Travel
The 120-mile driving route between Belfast and Derry makes for one of Europe’s most beautiful road journeys, tracing the nooks and crannies of northern Ireland’s coastline.
ByPól Ó Conghaile
Published July 29, 2023
• 4 min read
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
Strapped to a dramatic stretches of coastline, Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coastal Route is a wind-battered swirl of churning seas, shattered cliffs, expansive grasslands and long-abandoned castles. Follow it in any direction, and you’ll soon come to appreciate how this landscape became so closely associated with tales of warriors and giants. Home to many of the country’s most iconic and spectacular sites, including the jagged outcrop of basalt known as the Giant’s Causeway, this endlessly surprising route offers drivers more majesty per mile than almost anywhere else in Europe.
1. Belfast to Ballycastle
Don’t miss: The Gobbins, a restored Edwardian cliff path on the Islandmagee Peninsula. Visitors wear hard hats for the 2.5-hour guided tour, passing through hidden tunnels, along carved staircases and over steel bridges en route.
Worth a detour: A drive along the squiggly country roads of Torr Head towards Murlough Bay, a remote oasis with views of Fair Head, Northern Ireland’s tallest cliff face.
Eat: Ursa Minor Bakehouse, in Ballycastle, stocks a range of freshly baked goods. Try a morning bun doused with cinnamon and sugar to set you on your way.
Sleep: The Salthouse hotel offers views to Rathlin Island and beyond from its perch above Ballycastle. It has new eco-lodges available, too.
2. Ballycastle to Bushmills
Don’t miss: The Causeway Coastal Route is named for the Giant’s Causeway, a spread of 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns, with a visitor centre near Bushmills. Another essential stop nearby is the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, crossing to a rocky outcrop offshore, originally erected by salmon fishermen in the 1700s.
Worth a detour: A guided five-mile hike from Dunseverick with Away A Wee Walk takes in the ruins of Dunseverick Castle before finishing at the Giant’s Causeway.
Eat: Make for Maegden, in Bushmills, for a grilled sarnie with Hegarty cheddar or Young Buck, a stilton-style blue.
Stay: Bushmills Inn is a heritage property in a town famous for its whiskey. Original features include a bar with gas lamps.
3. Bushmills to Derry
Don’t miss: A short stroll past the ruin of Downhill House, nine miles west of Coleraine. It leads to clifftop Mussenden Temple, which looks like a folly but is actually a library built for an 18th-century bishop. It has bird’s-eye views over Downhill Beach and even County Donegal on a clear day.
Worth a detour: Downhill and Benone Beaches are vast, sandy expanses leading towards Magilligan Point in County Derry.
Eat: Steer towards Harry’s Shack in Portstewart for snap-fresh seafood overlooking the strand.
Stay: Bishop’s Gate Hotel, in a former gentlemen’s club within Derry’s city walls, has elegant rooms.
Published in the UK & Ireland supplement, distributed with the Jul/Aug 2023 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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