By nine in the morning, the coaches are already loading in Killarney town. You can tell the drivers who planned ahead — they're in their rental car, pulling west onto the N72 toward Killorglin before the first tour bus has finished its safety briefing. The Ring of Kerry is a 179km loop around the Iveragh Peninsula, and every day in summer it carries both the most spectacular coastal scenery in Kerry and the highest concentration of tour coaches in the southwest. The difference between an extraordinary day and an average one comes down almost entirely to when you leave and which direction you go. This guide covers both — along with the stops that don't appear on any coach itinerary. If you're building a wider self-drive trip around this, our complete Ireland self-drive planning guide covers the broader planning questions before you get to the route specifics.
Go Anticlockwise. This Is Not Negotiable.
Coaches travel the Ring of Kerry clockwise — eastbound out of Killarney through Kenmare first. This has been the convention for decades, partly to manage traffic flow on the narrower sections and partly because the majority of tour operators have always done it that way. The consequence for independent drivers going the same direction is predictable: you spend the day catching up to coaches at viewpoints, waiting for them to clear car parks, and sitting behind them at passing points on the N70.
Go anticlockwise instead — westbound out of Killarney through Killorglin — and you are in the opposing lane to every coach on the circuit for the entire day. You will meet them on the road, yes, but you will not be queuing behind them at the popular stops. Driving anticlockwise also puts you on the best coastal section — from Cahersiveen south through Waterville and around to Kenmare — in the afternoon light, which, on a clear day, is worth the timing alone.
Set off before 9am. Not because the roads are impassable later, but because early departure puts you at each stop ahead of the main coach wave, which builds from mid-morning onward and peaks between 11am and 2pm.
The Route — Stop by Stop
Killarney to Killorglin is a 20-minute run on the N72. Killorglin is a working market town best known for the Puck Fair in August — worth a coffee stop rather than a long visit. From Killorglin, the N70 runs south and west toward Glenbeigh, where the road begins to open along the edge of Dingle Bay and you get the first proper sense of where the day is taking you.
Cahersiveen is the main town on the western edge of the peninsula, about 50km from Killorglin. The O'Connell Memorial Church — built in 1888 in an unusual Romanesque-Gothic mix and dedicated to the local man who became the Liberator — is the obvious landmark. From Cahersiveen, you face the first real decision of the day: stay on the N70 and continue south, or take the short detour southwest toward Portmagee and the Skellig Ring. Take the Skellig Ring detour.
Waterville comes after the Skellig Ring rejoins the main route — a small seaside town with a famous Charlie Chaplin connection (he returned here on holidays repeatedly throughout his later years) and a wide beach that coaches drive past without stopping. Pull off and park. From Waterville, the N70 climbs south through mountain country, with MacGillycuddy's Reeks visible to the north when the cloud allows.
Caherdaniel and Derrynane follow. Derrynane National Historic Park — the ancestral home of Daniel O'Connell — sits above a shell-white beach in a sheltered natural harbour. The beach is a 10-minute walk from the car park and, outside of peak July and August, can be close to empty. This is one of the finest beaches in Kerry and most visitors to the Ring of Kerry drive straight past the signs for it.
Sneem comes next — a cluster of coloured houses around a double village green, reliable for lunch and reliably pretty. From Sneem, the N70 runs northeast to Kenmare, a larger market town with better independent restaurants than anywhere else on the route if you've been conservative about lunch. From Kenmare, the N71 takes you over Moll's Gap and past Ladies View — the panorama over the Kerry Lakes that appears on every Ireland calendar — before the final 20km back into Killarney.
Total driving time for the full loop, without stops, is around 3.5 to 4 hours. Budget a full day — 7 to 8 hours out.
The Portmagee and Skellig Ring Detour
The Skellig Ring is a 20km loop off the N70 that runs through Portmagee and St Finian's Bay before rejoining the main route near Ballinskelligs. Coaches do not take it. The road is too narrow and there is no practical turning point for a full-sized coach at the western end.
Portmagee is a fishing village with one of the better pubs in Kerry — the Bridge Bar serves food and the harbour is worth half an hour — and it is the departure point for Skellig Michael boat trips from late May through early September, weather permitting. Skellig Michael is the UNESCO World Heritage island where a sixth-century Christian monastic settlement, remarkably intact, sits 230 metres above the Atlantic on a steep rock 12km offshore. Even if you're not doing a boat trip, driving the Skellig Ring as far as St Finian's Bay gives you a clear view of both Skellig Michael and Little Skellig across the water that no coach window ever frames. The detour adds roughly 45 minutes to an hour to the day.
