PHOTOS - Ireland's wild Atlantic coastline - slideshow
Failte Ireland, Ireland’s tourism committee, is working on plans to create a scenic drive route along the Atlantic coast to attract tourists. The new route, which will link-up existing routes, is meant to rival other global road-trip destinations.
The Independent reports that the plans for the new tourist attraction will employ already existing routes such as Slieve League sea cliffs in Donegal and the “the wilds of the west of Cork” to attract thrill-seekers for the drive.
Hoping to rival other famous spots such as California’s Pacific Coast Highway and Australia’s Great Ocean Road, the plans in development aim to provide an authentic and rugged Irish experience.
The new project, called the ‘Wild Atlantic Drive,’ will be pitched to European and American tourists as a self-drive throughout Ireland that can last for two weeks. Tourists, however, have the option of completing shorter segments of the drive for time constraints.
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"It will be for people who are looking for that rugged, authentic Irish experience, the Ireland that at one stage - before the discovery of America - was considered the end of the world, but still has that remoteness and beauty about it,” said Alex Connolly, head of communications at Failte Ireland.
While there is no definitive plan drawn up yet for this 2012 venture, The Independent believes it “will join up the most dramatic by-ways and highways from Donegal through remotest Mayo and Achill Island, into Connemara and over the Burren and on to west Cork.”
Not surprisingly, the new trail will also become a sort of “shopping aisle,” which will use markers to lure tourists into diversions of the cultural and historical kind.
Below, check out a video on the drive down from Slieve League in Donegal, one of the proposed link-up sites for the route. Would the tour attract you? What other areas should be linked up to it?
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