7 Days Northern Ireland: Giants Causeway, Belfast and Dark Hedges Itinerary
7 Days in Northern Ireland – Belfast, the Giant’s Causeway and the Dark Hedges
A realistic one-week route from Belfast up the Causeway Coastal Route to Derry~Londonderry – with the peace walls, the free way into the Giant’s Causeway, the dying Dark Hedges and the Belfast slave ship that never sailed.
Before you go: what this itinerary is – and isn't
Seven days is enough to see Belfast properly and drive the Causeway Coastal Route – one of the great coastal roads of Europe – without rushing. This plan runs anticlockwise from Belfast up the Antrim coast to the Giant's Causeway and finishes in Derry~Londonderry, with a train back along the coast. It favours mornings and evenings at the famous places, when the coach tours have gone.
It also does not pretend Northern Ireland is just scenery. You will see peace walls, flags on lamp-posts, and murals that tell two very different versions of the same history. Ask questions, listen more than you talk, and you will find people astonishingly open about the past.
- Currency: pound sterling. Cross the border into the Republic of Ireland and it is euros.
- Entry: Northern Ireland is part of the UK. Most non-Irish visitors need a UK Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) – also when arriving over the open land border from the Republic. See our UK visa and entry rules.
- Arrival: Belfast International and George Best Belfast City airports, ferries from Scotland and England, or trains and buses from Dublin (about 2–2.5 hours). See our UK airports guide.
- Best months: May, June and September. July brings the marching season and Eleventh Night bonfires – some visitors find it fascinating, others prefer to avoid it.
- Car or not: a hire car makes the coast easy; the plan below also works by bus and train with more planning.
Days 1 and 2: Belfast
Day 1 – the city of ships and its divided streets
Start at Titanic Belfast in the old shipyards, on the slipways where the liner was built by Harland & Wolff. The galleries are strongest on the working city that built it – rivet boys, riveters and a shipyard workforce from which Catholics were largely excluded – rather than on the sinking. Book a timed slot; it is one of the busiest attractions on the island. Walk back along the Lagan past the giant yellow cranes Samson and Goliath.
In the afternoon take a political tour of West Belfast – the black-taxi tours or, better, a walking tour led by local guides from each community. You will see the Shankill and Falls Roads, the murals and the peace walls, some still closed at night. Then City Hall, which offers free guided tours, and the Cathedral Quarter for dinner and live music.
Day 2 – museums, markets and the slave ship that never sailed
The Ulster Museum in the Botanic Gardens is free and excellent, with a frank gallery on the Troubles. Go on to Crumlin Road Gaol, the Victorian prison that held suffragettes and both loyalist and republican prisoners until 1996. If it is Friday, Saturday or Sunday, eat at St George's Market.
Finish at Clifton House, the 18th-century Belfast Poor House. In 1786 the merchant Waddell Cunningham proposed founding a Belfast slave-ship company at a meeting in the Exchange and Assembly Rooms on Waring Street. The watchmaker and later United Irishman Thomas McCabe spoke against it so fiercely that the investors withdrew and the company was never formed. In 1791 the formerly enslaved writer Olaudah Equiano visited Belfast to promote his autobiography and was welcomed there. The Belfast Charitable Society, which runs Clifton House, tells both sides: members who profited from slavery and members who fought it. Our page on abolition in Britain follows Equiano's story.
Day 3: Carrickfergus, the Gobbins and the Glens of Antrim
Leave Belfast north on the coast road. Carrickfergus Castle, begun in the 1170s by the Norman John de Courcy, is one of the best-preserved medieval castles in Ireland. Beyond Whitehead, The Gobbins is a guided walk along bridges, tunnels and walkways bolted to the basalt cliffs of Islandmagee, first opened in 1902. It reopened in March 2026 after a long closure for storm repairs; booking is essential, tickets cost about £24, and you need to be reasonably fit – it is around 2.5 hours with steep steps.
Continue through Larne onto the Causeway Coastal Route proper: Glenarm with its castle and walled garden, the little harbour at Carnlough, and Glenariff, "the Queen of the Glens", where a forest park trail follows a gorge of waterfalls. Stay in Cushendall or Cushendun.
