Wicklow Way 6 Day Walking Holiday

Your Wicklow week begins here. Settle in slowly.

We collect you from Dublin airport or the city and transfer you south into the mountains, arriving in Laragh in time for a relaxed afternoon. Laragh is a real Wicklow village — three pubs, a handful of shops, a church on the corner, and the Glendalough valley opening a few hundred metres up the road. Your B&B is waiting, your welcome pack is on the table, and the rest of the day is yours.

Use the afternoon to walk the short loop up to the Lower Lake at Glendalough — twenty minutes on foot, no boots required, just an easy introduction to the landscape you'll be hiking for the next four days. Come back through the village to Lynham's or the Wicklow Heather for dinner. Tomorrow the walking begins properly.

After breakfast we drive you south over the mountain road to Glenmalure — one of Ireland's wildest glacial valleys, a long deep cleft in the granite where the Avonmore River runs clear and the slopes are almost vertical on either side. Your walk begins at the head of the valley and climbs immediately out of the shelter, up through a pine forest and onto the open flank of Mullacor.

This is the quiet Wicklow. For two hours you're on open mountain with nothing but wind, distance and the sound of your own boots — the kind of walking that makes the hills feel enormous. The ridge is broad and well-waymarked, with views north to the ridges you'll be crossing later in the week and east toward the Irish Sea in good visibility.

The descent to Glendalough is one of the great arrival moments in Irish hiking. Forest gives way, the Upper Lake appears below, then the Lower Lake, and finally the round tower of the monastic city rising above the trees. You walk the last kilometre through the ruins themselves — twelve centuries of Irish history underfoot — before dropping into Laragh and your B&B. Go back to the monastic site after dinner when the day-visitors have left. The light at that hour is something you'll remember.

Today you walk north on the Wicklow Way itself, leaving from your own doorstep in Laragh. The path climbs steadily out of the valley through oak and birch woodland before breaking onto the open flank of Paddock Hill — heather moorland, granite outcrops, and big sky in every direction.

This stretch is the quiet heart of the Wicklow Mountains — the part walkers talk about when they come home. You'll cross Oldbridge and skirt the edge of Lough Dan below you to the west, its dark waters sitting in their own private bowl of mountain. The descent into Roundwood winds through birch and bracken, with the village appearing as you come round the shoulder of the last hill.

Roundwood claims to be Ireland's highest village — 240 m above sea level, with a decent pub and a famous bakery. We drive you back to Laragh for the night, so you sleep in the same bed and wake to the same Glendalough view you've been getting used to.

The day most people mark on the calendar. A circular walk from Glendalough — straight up the waterfall at Poulanass, onto the Spinc ridge above the Upper Lake, along the long wooden boardwalk that traces the cliff edge for nearly two kilometres, and then back down the Miners' Road past the ruined miners' village at the head of the valley.

The Spinc boardwalk is one of the most photographed trails in Ireland. With the valley falling away to your left — the Upper Lake several hundred metres straight down, the monastic city shrinking to matchstick ruins further out — and the open sky above, it is the kind of walk that makes you stop every few minutes to look. Do that. It earns it.

The descent along the Miners' Road is gentle and cooling, following the valley floor back past the lake with the cliff line you've just walked now towering overhead. You'll be back in Laragh for a late lunch, with the rest of the afternoon free for a short stroll, a pint in the garden, or a nap with the window open. Tomorrow is the big one.

Your last full walking day, and the biggest — about 19 km and a proper mountain climb. We drive you back to Roundwood, where you pick the Wicklow Way up again and head north across the plateau. The ascent to Djouce Mountain (725 m) is steady and open, the ground improving as you climb, with Lough Tay — the Guinness Lake — dropping into view below you as you reach the final ridge.

Djouce's summit is the moment the whole trip comes together. Dublin Bay opens up to the north, the Sugar Loaf stands sharp in the middle distance, Bray Head juts into the sea beyond, and somewhere in the ridges behind you is the Glendalough valley where you've been sleeping all week. Pause here. Have a biscuit. You earned this.

The descent is long but gentle — off Djouce onto White Hill, down the famous long boardwalk across the blanket bog, past Powerscourt Waterfall (Ireland's tallest), and into Crone Wood as the oak and ash close in around you. Enniskerry village appears at the end of the forest track, and your last night's B&B is a few minutes' walk away. A proper finish.

Boots off. Ireland earned.

A leisurely final morning in Enniskerry — no rush, no transfers until you're ready. The village has a great coffee shop for a long breakfast and a wander round Powerscourt Estate is a twenty-minute walk away if you have the time. When you're set, we transfer you back to Dublin airport or the city centre.

Most walkers spend the last hour going back over Day 4's boardwalk and Day 5's summit moment, already making plans for the Dingle Way or the Kerry Way next year. We'll be here when you're ready.