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Galway Ireland Tours › Which Galway Day Tour Should You Book?Updated 2026-09-12

Which Galway Day Tour Should You Book?

Hours, prices and access verified by the Galway Ireland Tours team — last checked 2026-09-12

The Cliffs of Moher from above, the visitor path running along the top

The short version. One day: the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren, from $65, because it is the shortest of the long days and its fare names the gate ticket. Two days: add Connemara, which is a different landscape in the opposite direction. Three: put the island day in the middle where you can move it if the wind is up. And keep one evening for the Cliffs of Moher tour from Galway that never leave the city.

Galway sells four kinds of day and calls all of them Galway tours. The product names do not tell you which is which, and the fares tell you even less: a day that stands you on a cliff for ninety minutes and a day that spends seven hours getting there from Dublin are priced within twenty dollars of each other. This guide sets the four directions against the four things that actually differ — hours, gate tickets, weather risk and where the day starts.

The four directions, in one table

DirectionHoursFares fromThe paid gateWhat can cancel it
South — the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren8 to 9$65€8 at the Visitor Experience; four fares carry itNothing
South plus a ferry — the Aran Islands8h 45m to 10h 30m$94The crossing is inside every island fareA gale, outright
North-west — Connemara and Kylemore7h 30m to 9$58Kylemore Abbey: in one fare, at the gate on anotherNothing
Nowhere — the city itself1h 15m to 3$17None; the landmarks are free or ask a donationNothing

Read the third and fourth columns before the second. A fare that leaves the gate ticket to you is not cheaper by the amount it looks.

Should you take the cliffs first?

Almost always, yes. It is the thing most people came to Ireland's west for, it is the shortest of the long days at eight and a quarter hours, and the cheapest fare that reaches it names the €8 entrance fee in its inclusions. It also runs in any weather, which means you can book it for a fixed day without watching a forecast.

What you get up there is ninety minutes, which is close to the two hours the Visitor Experience itself recommends. That covers O'Brien's Tower, the underground exhibition and a stretch of the paved path. The road down is not dead time either: the Burren, Poulnabrone Dolmen and Dunguaire Castle are all stops rather than views from a window.

When is Connemara the better first day?

When you have already seen a cliff, when you are travelling with somebody who would rather walk than stand, or when you want the day that surprises people. Connemara is bog, quartzite mountains, sea inlets and a Victorian house on a lake, and the day trips give you two to three hours at the main stop rather than ninety minutes.

It is also the direction with the best hotel pick-up. Two of the three Connemara days collect you free on twenty-four hours' notice, which no Clare day except one will do. And nothing in it depends on the sea.

Is the island day worth the extra hours?

It costs you an hour at the cliffs and up to two and a half extra hours of your day, and it gives you two hours on Inis Oírr — a rock grid of dry-stone walls where a few hundred people live, fifteen minutes off the Clare coast. The contrast is the point: you go from standing above a two-hundred-metre wall to walking between walls that reach your waist.

The catch is the sea. The crossing sails at the skipper's discretion and a westerly stops it. If your trip is between November and February, book the island day early in the stay so you have a second chance at it, or pick a different direction. What the weather does month by month is on Galway weather.

How many days do you actually need?

  1. One day. The Cliffs of Moher and the Burren, and an evening walk in the city. Nothing else fits.
  2. Two days. Add Connemara. Two long coach days back to back is tiring but they go in opposite directions, so nothing repeats.
  3. Three days. Cliffs, Connemara, and either the island day or a city day depending on the forecast. Keep the island for the settled one.
  4. Four or more. Add the guided cliff-path walk, which is the best thing on this list for anyone who can walk four hours.

What the fares do not include

Every day trip here excludes food and drink. Doolin gets forty to forty-five minutes, Clifden half an hour, Leenane thirty minutes; the thirteen-hour day out of Dublin has no lunch stop at all. Beyond that, the exclusions differ in ways that matter:

  • Aillwee Cave is named as excluded on the one day that stops there.
  • Kylemore Abbey is excluded on the nine-hour Connemara day, which asks you to choose between it and a free national park.
  • Bike hire and the pony and trap on Inis Oírr are paid on the island.
  • A €5 taxi back to Doolin is paid to the driver after the guided cliff walk.

Which day suits a family?