Day 4: Torr Head, Rathlin Island and the Dark Hedges
Early risers with a confident driver can take the narrow Torr Head scenic road, where Scotland's Mull of Kintyre looks close enough to touch, then drop down to Murlough Bay. Otherwise go straight to Ballycastle and catch the ferry to Rathlin Island – a 25–40-minute crossing. From roughly April to July, the RSPB's West Light Seabird Centre looks down on cliffs crowded with puffins, guillemots and razorbills. Book the ferry in advance in summer.
Back on the mainland, the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge (National Trust, timed tickets) swings across a 20-metre gap to a tiny island once used by salmon fishermen. Late afternoon, drive to the Dark Hedges on the Bregagh Road near Stranocum, the beech avenue planted by the Stuart family in the 18th century and made world-famous by television. The road has been closed to traffic since 2017; around 75 of the original 150 trees remain after storm losses, and experts warn the avenue is coming to the end of its natural life. Park at the Dark Hedges Estate nearby and walk. Go at dusk or dawn.
Day 5: the Giant's Causeway, Bushmills and Dunluce
Northern Ireland's only UNESCO World Heritage Site is some 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, formed by cooling lava around 60 million years ago – or by the giant Finn McCool, depending on whom you ask. The key fact most visitors do not know: walking to the stones is free. What the National Trust sells is the Visitor Experience – exhibition, audio guide and a place in the main car park – at about £14–16 for adults depending on the season. If you arrive on foot, by bus or by the Bushmills park-and-ride, you can skip it. Arrive before 10am or after 4pm, and walk the cliff-top path above the stones rather than the crowded road.
In the afternoon, visit the Old Bushmills Distillery, then Dunluce Castle, a ruin on the edge of a cliff so close to the sea that, legend says, part of the kitchen fell in during a storm. Watch sunset from the Whiterocks beach near Portrush. Read more in our guide to the top 25 coastal towns of Britain.
Days 6 and 7: Mussenden Temple and Derry~Londonderry
Drive west past Portstewart Strand to Mussenden Temple, a small domed library built in the 1780s on a cliff edge at Downhill Demesne, above the vast Downhill beach. Then on to Derry~Londonderry – the city whose name itself is political: nationalists generally say Derry, unionists Londonderry, and many people use both.
Walk the complete 17th-century city walls, built in 1613–19 and never breached, including during the siege of 1689. Visit the Tower Museum and the Museum of Free Derry in the Bogside, which tells the story of the civil rights movement and Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British paratroopers shot dead 13 people on a civil rights march. Cross the Peace Bridge to Ebrington Square.
On day 7, take the train back to Belfast. The stretch between Derry and Coleraine, along the shore of Lough Foyle and through tunnels under the cliffs at Downhill, is one of the most beautiful railway journeys in these islands.
Doing it without a car
- Trains: Translink's NI Railways run Belfast–Coleraine–Derry, Belfast–Larne (for Whitehead and the Gobbins area) and Coleraine–Portrush.
- Buses: Translink Ulsterbus covers the coast; the seasonal Causeway Rambler links Bushmills, the Giant's Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede.
- Tickets: Translink sells day and week tickets that cover buses and trains across Northern Ireland – check current options before you travel.
- Day tours: if time is short, a day tour from Belfast covers the Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Dunluce and the Dark Hedges in one long day.
What it costs
- Giant's Causeway: free on foot; Visitor Experience about £14–16, free for National Trust members.
- The Gobbins: about £24 per adult, booking essential.
- Rathlin ferry: a return foot-passenger ticket is modest; car places are limited and restricted.
- Accommodation: Belfast and Derry hotels are cheaper than most English cities; the north coast is expensive in July and August and during big golf events at Portrush.
- Car hire: check whether you are insured to cross into the Republic if you plan to go on to Donegal.
All prices are rounded – check the official websites before you go.
Guided tours
Day tours from Belfast cover the Causeway Coast, Carrick-a-Rede and the Dark Hedges; walking and taxi tours explain the murals and peace walls.
Tours and experiences
Entrance fees are included in the tour price; tips are not included but are always welcome.
Read next
Rathlin, the Mournes, Strangford Lough and places the coaches miss.
From the Dark Hedges to Castle Ward – honestly.
The wider story.
All our guides to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Equiano's road
Olaudah Equiano, who was welcomed in Belfast in 1791, was born, by his own account, in Igboland in what is now south-eastern Nigeria. Explore that region on our partner site Explore Nigeria, and the wider story of the trade he fought on African Independence and Cape Coast Castle.
The African side of the story
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- Across Africa: Kenya Web News · Explore Nigeria · Gambia Vibes · Zambia Vibes
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