Summer is finally here – well okay, we’re a few weeks, but we’ve finally got the weather so it feels like it’s finally here. With the school holidays now upon us, the thoughts of many turn to plans for family holidays, weekend breaks or days away.
We wanted to share some of our plans for the summer, and some pipe dreams adventures we’d love to go on it we were lucky enough to find a few ways to win the lottery!
Family Days Out
We’ve a few day trips planned as a family over the coming weeks. With Lewis now two, he’s at an age where he wants to explore, so days out are high on our list for summer activities.
Some of the day trips we have planned include Dublin Zoo, Hillsborough Food Festival in Co. Down, a trip to the seaside town of Bangor, also in Northern Ireland, and a day trip to Bettystown in Co. Meath, a childhood favourite of ours.
We’re also blessed to live in Newcastle, Co.Down, with areas like the Mourne Mountains, Murlough Nature Reserve, Tollymore Forest Park and Castlewellan Forest Park and Peace Maze on our doorstep, so we’ll have no shortage of things to do during our free time and at the weekend.
Weekend Breaks
We are planning two weekend breaks this summer, both of which will be our first holidays without Lewis. The first is a trip to Co. Clare along Ireland’s popular west coast. It’s an area we visited four years ago and up there with our favourite spots in Ireland.
We will be going to a friends wedding just outside the popular coastal of Lahinch, and look forward to visiting some of the areas top destinations again, including the Cliffs of Moher, Doolin and the Burren National Park. You can read about our previous trip to Clare here.
Our second planned weekend break is to Dublin, again to meet up with some friends and enjoy some time touring Ireland’s capital. We’ve been to Dublin on several occasions and it never disappoints. We look forward to visiting again and exploring some of the popular areas outside the city like Howth, Skerries and Malahide.
Longer Holidays
Unfortunately there are no long holidays planned this year as we will be continuing to work around the house and garden, starting to get things into shape. We do have plans for trips in 2020 which at present include Barcelona, Las Vegas (more of a work gig) and Liverpool.
The dream holiday for us, well, if we managed to find a pot of gold or win the lotto there are a couple we have in mind.
Top of the list would be buying a camper van and driving around Ireland, visiting random, quirky towns and villages along the way, ensuring we hit all 32 counties as we go. If we’d won the lotto, we’d maybe treat ourselves to the odd 5-star hotel break in some of Ireland’s top hotels 🙂
After that, an extended trip around Europe would be on our list if we managed to find ourselves a big win! Having visited a few European cities on our honeymoon, and also enjoyed inter-railing many moons ago, an extended break around Europe would be amazing. It’s fair to say we’d do plenty of travelling if we won the lotto.
What Are Your Summer Travel Plans?
Let us know your summer travel plans by commenting below. Is there anywhere in Ireland you think we should visit for a short-break?
Until next time, happy travels.
Helen, Nial and Lewis.
Welcome to Pikalily, an award-winning food, travel and lifestyle blog. We are Nial and Helen, a happily married couple from Northern Ireland, who share a passion for food and travel among many things. We became parents to our beautiful boy Lewis in 2017. Follow our adventures through the blog.