The Connemara route with the sheepdog farm, almost without competition. Seventy minutes at a working farm where the dogs bring sheep off a mountainside, with puppies and bottle-fed lambs as part of the stop, is the thing children on these routes talk about afterwards. It is also the shortest of the long days at seven and a half hours.

Avoid the thirteen-hour day from Dublin, which its own operator does not recommend under eight, and the guided cliff walk, which asks for moderate fitness and rules out heart conditions. Two operators need you to bring a child seat for under-fives.

Which day suits somebody who cannot walk far?

The open-top bus, and then the city walks that carry an accessibility flag. The mythology walk, the walking and tasting route, the private walk and the short introduction all describe themselves as wheelchair accessible with accessible surfaces.

None of the coach day trips carries that flag, and two of them rule out wheelchairs outright. If the cliffs matter and access is the constraint, the Visitor Experience itself is the more promising route: its walkway is fully accessible and it runs two electric buggies along the paths for visitors with limited mobility.

Small group or full coach?

The caps on these listings run from eight to sixty-one, and the fares track them closely. Watch for "Small Group" in a title beside a cap of twenty-five: the phrase is not regulated.

CapWhich daysFare
8The guided cliff-path walkFrom $105
12The food walkFrom $106
25Two Lally routes: the sheepdog day and the cruise dayFrom $135 and From $153
53The Aran Islands and cliff cruise dayFrom $99
61The big coach days south and north-westfrom $65

A product can carry "Small Group" in its own title and still cap at twenty-five, which is worth knowing before you picture a minibus.

Where each day starts, and why it matters

Two kerbs take almost everything: Merchants Road outside Kinlay Hostel, and Forster Street outside the HYDE Hotel. They are a five-minute walk apart, both about three hundred metres from Eyre Square, and their check-in times overlap between 8:40am and 10:15am. Reading your own card the evening before is the single cheapest mistake to avoid here.

The guided cliff walk is the exception: it meets at the front door of Galway Cathedral, ten minutes the other way across the Salmon Weir Bridge. The full kerb table is on planning your trip.

The decision, in four lines

  • One day, any forecast: the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren.
  • Second day, any forecast: Connemara, with the abbey ticket in the fare.
  • Settled forecast and a spare day: the Aran Islands.
  • An afternoon, or a wet one: a city walk, a tasting route, or the bus.

Frequently asked questions

Which day trip should I take first?
If you only have one day, take the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren: it is the shortest of the long days and it carries the gate ticket. With two days, add Connemara for Kylemore Abbey, the Twelve Bens and Killary Harbour, which is a completely different landscape. Save the Aran Islands for a settled forecast, because the ferry is the first thing a gale stops.
How much do Galway tours cost?
Fares start at $17 for a seventy-five-minute guided walk of the medieval centre and run to about $154 for a coach-and-boat day that takes in an island and a cliff cruise. The full-day trips to the Cliffs of Moher and Connemara sit between $58 and $106. Every figure is the operator's own starting price per person, and the gate fees some fares leave out are listed on each card.
Is the Cliffs of Moher entrance fee included in the tour price?
On some fares, and it is the single biggest difference between them. Four of the coach days here name the Cliffs of Moher entrance fee or the Visitor Experience entry in their inclusions; one stops there for ninety minutes without naming it, and one passes the cliffs by boat and never enters. The adult ticket starts at €8 and under-12s go free, so check the card before you decide on price alone.
Is Kylemore Abbey entry included on a Connemara day tour?
On two of the three, and not on the cheapest. One fare names entry to Kylemore Abbey and the Victorian Walled Garden in its inclusions; another stops there two hours without naming a ticket; the third excludes entry fees altogether and asks you to choose between the abbey, which you pay for at the gate, and Connemara National Park, which is free.
What happens if the weather turns?
Almost every tour here refunds in full up to twenty-four hours ahead, so a bad forecast costs you nothing if you act the day before. Ferries and cliff cruises sail at the skipper's discretion and are cancelled outright in a gale; the coach days run in any weather. If a sailing is dropped on the day, the operator rearranges the rest of the itinerary.
Do I need to book in advance?
Book the day trips ahead between May and September, when the small-group coaches sell out days early. The city walks and the bus ticket can usually be picked up the same morning, though the food walk caps at twelve and goes first. Out of season, twenty-four to forty-eight hours is normally enough.

Every fare, side by side, with what each one covers: Galway Ireland Tours.

The three days this guide keeps coming back to