Two nights on the Aran Islands — Inis Mór and Inis Meáin
Bike-hire on Inishmore, the cliff-top fort, the Gaeltacht villages and the small-room island hotels. The cleanest two-night offshore trip in the country.
The Aran Islands are three Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) islands at the mouth of Galway Bay — Inis Mór (the largest), Inis Meáin (the middle, the quietest), and Inis Oírr (the smallest, closest to the Burren on the Clare coast). This itinerary covers Inis Mór for two nights with a day-trip to Inis Meáin.
The set-piece is Dún Aonghasa, a 2,000-year-old stone fort on a 100m cliff at the western end of Inis Mór. It is the photograph travellers come for.
Carbon math, up front. Every IMPT hotel booking retires one tonne of UN-verified CO₂ on-chain — roughly 28× the per-night footprint of a hotel stay.
The route at a glance
- Day 1–3: Inis Mór (Kilronan) — 2 nights
Getting around: Bus + ferry from Galway to Rossaveal then Inis Mór; or fly from Inverin Airport (8 minutes by Aer Arann)
Day 1–3 Inis Mór (Kilronan) — 2 nights
Bus from Galway Coach Station to Rossaveal pier (45 minutes, runs to meet the ferry), then ferry Rossaveal → Inis Mór (45 minutes). Total Galway → Kilronan (the main village) is 2 hours. Base in Kilronan; everything on the island is bikeable from there.
Morning
Bike-hire on the pier (any of the three operators, all similar prices, all with helmet + lock included) and ride west along the coast road to Dún Aonghasa — 7km, mostly flat, signposted. The fort is a 1km walk uphill from the bike park.
The walk worth doing
Dún Aonghasa cliff fort itself — semicircular stone fort on a vertical 100m cliff, no railings, you walk to the edge. Properly dramatic. Allow 90 minutes including the walk up.
Where to eat
Joe Watty's Bar in Kilronan for the lunch (chowder, soda bread, properly Irish); Bayview Restaurant (in Kilronan) for the formal dinner; the Aran Sweater Market for the (genuine) island-knit cardigans. Most other islands meal options are at hotels.
Day-trip from here
Day 2: take the inter-island ferry to Inis Meáin (15 minutes) for the day — quieter than Inis Mór, the writer J. M. Synge spent every summer here for 20 years and the island's history is documented at the Synge Cottage museum. Inis Meáin Restaurant + Suites (the cliff-edge Michelin-starred boutique) for the dinner is the destination meal on the islands.
Practical notes + how to extend
On the morning of day 3, ferry back to Rossaveal and bus to Galway. The whole trip from Galway is 50 hours; the islands feel further from the mainland than they are.
Aran is the right call for travellers who want a properly slow, properly offshore base. Two nights is the minimum; one is a glance.
The carbon mechanic — in plain English
Every hotel booked through IMPT triggers the retirement of one tonne of UN-verified CO₂ — roughly 28× the per-night footprint of a hotel stay. The room price is the standard rate. The offset is funded from IMPT's commission, recorded on-chain on Ethereum, and tied to your booking ID. For a multi-night Irish itinerary booked through IMPT, the per-traveller offset comfortably exceeds the carbon cost of the hotel-stay portion of the trip.
Ready to book this itinerary?
Same price as direct, free cancellation on most stays, 1 tonne UN-verified CO₂ retired on-chain per booking.
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