Retro Camper Holiday Ireland

We have always loved campervans and moving around to stay in different locations. Ireland is perfectly suited for this kind of holiday, we have loads of campsites scattered around the island.

We often find ourselves browsing classified websites looking to buy our own campervan or even make one from an old work van but our budget is extremely tight. We always felt that a VW transporter camper would have suited us best, as most of our adventures are done around mountain areas and the beauty of this sort of camper is that it will allow you to park anywhere to stay the night.

We previously hired a campervan before from www.Lazydays.ie and we immediately got hooked but after researching the cost to buy this type of campervan, we just could not spend that kind of money on a luxury item, so we needed another plan.

(Plan B) Our Retro Tent Camper

Gina’s dad bought a tent camper in 1980 and used it for a few road trips with her and her siblings. The kids all grew up and the campervan was demoted to a corner of the garage. Gina’s dad is a man that takes great pride in his vehicles and always keeps his cars spotlessly clean and the same applied to the camper. He thinks the camper went into storage in the mid-90s and was took out in the late 2000s for a kids party for Gina. Unfortunately, at the party a few too many kids jumped on one of the beds and broke the sliding rails, we needed to fix this. The broken sliding rail and a small bit of stitching on the tarps are all that is needed to make the camper useable again. If we could fix both of these things the camper would be immaculate.

We wheeled the camper out of the garage and into the daylight, we think this was the first time it was outside in 20 years. The first thing we noticed, was that the camper body is amazingly clean. We put down the trailer legs to stabilise the body, then we erected the roof using the roller handle.

We pulled out the bed on one side and the sliding rail, after attaching, zipping and joining all the sections of the camper together now we could fully assess all the previous damage. From our initial inspection, we could see the missing aluminium slider was the only thing really stopping us from using the camper. I ordered a new slider rail from an American website that owns the “Coleman Camper” franchise but unfortunately, the supplier does not ship to Ireland, can you believe that!!!

We did a temporary fix with some metal bars and bolts to stop the bed from pivoting off the frame of the camper. As we are in the middle of a heat wave in Ireland, we didn’t even attempt to fix the damaged stitching on the tarps. We did buy new tires for €130 and a cylinder of gas for €30. So we essentially have a camper ready to use for the grand total of €160 and a few bruised knuckles.

Our Retro Camper holiday

As we are still in the middle of doing the 32 County high point challenge we decided to have a few days holidays in County Sligo and County Donegal. While we were over in the west of Ireland we may as well climb the county high points. As this was our maiden voyage with the camper, we decided to drive to Sligo first as it was only 3 hours away in the car.

Neither of us had any experience with towing another vehicle, so we took great care attempting this drive. We stopped every 35-40 minutes continuously checking to make sure everything was alright with the trailer and basically checking to see if it was still there. We eventually arrived in Sligo, now all we had to do was find a campsite. The first campsite was full, we were getting nervous now. Luckily The second campsite still had parking spaces, thankfully.

We stayed at Strandhill caravan and camping and it cost €24 per night without electricity. It was interesting trying to survive without electricity for 4 days but fun trying to figure out how to charge our devices.

Strandhill Campsite

When we arrived at Strandhill campsite the only area left to park our camper was a green area beside a carpark and apartment block, not ideal but we did have a 30-second walk to the beach. We reversed into our space (this took us about 30 manoeuvres) but eventually we got into position.

Now the real test started, erecting the tent without Gina’s dad giving me verbal instructions. Amazingly enough, I must have been listening to him when he initially showed me how to erect the tent, as I had it fully upright within 20 minutes. Now that we had a home for the night, we could start to explore the area and get some food.

The campsite is situated perfectly beside the small village and the beach. We really enjoyed walking down to the nice restaurants in the evenings while also been only 5 minutes away from our camper. Ourlittlehiker loved exploring the beach and making sand castles, this was her first time doing this, especially in 30 degrees heat. We used this campsite as a base to hike Sligo and Leitrim highest points, Truskmore, which was a 50-minute drive away.

Unfortunately, we found 2 pretty big negatives about Strandhill campsite:

1. We could not get the keys to work for the toilets and showers, they would work for the women’s toilets but not for the men’s toilets.
2. Our location on the site was maybe a poor choice and we probably didn’t have anywhere else to stay so maybe we shouldn’t complain about this but there was were noisy neighbours beside the campsite.

We only stayed in Strandhill Campsite for one night as we couldn’t stay any longer due to the noise from the apartments and carpark. After hiking Truskmore mountain we came back to the campsite and packed up the camper.

We were back on the road driving to our new destination, Donegal.

Killybegs Campsite

I would say we are a family that love keeps moving and we would generally never return to previously visited holiday locations but we stayed at this campsite in 2016 and it was amazing, so we decided to visit it again. The campsite is in Killybegs and was only 1 hour 15 minutes drive away from our current location in Sligo, so we plugged in the coordinates and started our road trip for Killybegs Donegal.

