead of the whole circuit. Tell us your priorities when you enquire and we will plan realistic timings around them.
Yes, as long as your ship has a long day in port. Any of our day tours can be arranged as a private shore excursion from Cobh, with pickup at the port and the day planned around your ship, but the Ring of Kerry is the longest of them and the full loop needs a long port call. When you enquire, send us your ship’s name, your arrival time and your all-aboard time, and we will be straight with you: if the full loop fits comfortably, we will plan it; if it would be a rush, we will suggest the part of the Ring that gives you the most in the time you have, usually Killarney National Park and the lakes. Because the tour is private, the vehicle waits for you rather than the other way round, and the whole day is built backwards from getting you to the ship on time.
Yes, and that is the point of a private tour. The stops on this page are the backbone of the day, not a fixed script. If the weather closes in over the mountains, your driver-guide can switch the order so you catch the clearer side of the peninsula. If you fall for Sneem and want a long lunch, or you would rather skip the gardens for more time on the Atlantic coast, just say so. We have a saying on tour, “we never say no,” and we mean it within the limits of the clock and the road. Travelling with children? Shorter walks and more stops. Keen photographers? Longer at the viewpoints. Tell us who is travelling and what you enjoy when you enquire, and we will shape the plan before you arrive.
It is, if you do it the right way. Trying to see the whole of Kerry in a day would be a mistake, but the Ring of Kerry is designed as a single loop, and with a private driver-guide the day flows rather than feels like a checklist. You move from the lakes and woods of Killarney National Park out to the open Atlantic near Valentia, stopping in villages like Killorglin and Sneem, without having to navigate narrow roads, find parking or keep one eye on a coach departure time. If you want a quieter peninsula with fewer visitors, the Ring of Beara is a good alternative from Cork, and you could do both on separate days. Either way, the Ring of Kerry is the classic first choice in the south of Ireland, and a private day is the easiest way to see it well.
A badged national guide and a family with more than sixty years of showing people around Ireland.
Book this day tour below, or tell us your dates and we will plan the day with you. If you would like more of Ireland than a day allows, we can build it into a longer trip.
