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Epic Full-Day Private Tour: North Belfast & Giant's Causeway
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From €891 per person
This is a long day - 12 hours - and it covers a lot of ground, but it’s built around some of Northern Ireland’s most genuinely compelling places. Starting at your Dublin hotel at 7:15am, your professional local guide takes you north through Belfast, along the Antrim coast, and back again, with time at each stop rather than just a drive-by.
Belfast comes first. You have a choice here: a 90-minute Black Taxi Political Tour of the city, where a local guide takes you through the history of the Troubles, shows you both sides of the Peace Wall, and explains the famous political murals in their proper context - or, if you’d prefer, you can swap this for a visit to the Titanic Experience. The Titanic was built in Belfast, and the nine interactive galleries at the museum tell that story in real depth. It was recognised as the world’s number one tourist attraction in 2017.
From Belfast, the route takes you through the Glens of Antrim - lush valleys and rugged coastal scenery - before reaching the Giant’s Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You’ll have 2 hours here to explore the 40,000 interlocking basalt columns stretching into the North Atlantic, and there’s the Nook Pub nearby if you want to grab lunch.
Dunluce Castle follows - a dramatic clifftop ruin with a history stretching back centuries, and a filming location for Game of Thrones. Then Ballintoy Harbour, another Game of Thrones location, known as Lordsport and the port of Pyke in the series.
If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, your guide can also arrange a visit to the Dark Hedges - an avenue of old beech trees that featured as the King’s Road in the show.
The return journey runs through Ballycastle and along the County Antrim coastline before heading south.
In Belfast, the Black Taxi tour is more than a history lesson. Belfast is the first major stop, and the black taxi drivers who run the political tours give you both sides of the Peace Wall murals with the context of people who lived through it. The Falls and Shankill murals, the gates that still close at night, the peace walls that never came down after the Good Friday Agreement - a good driver turns this into something no guidebook can replicate. If your group is undecided between the taxi tour and the Titanic Experience, the taxi tour is the harder experience to replicate elsewhere.
Arrive at the Giant’s Causeway early or late. The coach tours arrive between 11am and 3pm and the causeway gets genuinely packed. Your private guide has flexibility - pushing the Causeway to earlier in the morning or holding back until late afternoon puts you there when it’s much quieter. The basalt columns and coastal paths are a different experience when you can walk them without a crowd at every step.
The return through Ballycastle is worth a proper stop. Ballycastle sits where the Glens of Antrim meet the Causeway Coast - a working town with a real harbour, a seafront, and the House of McDonnell pub on Castle Street (same family since 1766, Grade A listed interior). If the day’s schedule allows even 30 minutes, Thyme & Co on Quay Road does excellent soup and sandwiches. Morton’s does fish and chips you can eat on the seafront watching the gulls.
Fair Head is six minutes from Ballycastle town if you want to stretch your legs on the return. The clifftop loop is 4-5 km and drops 100 metres to the sea - you can see across to Rathlin Island and on a clear day the Mull of Kintyre.
Bushmills sits three kilometres from the Giant’s Causeway. The Old Bushmills Distillery has been on the same stretch of Saint Columb’s Rill since 1784, with a royal licence for distilling in County Antrim dating to 1608. If your group wants to add a distillery visit to the Causeway stop, book the tour ahead in summer - it sells out. The Bushmills Inn is the best place to eat on the north coast and the gas-lit bar is worth the stop even if you’re not staying.
The Dark Hedges are near Ballymoney. The beech avenue on Bregagh Road - near Armoy and Stranocum, about 12 km from Ballymoney town - was planted around 1775 by the Stuart family. It appeared as the King’s Road in Game of Thrones. The trees are best in the early morning before the coach traffic arrives. Ballymoney itself is the nearest town with a train station if anyone in your group wants to break the return journey.