Ireland Road Trip: 7-Day Itinerary

Interested in doing a road trip around Ireland, but don't know where to start with creating a 7-day Ireland road trip itinerary? You're in the right place. We share our itinerary, as well as all the details and recommendations on things to do, where to eat, and places to wander from our 7-day road trip in Ireland.

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On Gratitude

In honor of giving thanks, the best of intentions underpinning the Thanksgiving holiday, I offer this reflection on gratitude — the condition, the emotion and the state of being.  Note to Thanksgiving critics, skeptics and cynics: to underscore my awareness of the historical complexity behind the holiday, I point you to this article.  Also, if it appears that I’m repeating The Importance of Saying Thank You, I’m not. Now, on gratitude.

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What Makes A Real Irish Pub?

I set my watch 15 minutes fast. That way, when I die I’ll sneak into heaven before the devil figures out I’m dead.

words of wisdom from the local dispensary, a spry gentleman one Guinness down in Westport, County Mayo

In almost every country we’ve visited around the world, with perhaps the exception of Bangladesh and Iran, we seem to stumble across an Irish pub. The problem with many of them: there’s usually something dubious, something un-Irish about them.

Possibly the food. Maybe the owners. Definitely the accent.

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Dune Climbing in the Namib Desert, Namibia

Namibia dune

It’s just past dawn and as the sun begins its arc, the Namib Desert sand dunes turn from tinted pink to deep orange. The contrast between the cloudless blue sky and the dune's edge becomes a clear line in starkness. In this early morning, there's a narrow window of time until the angle of the sun and the heat of the desert strip away the crispness and the vibrance in one of the world's oldest deserts.

On the edge of that window, we arrive at Big Daddy Dune.

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24 Hours in Johannesburg and Soweto

To suggest that one could experience Johannesburg and Soweto properly in 24 hours is almost patently absurd. But you do what you can, you make the best with the time you have. That's what we did. And here's how we did it.

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Persian Design at the Jameh Mosque – Yazd, Iran

Inside the Jameh Mosque in Yazd, Iran

Yazd, a historically Zoroastrian town and a sort of desert outpost that took in people fleeing persecution and wars in other parts of the country, is one of our favorite cities in Iran. Its old city is almost entirely built in brown-red adobe clay, helping to blend it into the surrounding desert landscape and to keep its building interiors cool.

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Northern Cape, South Africa: The Land of Far Out

When they say “off the beaten track” in South Africa, Northern Cape is what they mean. And why it’s not more beaten, we’re not sure. This is the sum of our short time there, including a surprising and deeply moving human encounter at the very end.

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