Wicklow: Private Day Tour from Dublin

About

This 8-hour private day tour out of Dublin is tailored around you - your guide picks you up at your chosen location and the pace is yours to set. What you see is flexible too, so if there’s something specific you want to prioritise, just say so at the start of the day.

One popular option is a stop at Powerscourt House Gardens in Enniskerry. You can explore the gardens at your own pace, then sit down for a coffee looking out across the Wicklow countryside toward the Sugar Loaf. There’s also an Avoca craft shop on site if you want to browse.

From there, the tour moves into Wicklow Mountains National Park, with scenic stops that can include Lough Bray, Luggala, the Guinness family estate, and the bridge made famous by P.S. I Love You. The National Park has appeared in Vikings, P.S. I Love You, Leap Year, and others - the landscape is that striking.

Lunch is at an Irish pub near Glendalough, where fresh Wicklow produce features. After that, you’ll explore Glendalough itself - the 6th-century monastic site founded by St. Kevin, set in a valley with two lakes and mixed woodland. It’s one of the best-known early Christian sites in Ireland and genuinely earns that reputation.

If there’s anything else you’d like to work in, your guide is with you throughout and can help arrange it.

What’s Included

• Hotel pick-up and drop-off
• Qualified guide
• Entrance fees
• Food and drinks
• Gratuities

Local Tips

At Powerscourt, allow a full two hours for the gardens. The estate at Enniskerry has 47 acres of formal terraces, a walled garden, a Japanese garden, and the Triton Lake - National Geographic ranked them third in the world. The restored house shell contains shops and a café, but the gardens are the point, not the house. If you want the waterfall as well, it’s a separate 6-minute drive and a separate ticket: 121 metres of water over granite, and worth the detour. Poppies café on the village square has been open since 1982 and is a better coffee stop than the estate café if you’re heading into the village.

Lunch near Glendalough means Laragh. The actual village is Laragh, 1.5km east of the monastic site, where the Military Road meets two other mountain roads. Lynhams of Laragh has been a pub on this site since the 1770s - turf fire, timber, solid food. The Wicklow Heather next door is the smarter dinner option, and its Writers’ Room holds first editions of Ulysses, Dracula, and Waiting for Godot that the owners actually assembled. Book ahead at weekends - it fills.

At Glendalough, walk the Green Road between the lakes. The flat path from the visitor centre along the Lower Lake to the Upper Lake is 3km return and takes you past nine of the major monastic ruins. The round tower’s doorway is three and a half metres off the ground - a defensive measure from the Viking raids. The Upper Lake is quieter than the Lower and worth reaching. The coaches thin out after about two in the afternoon.

Use the flexibility. This tour is private, so if you want to spend more time in Enniskerry or add the Powerscourt Waterfall, say so at the start. The waterfall is a separate drive from the gardens and most day-trippers skip it - which means it’s significantly quieter than the formal terraces.

Nearby on IrelandMe

• Enniskerry - estate village beside Powerscourt, where National Geographic’s third-best gardens in the world sit below the Sugar Loaf; Poppies café on the square has been open since 1982
• Glendalough - a 6th-century monastic city in a glacial valley; the round tower has stood through a thousand winters and the Upper Lake is quieter than most visitors expect
• Laragh - the crossroads village where the Military Road ends and the mountain pubs begin; Lynhams has been here since before the road was built, and the Wicklow Heather’s Writers’ Room is stacked with genuine first editions