June 9, 2026 — 5:00amI could have been driving myself, hunched over the steering wheel, sun’s glare in my eyes, peering out for directions, wary of narrow roads that plunge to restless Atlantic waves below.Independent travel has its advantages, but self-driving isn’t one of them. The Dingle Peninsula in Ireland’s southwest is one of Europe’s most invigoratingly scenic corners, and I’m glad my views aren’t of tarmac, retaining walls and nervous glimpses of magnificence.Walking on Dingle’s wind-battered beaches makes you want to write symphonies or kiss someone’s freckled face.Tourism IrelandInstead, I’m on a Collette tour of Ireland and haven’t a worry in the world. I turn my head out the coach’s panoramic windows to be dazzled by silvery sea, foam-splashed islands and bony green fingers of land chewed by wind-buffeted sheep.In the old days monks squatted on rock pinnacles here, muttering to God at world’s end. Medieval pilgrims tested their mettle walking up Mount Brandon. Before that, Bronze Age people made beehive huts of stone, so old they look as if they’ve sprouted from the rocks.The Dingle Peninsula is a remote place and still feels it. So little seems changed that Hollywood comes here to make movies about Irish cliches or distant Star Wars planets.Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletterGet exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.Yet just to the south is the Iveragh Peninsula, where an international traffic jam of sightseers circulates around the tourist route Ring of Kerry. It’s on almost every tour of Ireland and everyone’s Instagram bucket list, but Dingle on only a select few.This is a beautiful, pared-down landscape of knobbly hills and hidden valleys under galloping clouds.iStockThe farms are green scratches in an almost barren land.iStockThe isolation has preserved remarkable archaeological remains – an early Christian oratory and an Iron Age fort are highlights – and a splatter of wall-hemmed fields and squat white cottages. Artists and craftspeople give the peninsula a bohemian soul, and the live traditional music scene in Dingle town is one of Ireland’s best.I get a taste of it all on my Collette tour, but the highlight is Slea Head Drive, which spools past beehive huts and slashes across cliff faces. Then it descends towards Coumeenoole, which stares out at the Blasket Islands.The landscape opens up like a scene from the opening credits of a movie. You expect stirring music. The harsh setting is savage but softened by cottages, and the light is ethereal.An early Christian oratory on the peninsula.Tourism IrelandSlea Head Drive slashes across cliff faces.Tourism IrelandTour manager John Lomasney, a master of craic and mine of information, provides commentary. That’s another tour advantage: explanations of sights, and a richness of background you just don’t get when travelling on your own.On some days the Dingle Peninsula must be a bleak place. The farms are green scratches in an almost barren land, and Lomasney points out the potato fields abandoned during the Great Famine of 1845. The wind is a permanently haunting presence, and the ocean heaves and groans.But today the sky is blue. This is a beautiful, pared-down landscape of knobbly hills and hidden valleys under galloping clouds. Roadside hedges tremble with fuchsia. Lapwings lurch through the grass.The beaches are Bondi in class but empty. Swimming would be a goose-pimpled endurance test, but hiking is awesome. Walking on Dingle’s wind-battered beaches makes you want to write symphonies or kiss someone’s freckled face.True, escorted tours have their downsides. We only have two nights here. I think that I’d like to walk the 197-kilometre Dingle Way. I want to spend three months in a cottage. Or become a farmer, and own a herd of long-lashed cows.But of course, I won’t do any of those things. Most of us don’t, do we? When we travel, we merely borrow dreams for a while, before heading on.THE DETAILSTOURCollette’s 10-day Countryside of the Emerald Isle small-group tour between Dublin and Ennis visits destinations such as Cashel, Cork, the Cliffs of Moher and Aran Islands, and spends two nights on the Dingle Peninsula. Departures run until October 2026 and resume in March 2027. From $5849 a person twin share including accommodation, transport, select meals and tour guides.Collette has several other tours in Ireland, although not all visit the Dingle Peninsula. Among them is a 12-day Shades of Ireland tour that visits Northern Ireland and other destinations such as Dublin, Waterford, Blarney and Galway. See gocollette.comMOREireland.comThe writer travelled as a guest of Collette.Brian Johnston seemed destined to become a travel writer: he is an Irishman born in Nigeria and raised in Switzerland, who has lived in Britain and China and now calls Australia home.From our partners