Ring of Kerry vs Dingle — The Honest Answer
The Ring of Kerry is larger, more famous, and carries significantly more traffic. The Dingle Peninsula is tighter, wilder, less visited, and — if you ask drivers who have done both — the more rewarding day. That is not a dismissal of the Ring of Kerry, which delivers properly when the weather is good and the timing is right. It is an honest assessment of the fact that the Ring can feel managed and crowded in a way that Dingle, even in summer, rarely does.
If you have time for both, do both — they are different experiences and neither replaces the other. If you are limited to one day in Kerry, the Dingle Peninsula will use it better. If you're coming to Kerry for two or more days and have a base in Killarney or Kenmare, the Ring is unambiguously worth one full day on its own terms. Our Wild Atlantic Way Self-Drive: The Practical Route Guide for Going at Your Own Pace is the context for visitors putting the Ring into a larger west coast trip — the Iveragh Peninsula is one section of that wider coastal route, not a standalone destination.
Practical Notes Before You Leave Killarney
The N70 around the Ring is largely two lanes and well-surfaced. The narrow sections are on the detours: the Skellig Ring road, the lanes into Portmagee, the road down to Derrynane. In a standard rental car, none of these present any real difficulty. In a large SUV or a 7-seater, allow extra time at the passing points on the Skellig Ring section.
The car parks at Moll's Gap, Ladies View, and the main Skellig Ring viewpoint fill quickly by mid-morning. Driving anticlockwise, you typically arrive at these stops in the afternoon, when parking is considerably easier than it is for clockwise drivers arriving at the same time as the coaches.
Fuel: fill up in Killarney before you leave. Stations are available in Killorglin, Cahersiveen, Waterville, and Kenmare — but rural Kerry filling stations are not always open late on Sundays.
No Excess Cover Makes the Day Less Tense
The Ring of Kerry's best sections are also its most demanding for parking: the viewpoint car parks are tight, the coaches need wide berths when passing on the N70, and the lanes leading into Portmagee and Derrynane are the kind of width where a slow scrape against a stone wall is a genuinely ordinary thing to have happen. None of this is dangerous when you're driving with care, but it is the road environment in which minor contact happens — a gate post at a narrow entrance, a stone wall at a passing point, a car park bollard you didn't catch in the mirror.
With a standard rental, any of those becomes a conversation about the excess — typically €1,500 to €2,500 depending on the operator — and the remainder of the day runs in that shadow.
My Irish Cousin's all-inclusive cover removes the excess entirely. No deposit taken at pickup, no photos of the car before or after, tyre and glass cover included as standard rather than added on. If something happens on a Kerry lane, you call roadside assistance and continue the holiday. That is the practical case for it, made plainly.
For visitors building a wider Kerry itinerary — pairing the Ring with Dingle, a night in Killarney, and accommodation along the way — Celtic Vacations put together self-drive packages that pre-book the guesthouses at each stop. If planning a week in Kerry feels like a logistics exercise, they are worth contacting before you start.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does the Ring of Kerry take to drive?
The full 179km loop is roughly 3.5 to 4 hours of pure driving. With the main stops — Portmagee, Waterville, Derrynane, Sneem, Kenmare, Ladies View — budget a full day of 7 to 8 hours. The Skellig Ring detour adds about 45 minutes.
Which direction should I drive the Ring of Kerry?
Anticlockwise — westbound from Killarney through Killorglin first. Tour coaches travel clockwise, so going the opposite direction puts you ahead of coach traffic at viewpoints and car parks throughout the day. This is consistently the better experience.
Can I do the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula in one day?
Not comfortably. Both routes deserve a full day of their own. If you're based in Killarney or Kenmare, the Ring is a full day. The Dingle Peninsula is a separate full day, ideally starting from Tralee or spending a night in Dingle town itself.
Is the Ring of Kerry suitable for nervous drivers?
The N70 itself is fine — two lanes, well-maintained, no particularly exposed or technically difficult sections. The narrow sections are the detour roads off the main route. If you've driven any rural A or B roads in the UK, you will manage Kerry without difficulty. The main challenge in summer is coach traffic and tight car parks rather than road conditions.
The Ring of Kerry is worth the full day it requires, but it rewards the driver who has done a little preparation. Go anticlockwise, leave Killarney before 9am, take the Skellig Ring detour when you reach Cahersiveen, and park at Derrynane long enough to walk down to the beach. Do those four things and you will have a different day entirely to the one most visitors describe. Our complete Ireland self-drive planning guide covers the broader questions — how long to allow for Kerry within a full Ireland itinerary, which airports to use, and what the rental car actually needs to cover. If the Dingle Peninsula is next on the list, our Dingle Peninsula self-drive guide covers the Slea Head Drive in full and why most drivers who do both say Dingle was the better day.
