The True Hidden Gems of the Wild Atlantic Way
When you see lists of Ireland’s hidden gems that include the likes of the Cliff of Moher (which saw over 1.4 million visitors in 2016) then you know that the term ‘hidden gem’ has become a cliche and is in danger of losing all meaning.
However, that doesn’t mean that the 2500 kilometers of the Wild Atlantic Way isn’t fertile ground for hidden gems – places of interest that aren’t very well known or might be overshadowed by better-known neighbors – and with this series of posts I would like to reclaim the phrase.
I spent a lot of 2017 and 2018 on the Wild Atlantic Way researching Exploring Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way. Richard Creagh, my co-author, and I shared the load, he took the southern half and I took the northern, Galway City was the dividing line. On a tight deadline, we didn’t have the time to explore and linger as much as we would have liked, however, we both discovered many places that were new to us along the Way, even in areas that we thought we knew well. It was these areas – overlooked yet rewarding – that we wanted to document in the book.
To celebrate these true hidden gems we have written a series of posts describing five of our favorites from each county along the Wild Atlantic Way: