Solo trip to Northern Ireland

When you hear the term 'Solo Trip' first question which comes in most of us' mind is ‘Why?’. I mean, why you want to go for a trip all by yourself when you can enjoy that place with your cool, happening travel partner(s). And that quench to find that answer forced me to go for my first (and could be the last) Solo Trip. 
So how I planned the trip, how I reached there, how those planning turned out and did I get my answer from that trip – if you want to know then continue reading, otherwise you know.. you can go back to your "valuable" work. 

@Whiterocks beach | Shot with Nikon D5100

There are few steps (self-taught though) you need to follow for such trips. Here it goes.

     
Planning : Well this step has to be part and parcel of your trip. Being a novice in travelling, that too in a different country, it takes some amount of planning and courage to take the final decision. I’ll come to the “courage” part later on. So for now let’s stick to the Planning & start without further due.

1.  There are lot of travel agencies which conduct excursions around different parts of Northern Ireland but my first goal was to not to take any one of them and visit the places all by myself by public transport. So first, I checked for the transport connectivity around the places I wanted to visit. After surfing through internet, I understood that if I want to see all those places either I have to drive by myself or I have to take any tour agency and as both of them were out of my plate, I decided to cut down the number of places and settle down for a few which were Giant’s Causeway, Bushmill Distillery, Whiterocks beach and if time permits then Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. So my travel plan was something like this –

·    Dublin (Aircoach Bus) – Belfast (Have some breakfast and coffee)

·    Belfast Great Victoria Street railway station – Portrush (By rail if you  didn’t get the mode of transport).

·     Portursh (Ulster bus) – Giant’s Causeway.

·    Giant’s Causeway (same bus in opposite direction) – Whiterocks beach (my B&B).

·    Next morning: Whiterocks beach (same bus) - Carrick-a-Rede Rope bridge.

·    While coming back from Rope Bridge, visit the Bushmill Distillery

·   Then from Portrush – Belfast - Dublin

Sounds pretty decent plan, doesn’t it? Let me assure you here, your

plan is going to be screwed up somehow in some manner. Hence, comes my

next step which is - Flexibility.

Flexibility: There were not once, not twice, but 3 times when I had to change my so called ‘plan’ due to something without any option.

·    First one was due to heavy snowfall in Ireland, whole country got shut down for 3 days including that weekend when I planned my travel. But thanks to my host @Airbnb he promptly agreed to change my travel date for upcoming week.

·    Second one happened when I reached Giant’s Causeway. Though it was a cloudy day still there wasn’t any forecast (you HAVE to check weather forecast if you’re planning for a photography trip) for heavy rain. The moment I reached Causeway and started exploring the area, out of no-where it just started pouring down and chucked out my whole plan of shooting long-exposure of ‘World Heritage site’.

·    Third one is a mixture of good and bad. Next morning I had plan to visit the Rope Bridge along with Bushmills Distillery but rain continued from the last night and my host suggested that with this kind of rain and wind they may not open the bridge at all. So with heavy heart, I thought to explore the Whiterocks beach which was just at the backside of my stay. So without wasting any time, I packed my camera gear and started exploring the beach. And boy oh boy.. Within few moments I found one small hidden beach with black and white rocks lying everywhere and a direct view to Dunluce castle and most importantly, not a single person in that area but me (By the way, I’m a bit introvert when I’m with my camera – just FYI).

Hidden beach just for me I guess

What have I experienced in this journey?

There were two aspects of this whole jaunt. First one was as the title

suggests Solo travel for first time and the second one was Photography.

From the photography perspective, it wasn’t that great to be honest. I

mean I have captured a few good pictures but those are not ‘Keeper’. I

wanted to shoot that unique structure of Causeway with some setting sun in

the background. But thanks to the rain, I couldn’t even take out my camera.

Got few shots only from that beach but needless to say I wasn't

disappointed at all from this fact. 

But when it comes to travelling, I have learned so many things from this trip

I can’t explain them all. Even though I couldn’t visit all those places which I

planned to but just sitting on a beach in front of mighty Atlantic gave me

lots of perspective. I heard this term somewhere that Travelling changes

people in a way that you couldn’t imagine. And I think I got to experience

that saying that day.

Only snap of Causeway from my action camera.

I know I have bored you all enough so coming to Conclusion.

There are a few quirks I have to mention which I have felt during this

journey. First thing is that if you are going to do solo travelling for the first

time there will be a point when you’ll feel like giving up. In my case, that

point was day before my travel date and I can’t explain how many times I

had thought of cancelling that trip but you have to overcome that step by

yourself with all the courage you have. I know I’m not a professional

traveller who can ask you to trust my words but trust me on this – go for a

solo travel once and it’ll be a life-long experience for you.

Second point which I think is mandatory to discuss. You’ll be lonely if you go

for solo and there is no denying in that. But if you’re willing to embrace that

part by hook or by crook you’ll find a different version of yourself. You can

bring your kindle/book if you’re a book-worm or you can keep the latest

episode of the series which you’re watching so that those things can give you

some company when you do not feel like travelling or exploring places.

Having said these downsides of solo travel, there are lots of upside in there

too. Your foolproof plan may go all the way wrong, you may not get good

images, you may not be able to visit all the places but still the amount of

experience you’ll gather that’ll be unmatched. With that said, signing off for

now. Ciao.

P.S. All the images are taken by me.

@Giant Causeway coastal trail. Forgot the name of this shoe like stone 

Shot with Nikon D5100 at Whiterocks beach