Best Family Day Trips From Dublin (With Kids)
Dublin is a soft, walkable base, but the real magic for many families happens on the days you leave the city and come back again at night, a little sunkissed, a little windswept and carrying sand, castle dust or forest mud on everyone’s shoes. This guide pulls together the best family day trips from Dublin and shows you how they actually feel with kids, how long they take, how tired little legs will be and whether you are better off on a tour, a train, a rental car or a simple coastal DART ride.
Quick Links
Dublin Cluster
Use this day trip guide as the outer circle of your Dublin plan, with the inner circles built by:
• Ultimate Dublin Family Travel Guide
• Ultimate Dublin Neighborhoods Guide for Families
• Ultimate Dublin Attractions Guide for Families
• Ultimate Dublin Logistics & Planning Guide
• How Many Days Families Need in Dublin
• Dublin on a Budget for Families
Official Info & Bookings
Keep these open in another tab while you line up your day trips:
• Events, festivals and maps on Visit Dublin
• Wider island inspiration via Tourism Ireland
• Arrival and departure options with this Dublin flight search
• Rental car comparison for specific days through this Dublin car hire tool
• Family friendly tours and day trips on Dublin family day trips via Viator
• Backup peace of mind with family travel insurance
How Day Trips Change The Shape Of Your Dublin Stay
When you build a Dublin itinerary without day trips, the city becomes your whole world. Streets, parks and museum courtyards start to feel familiar, which can be lovely, but you miss the way the landscape opens up once you step beyond the suburbs. Adding one, two or three day trips shifts the energy of your week. Instead of every day having roughly the same texture, you get coastlines, castles, valleys and ancient stones folded around your urban days.
The key with kids is not to cram in as many locations as possible but to choose a few that match your family’s age mix and stamina. A toddler and a ten year old will respond very differently to a long bus ride. Some children will happily march a cliff path, others will last fifteen minutes before wanting a playground. This guide is written from that angle. Each suggested day trip comes with a sense of what it feels like moment by moment, not just a list of what technically exists if you all had infinite patience.
You will also notice that transport becomes part of the story. Coastal trains that rock younger kids to sleep. Coach tours where teens press their foreheads to the glass. A rental car day where you control the soundtrack and stop whenever someone needs a break. Choosing the right vehicle for the right trip is the difference between “We saw Wicklow” and “We want to go back to Wicklow someday”.
Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains: Valleys, Lakes and Quiet
If you only leave Dublin once, many families choose Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains. It is the day trip that feels like opening a door into a different Ireland while still landing back in your Dublin bed that night. The road south takes you from city streets into rolling hills, patchwork fields and, eventually, a valley that folds around lakes and monastery ruins that look almost too perfectly placed to be real.
What The Day Feels Like
A Glendalough day begins early. If you book a small group or coach tour through family friendly Wicklow tours on Viator, you meet in central Dublin, climb aboard and watch the city fall away through the window. Younger kids often drift back to sleep as the coach traces its way into the mountains. Older children watch for sheep, sudden views and patches of cloud sliding over the hills.
At Glendalough itself, the day slows down. You wander among ruined stone buildings and round towers, tell simple stories about monks and long ago travellers, then follow wide, accessible paths toward the lakes. There are more challenging hikes in the area, but with kids you usually stick to the lower paths and lakeside loops, letting them throw stones, spot reflections and chase their own echoes.
Tour vs Rental Car
Families who like structure tend to prefer tours here, because driving narrow, windy roads can feel intense if you are not used to them. A guided day trip removes navigation stress and usually weaves in at least one extra viewpoint or local village.
If you want full control over timing for naps, feeds and toilet breaks, renting a car for the day through this car hire tool can work well. You pick up early, drive south, spend as long as you like at each lake and stop for lunch when your crew is ready, not at a fixed tour time. Read this guide alongside the Dublin Family Safety Guide and Family Budget 2025 so you understand both costs and driving norms before you commit.
Newgrange and the Boyne Valley: Deep Time for Curious Kids
For families with older children or teens who are fascinated by history, Newgrange and the Boyne Valley turn a day into a time travel exercise. You move from modern coaches and visitor centres into a prehistoric passage tomb that predates the pyramids, then back out into green fields where everything feels suddenly very temporary.
This is an experience that is easier to manage on a guided day trip because access to the monument is tightly controlled. Booking a tour via Newgrange day trips from Dublin on Viator usually guarantees your slot and removes the need to juggle separate shuttle times with kids in tow.
