3-Day Northern Ireland Itinerary: Giant's Causeway to Belfast

Three days is enough to see the headline acts in the North if you don't try to do too much with each one. This itinerary keeps it to one region — the Causeway Coast and Belfast — because the rest of the country needs a longer trip to do justice. Hire a car at the airport, sleep two nights on the coast and one in Belfast, and you'll see the famous sites and have time left over for a meal and a pint.

The shape of the three days

• Day 1. Causeway Coast — Giant's Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Ballintoy, Dark Hedges, Dunluce Castle.
• Day 2. Belfast — Titanic, a Black Cab tour of the murals, an afternoon in town.
• Day 3. Choose your weather: the Glens of Antrim if it's clear, the Mournes if it's clearer, the Ulster Folk Museum if it's not.

Day 1 The Causeway Coast

Stay: Bushmills, Portrush or Ballycastle. Bushmills is closest to the headline sites, Portrush has more places to eat, Ballycastle is the quietest of the three.

Morning · Giant's Causeway (2–3 hrs)

Start at the Giant's Causeway — UNESCO World Heritage, roughly 40,000 basalt columns formed in the eruptions of fifty to sixty million years ago. Get there for opening (9am) and you'll walk down to the stones before the first coach arrives. Two hours covers the lower stones, the cliff path and the visitor centre.

Things to look out for:

• The shape locals call the Giant's Boot — about ten minutes' walk past the main stones.
• The Organ — basalt columns visible on the cliff face above the path.
• The cliff-top route back, if you've come on a clear morning. Stairs at the top — steeper than they look.

Late morning · Carrick-a-Rede (1.5 hrs)

Fifteen minutes east. The rope bridge hangs thirty metres above the Atlantic between a small island and the mainland. The walk in from the car park is a kilometre along the cliffs, the bridge itself is the photograph, but the cliffs are the better experience.

Book a time slot online in summer. They limit numbers across, and walk-up tickets can sell out by lunchtime.

Lunch · Ballintoy or Bushmills

Ballintoy Harbour is two minutes' drive from Carrick-a-Rede and was used as Lordsport for Game of Thrones — small stone harbour, a café in the boat-shed, fishing nets piled up. Otherwise the Bushmills Inn or the Distillers Arms back in Bushmills village.

Afternoon · Dark Hedges and Dunluce

The Dark Hedges — a beech avenue planted in the 1770s by the Stuart family of Gracehill House, made famous by the Kingsroad scenes in Game of Thrones. Late afternoon light filters down through the canopy. The lay-by parking is signposted on the Bregagh Road, do not stop on the road itself.

Finish at Dunluce Castle, the cliff-edge ruin between Portrush and Bushmills. The kitchen famously fell into the sea in 1639. Stay till sunset if the sky's clear.

Day 2 Belfast

Travel: Drive to Belfast — an hour and a half from Bushmills via the M2. Drop the car at the hotel, the city centre is walkable.

Morning · Titanic Belfast (2–3 hrs)

Titanic Belfast sits on the slipway where the ship was launched in 1911. Nine galleries take you from the shipyards through the launch and the sinking, then through the wreck's rediscovery in 1985. Book the first slot (10am) to beat the cruise-ship parties. The SS Nomadic — the last surviving White Star Line ship — is moored next door and is included on the ticket.

Lunch · St George's Market or Cathedral Quarter

If it's Friday, Saturday or Sunday, walk to St George's Market on May Street — the country's best surviving Victorian market hall. Eat from a stall and listen to whoever's busking. Otherwise the Muddlers Club lane in the Cathedral Quarter has half a dozen places at the lunch end of the price scale.

Afternoon · Black Cab mural tour (1.5–2 hrs)

The murals tour takes you up the Falls and back down the Shankill, with stops at the peace wall. The drivers are local, frank, and old enough to have been around for the worst of it. Most tours run as small private groups, book the day before. Two operators worth using: Belfast Black Cab Tours and Paddy Campbell's.

Late afternoon · City centre

• Belfast City Hall — free guided tours run most weekdays.
• The Crown Liquor Saloon, Great Victoria Street — National Trust-owned Victorian gin palace. Order a pint, sit in one of the snugs.
• Commercial Court in the Cathedral Quarter — the cobbled lane lined with paper umbrellas in summer. Coffees, beers, and the Duke of York at the end.

Day 3 Flexible — pick by the forecast

Option A · The Glens of Antrim

Drive the coast road north out of Belfast through Carrickfergus, then up through the nine Glens of Antrim. Stop at Glenariff Forest Park for the waterfall walk (an hour and a half, boardwalks, easy). Push on to Cushendall for lunch, then take the Torr Road over the headland — single track, slow, but the views to Scotland are the best on this coast. End at Cushendun for tea before turning back to the airport.

Good for: a slow scenic day, photographers, anyone who's already had enough hills.

Option B · The Mourne Mountains

Drive south through Belfast to Newcastle (an hour). Walk in to the Mournes from Bloody Bridge, Carrick Little or the Trassey trailhead, depending on your appetite. A summit of Slieve Donard is five to six hours and not to be taken lightly, Tollymore Forest Park's loop trail is two hours and shows you the same hills from the bottom. The Silent Valley reservoir at the end of the day is twenty minutes by car.

Good for: hill walkers, clear weather days.

Option C · A wet-weather day

If the sky's wrong for either: the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum at Cultra (whole day), the Ulster Museum (free, three hours), or a tour at Old Bushmills Distillery on the way back to the airport.

Practical bits

Getting around

Hire a car. The Causeway Coast is not well served by public transport and a car gives you back several hours a day. Belfast International (BFS) and Belfast City (BHD) both have full rental desks, bookings are usually cheaper online than at the counter. Automatic gearboxes need booking ahead.

Drive on the left. The coast roads are narrow and twist between hedges, take them at half the speed limit and let locals overtake. Phone signal is patchy along the Causeway Coast — download offline maps before setting off.

Where to stay

Nights 1–2: Bushmills, Portrush or Ballycastle. The Bushmills Inn is the famous one, cheaper rooms are easy to find on the same village. See County Antrim accommodation.

Night 3: Belfast. The Merchant in Cathedral Quarter for splurge, the Bullitt or the Grand Central for mid-range, plenty of well-rated guesthouses in the Stranmillis area for less.

What to pack

• A waterproof jacket. Year-round.
• Layers. The temperature shifts between 10 and 17°C in summer, often in the same afternoon.
• Walking shoes with grip. The Causeway stones are slippery in the wet.
• A small daypack with water and snacks for the cliff walks.

Saving money

• National Trust touring membership pays for itself if you're doing both the Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede.
• Lunch is better value than dinner almost everywhere.
• The big sites (Titanic, the cathedrals, City Hall tours, the murals tour from a paid driver) are cheaper booked direct than through tour aggregators.
• Belfast's best experiences — City Hall, St George's, the Cathedral Quarter walk, the Sunflower for a pint — are free or close to it.

A note on pace

Three days is enough for the headline sites — not enough for the country. If you have a fourth or fifth day to spare, push west to Derry, south to County Down, or further into the Sperrins or Fermanagh lakelands. The country opens out the longer you stay.

Safe travels. Pack the waterproofs.