We arrived at the campsite and was immediately greeted by a familiar friendly face. The owner works at the gate and I’m 100% sure he did not recognise us but we told him that we stayed here in 2016 and we had a pleasant chat and he told us all the information about the campsite that we needed to know. We drove down to park up the camper and thankfully the campsite was very similar to what we remembered previously. The only notable difference was, that the owner had expanded slightly since we were here previously. He had added in additional parking bays further down the hill. This was a massive bonus for us as we would have more privacy.

We parked in the second lowest bay and set up the camper again. 20 minutes later we had a home again, I’m getting good at his now. We did a quick walk around the campsite to check to see were the toilets like similar in condition to our last visit. They were BETTER, the toilets at this campsite are probably the best toilets that we have ever used, anywhere. They seem to be cleaned and filled up every 30 minutes, it is a true credit to the owner how well he keeps the toilets, I think its the small things that make me happy.

The views from this campsite are simply amazing, we look right over Killybegs bay. We parked our camper in such a way to wake up looking at the views in the morning. Where parked our camper sandwiched between some very expensive campervans but thankfully we all had at least 30 meters between each other. The campsite has its own private lagoon, that has crystal clear water which felt like the perfect temperature. Killybegs campsite was pure heaven and a total gem, we loved it here.

We have planned to use Killybegs campsite as a base to explore the Slieve League cliffs and the climb Errigal Mountain.

Slieve League Cliffs Donegal

We woke up nice and early for our first morning in Killybegs campsite. We got the stove and gas working and had a nice sausage breakfast and coffee while enjoying the amazing views looking over the bay below. The peace and quiet at the campsite was pure heaven.

Slieve League was a 30-minute drive away so we were in no rush today. We decided that we were going to take a break from hiking and do some tourist sightseeing. The road below the campsite has a big sign pointing for Slive League, so we just hoped in the car and decided to follow it. This quite possibly wasn’t the brightest idea, we quickly became lost and we couldn’t get a signal on our phones to download google maps. We missed a signpost in the town of Carrick to turn left off the Wild Atlantic way road. After a small detour and us retracing our original route we eventually found the right road to Slieve League cliffs.

We arrived up at the lower car parks for Slive League cliffs, not realising that the gate that was closed over on the road and it could actually be opened and you can drive the whole way to the cliffs. We parked our car in the carpark and started our walk up the hill to Slieve League. The road walk to the attraction is about 1.5km and provides some amazing views, this is well worth doing. Be careful on this section of road as there is only a small area to stand in to allow cars past and some car drivers don’t seem to be aware of the dangers.

On our walk up to Slieve League, it became very obvious that there was an ice cream shop at the viewing point. The knowledge of ice cream spurred us on to reach the top of the road. When we reached the viewing point we all got some ice creams and admired the outstanding cliff views of Slive League. Gina and Ourlittlehiker were loving the ice cream and they disappeared very quickly with the 30-degree heat overhead.

Slieve League Cliff walk

While sitting looking at the Cliffs we saw that a lot of the other people were walking up to the top of the cliffs. The path to the top of Slieve League looked in good condition, we decided to tackle a small hike, after all, we are on a hiking holiday. The slive league cliff walk was quite easy and in a short distance up the cliffs, we had left the crowds behind and were pretty amazing panoramic views of the cliffs below.

We walked to the top of the ridge and decided it wasn’t worth going any further as we were at the highest point at this stage and the views wouldn’t have improved plus the heat was far too hot for pale Irish people. On top of the cliffs, the crowds dwindled massively and we felt that we had far more privacy to soak in the amazing sights of the oceans, wildlife and obviously the cliff.

We sat at the top and decided that we would indulge ourselves and get another ice cream for our walk back down the road, sure why not we were on holidays.

We loved the Slive League cliff walk and would highly recommend it to other holidaymakers looking for good tourist attractions in Donegal. If the weather is bad or you are not able to walk long distances just open the gate on the main road and drive up to the Slieve League Cliff viewing point. Slive League cliffs are a must-see attraction when you are visiting Donegal, just remember to download your google maps for offline viewing as the phone signal is poor in most of the rural towns of Donegal.

Hiking Errigal Mountain Donegal

Unfortunately, we left to climb Errigal mountain until our last day in Donegal and the weather changed drastically, when we reached the mountain there was a low fog hanging over half the mountain and the wind was quite strong even at the base. We hiked halfway up the mountain and decided the conditions were far too poor, so we turned around and cut our losses. We were sad at the time that we had to abandon our hike but we both felt that we made the right move and the safest move for our little family.

Our thoughts on our first Retro camper holiday

We loved our first holiday with the retro camper. We have even decided to go on a small weekend away in Kilkenny the next weekend that we have free. This is a great way to see Ireland, as most of the campsites are only €24 and the peace and quiet in these locations are better than any hotel room. We are looking forward to all our new adventures in our new (old) camper.