Inside the tomb, space is confined and the experience can feel intense. Younger children may find the darkness and close quarters overwhelming, while older kids often find it thrilling. If your family includes both ages, think carefully about whether this is the right trip for this particular visit or whether Glendalough or the coast will land better right now. The Dublin for Toddlers vs Teens guide will help you decide where your kids are on that spectrum and which day trip belongs in which future trip instead of squeezing everything into one.
Coastal Escape to Howth: Cliffs, Harbours and Easy Seafood
Not every day trip needs a bus or a car. Some of the best family days out from Dublin are simply coastal extensions of the city, reached by the DART train in less time than it takes to settle a toddler for a nap. Howth is the classic version of that: a working harbour and cliff walk playground that sits close enough to the city that you can be back in your room before bedtime without anyone feeling rushed.
Howth With Younger Kids
With smaller children, you do not have to tackle the full cliff loop to feel the magic of Howth. You can spend a whole day between the harbour, the playground and the market when it is open, feeding chips to seagulls at a respectful distance, watching fishing boats and tracing the coastline with your eyes instead of your feet.
Paths along the harbour are stroller friendly and mostly flat. When little legs are fresh, you can push slightly further up the hill for viewpoints, then drift back down when energy dips. The Howth Dublin Family Guide breaks down which stretches of the cliff walk are realistic with different ages and where to bail out if weather shifts.
Howth With Older Kids and Teens
Older kids and teens usually love the full Howth cliff loop. The path hugs the contour of the headland, offering big views, dramatic drops (with paths set back from the edge) and that quiet feeling you only get when the sea is right there below you. Good footwear, layers and snacks matter more than fancy gear here.
If you want to turn this into a long afternoon or even an overnight, you can browse stays using a family stay search in Howth, then balance that cost against your core Dublin nights with Family Budget 2025. Many families still treat Howth as a day trip, but having the option to linger overnight on a second visit can be a lovely upgrade.
Malahide and Malahide Castle & Gardens: A Gentle Castle Day
Where Newgrange is deep time and Glendalough is valleys, Malahide is your soft castle day. It is ideal for younger children or for a middle trip in the week when you want something special but not extreme. You can reach Malahide on the DART, walk through the village, spend hours between the castle grounds and playgrounds, then finish with ice cream and a harbour stroll.
Inside The Castle Day
The details for the castle itself live in the Malahide Castle & Gardens Family Guide, but from a day trip perspective, what matters is pacing. Guided tours through the house are short enough that most school age children can manage them and rich enough that adults feel like they learned something. The gardens, fairy trail and play areas outside give toddlers and siblings all the movement they need afterwards.
Paths are mostly stroller friendly, with only a few gravel patches where wheels may bump a little. Snacks, toilets and shelter are all nearby, which reduces stress if weather changes mid visit.
Linking Village, Harbour and Castle
If you arrive early, you can start the day down by the harbour, watching boats and throwing stones on the beach, then work back toward the castle for late morning or lunch. Families often finish their day with a simple early dinner in the village before catching the DART back into Dublin.
If you fall in love with the area, there is always the temptation to stay longer on a future trip. When that time comes, compare Dublin nights with a Malahide stay search and then drop those numbers into your longer range plans using the Family Budget 2025 guide.
Kilkenny: Medieval Streets at Child Height
If your children are the kind who light up at the word “castle” and want to know exactly where knights would have walked, Kilkenny is an excellent day trip candidate. The town folds a castle, river walks, narrow medieval streets and relaxed cafes into a compact centre that feels built for a day of gentle exploration.
You can reach Kilkenny by train with a change, by rental car or on an organised day tour. Trains offer a predictable timetable and a chance for everyone to read, sleep or stare out of the window. Rental cars give you full control over stops. Tours remove planning entirely and usually include a brief orientation so you waste less time figuring out where everything is.
Once in town, you build your day around Kilkenny Castle and its grounds, using the gardens and parkland as your fallback space whenever kids need to reset. River walks and side streets fill the gaps. Because it is a longer trip than Howth or Malahide, this is usually better suited to children who can handle a full day out without needing to be back in their usual bed too early.
When you are ready to plan, you can: browse tour options via Kilkenny day trips from Dublin on Viator, compare rail options linked from Visit Dublin and check car costs through this Dublin car hire tool.
Belfast and the Titanic Quarter: Cross-Border Context
For older kids and teens, a cross border day to Belfast can be a powerful geography and history lesson wrapped in a very modern city. Many families anchor their visit around the Titanic Quarter, then layer in street art, food halls and a simple orientation to the city’s past and present.
This is another day where tours can be helpful, especially if you want guides to handle the heavier historical context in age appropriate language. If you would rather keep it lighter and focus on the shipyard, science and architecture, you can make that clear when choosing a tour or planning your own route.
