Causeway Coast

Choosing a base on the Causeway Coast comes down to a simple question: do you want a town around you in the evening, or do you want silence and a sea view? Both are available within a fifteen-minute drive of each other, which is one of the real advantages of a stretch of coast this compact. You can stay in a village of four hundred people and still be at a proper restaurant in twenty minutes.

Portrush is the busiest and best-connected option. It has the railway station, the largest concentration of bars and restaurants, two beaches inside the town boundary and Royal Portrush on its doorstep. That makes it the obvious pick for golfers, for families who want ice cream and amusements within walking distance, and for anyone arriving without a car. The trade-off is noise on summer weekends and parking that requires patience.

Portstewart offers much the same convenience at a lower volume, with a Victorian promenade, a two-mile strand and a more grown-up feel. Bushmills is the choice if the Giant's Causeway and the distillery are your priorities, since both are within a couple of miles, and the village keeps a genuine local pub culture. Portballintrae is quieter again, a small crescent bay with a short walk to Bushfoot beach and Dunluce Castle visible along the cliffs.

Further east, Ballycastle is the value option and the gateway to Rathlin Island and the Glens of Antrim, with a decent range of hotels and guest houses and prices noticeably below the western resorts. Ballintoy and Whitepark Bay suit walkers above all else.

Book early for May, when the North West 200 races fill every bed for miles, and for any week in which a major golf event is running. Outside those peaks, September and early October usually deliver the best combination of weather, availability and price on the whole coast.

The headline sights are genuinely worth the queue, but the quieter ones between them are what make a week here work.

• The Giant's Causeway - Northern Ireland's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, where more than 40,000 interlocking basalt columns step down into the sea. The National Trust visitor centre at 44 Causeway Road charges around 16 pounds for adults and 8 pounds for children, with family tickets near 40 pounds and free entry for members; the coastline itself is open from dawn to dusk.
• Old Bushmills Distillery - the holder of a distilling licence granted in 1608, still producing whiskey in the village two miles inland from the stones. Tours run through the mash house and warehouses and finish with a tasting.
• Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge - a swaying span strung across a chasm to a small fishing island, first rigged by salmon fishermen. Timed tickets are essential in summer and the crossing closes in high wind.
• Dunluce Castle - a gaunt medieval ruin balanced on a basalt stack between Portrush and Bushmills, with sea caves running underneath it and a lost seventeenth-century town buried in the field behind.
• The Dark Hedges - an avenue of beeches planted in the eighteenth century near Armoy, familiar to Game of Thrones viewers as the Kingsroad. Park at the nearby estate rather than on the road itself.
• Portstewart Strand - two miles of firm sand backed by high dunes and managed by the National Trust, one of the few beaches in the UK you can still drive onto.
• Rathlin Island - reached by ferry from Ballycastle harbour, a low L-shaped island with an upside-down lighthouse, a huge seabird colony and a resident population of a few hundred.
• Royal Portrush Golf Club - host of The Open in 2019 and again in 2025, and the reason a good share of the coast's visitors arrive at all. Neighbouring Portstewart and Castlerock offer links golf with easier tee sheets.

North Antrim eats well, and increasingly it eats local. Dulse, a dried purple seaweed gathered from the rocks, is still sold by the bag at Ballycastle's market and at the Ould Lammas Fair, where it is traditionally paired with yellowman, a brittle honeycomb toffee made to a closely guarded recipe. Local seafood means crab and lobster from the small harbours, langoustines landed nearby, and hake or turbot on better menus.

In Portrush, the Ramore complex above the harbour has anchored the town's eating scene for decades, running from the informal Ramore Wine Bar to the Harbour Bistro and the Asian-leaning Neptune and Prawn, all of them busy and none of them taking bookings in the usual way. Babushka, the little cafe out on the harbour wall, does coffee and traybakes with the best view in town.

Portstewart has Morelli's, an Italian-Irish ice cream parlour on the promenade run by the same family for well over a century, and Harry's Shack, a timber cabin on the National Trust strand that grills fish over charcoal and has become one of the most sought-after tables on the coast. Book well ahead.

Bushmills naturally revolves around whiskey. The Bushmills Inn serves seriously good local produce beside a peat fire, and the distillery's own tasting rooms are the place to work out whether you prefer the ten-year-old single malt or the Black Bush blend. In Ballycastle, Ursa Minor Bakehouse has built a national reputation on sourdough and pastries, and Broughgammon Farm on the edge of town sells rose veal, cabrito goat and seasonal produce direct from the yard. Farmers markets in Ballycastle and Coleraine are the best single stop for cheese, soda bread and jam to take back to a cottage or a tent.

Camping on the Causeway Coast is rewarding and occasionally humbling. The land is exposed volcanic upland running straight into the open Atlantic, with nothing between north Antrim and Iceland, so wind is the defining condition rather than rain. Pitches on the seaward side of a site will be beautiful and loud; a spot with a hedge or an earth bank behind it will make for a far better night's sleep. Bring proper pegs, guy out everything, and treat a lightweight festival tent as unsuitable here at any time of year.

Ground conditions vary sharply. The council parks and the commercial sites along the coast tend to have hard standings and well-drained grass, while farm sites inland sit on heavier soil that holds water after a wet spell. Sea fog can roll in and out within an hour, and a bright morning frequently turns to horizontal drizzle by lunchtime, so a decent windbreak, a stove that works in a breeze and a spare set of dry clothes matter more than they would in southern England.

Wild camping is not a legal right in Northern Ireland. Unlike Scotland, there is no general access legislation, and all land here is either privately owned, farmed or held by the National Trust and the Forest Service, all of whom prohibit informal overnight camping. Pitching on dunes, beaches or clifftop paths risks a fine and does real damage to fragile marram systems. The practical answer is either a formal site or, occasionally, a farmer's permission asked for in person.

May through September is the workable season, and most sites open around Easter and close in late September or October. May and June are usually the driest months and bring near-endless daylight in midsummer, with light lingering past ten in the evening. July and August are warmest but need booking weeks ahead, especially around the Ould Lammas Fair. September delivers the warmest sea, the emptiest pitches and the best value of the year.