Cross border travel also reinforces why having family travel insurance in place matters. It is unlikely you will need it, but knowing you are covered in both jurisdictions allows you to focus on the experience instead of worrying in the background.
How Many Day Trips Is “Enough” For One Family Trip
The honest answer is that the right number of day trips is smaller than most parents expect when they first sit down with a map. It is tempting to try to fit in Wicklow, Newgrange, Howth, Malahide, Kilkenny and at least one more, but when you map those onto real energy levels, you quickly see why children melt down.
3–4 Night Dublin Stay
If you are only in Dublin for three or four nights, one day trip is usually enough. Two at most. Use the rest of your time to really live inside the city, drawing on the City Centre, Phoenix Park, Howth and Malahide neighbourhood guides to keep days full but still gentle.
In this window, many families choose either Glendalough and Wicklow or a soft coastal day as their single excursion, depending on weather and the ages of their kids.
5–7 Night Dublin Stay
With five to seven nights, you have room for two, maybe three day trips if your crew is used to travel. You might stack something big (Wicklow or Newgrange), something coastal (Howth or Malahide) and something more structured like Kilkenny or Belfast, spacing them with full city days in between.
When in doubt, choose less, not more. The How Many Days Families Need in Dublin article gives sample itineraries that show exactly where these day trips sit relative to city days so you can copy and then adapt them to your own rhythm.
Booking Strategy: Tours, Cars, Trains and Your Budget
Day trips are where costs can spike quietly if you are not paying attention. Tour tickets, train fares, car hire, fuel, food and attraction tickets all layer together. The good news is that you have real control over levers here.
When Tours Make Sense
Tours are worth their price on days where logistics are complicated. Glendalough and Wicklow, Newgrange and boyne sites or cross border Belfast days fit this category. You are buying not just transport but also guaranteed access and a guide who can translate context into stories your kids will remember.
Use family day trips from Dublin on Viator as your comparison board. Filter for child friendly language, clear cancellation policies and small group sizes that will not overwhelm shy kids.
When Cars or Trains Win
Trains and DART rides shine on coastal and castle days. Howth and Malahide were built for them. You turn travel time into quiet recovery time, with no need to watch the road.
Rental cars are best reserved for days when you want to stitch together multiple spots that are poorly connected by public transport. If you choose that route, book only the days you actually need a car through this Dublin car hire tool, and run the numbers through the Family Budget 2025 guide so there are no surprises.
Weather, Backup Plans and What To Do If Your Day Trip Falls Apart
Ireland’s weather has its own sense of humour. You might wake up to blue skies and end up in mist. You might plan a coastal walk and find yourself staring into sideways rain. The Dublin Weather Month-by-Month Guide will give you big picture patterns, but on the ground you still want backup options.
The simplest strategy is to pair each day trip with a flexible city alternative. If the Wicklow forecast collapses, maybe that is your Phoenix Park and Dublin Zoo day instead. If coastal winds look unkind, you stay in the city and use the Attractions Guide to build an indoor heavy day. Flexible cancellation policies on tours and transport help here, which is another place where reading the fine print on Viator day trips and flight bookings pays off.
Travel insurance wraps all of this in one more layer of calm. With family travel cover in place, changing a plan because a child is sick or because conditions no longer feel safe becomes a simple decision instead of a money panic.
Some of the links in this guide are affiliate links. Your price stays the same. A small commission helps keep these family day trip blueprints online, funds late night map sessions and occasionally pays for the emergency hot chocolates that appear when a cliff path or castle tour turns out to be one hill too many.
Where These Day Trips Sit Inside Your Global Family Map
Once you have built Dublin with its city days and day trips, it becomes one tile in a bigger pattern. Maybe you are pairing it with London, where day trips tilt toward castles and seaside towns, or with New York City, where “day trips” feel more like different slices of the same huge urban story.
You might be building a long haul route where Dublin sits alongside Toronto, Tokyo, Bali, Singapore or Dubai. The day trip logic you practise here – one big excursion, one gentle excursion, lots of rest around them – will serve you in all of those cities.
To finish building your Dublin chapter, move next through: the Ultimate Dublin Family Travel Guide, the Neighborhoods Guide, the Attractions Guide, the Logistics & Planning Guide, and supporting pieces like the Family Safety Guide, Weather Month-by-Month Guide, Packing List, Stroller-Friendly Dublin and Dublin for Toddlers vs Teens.
Together, they give you everything you need to choose which days happen inside the city and which ones stretch out into lakes, castles, cliffs and coastlines before you ride the train or coach back under Dublin’s streetlights at night.
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