Dull to diamonds in Dublin, Ireland

Often, a place may not be quite like you had imagined prior to visiting. Most of the time, you’re way off and it exceeds expectations in unconventional ways. But a place can also be quite dull in comparison to what you may have anticipated. Every place in the world is beautiful and wonderful in its own way. When I visited Dublin, Ireland, I was a bit let down to be honest. I’m not entirely sure if the Irish stigma of merry little pubs and all-night drinking is shared throughout the world, like it is in America, but Dublin didn’t quite fit the bill for me. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that that was how it is in Ireland all of the time, but I was expecting a bit more of the natural Irish heritage and culture to be apparent in Dublin.

However, Dublin is a modern city and it shares many of the same likenesses of that of other modern cities. In most cities, you have the mass transportation, the corporate convenience stores, and the tourist shops. But typically you can search down back alleys or in rural local neighborhoods and find more authentic culture. In Dublin, I searched, found a bit, but mostly I struck out. I was searching for the authentic friendly experience that I had heard about, with little pubs in little towns, surrounded by farms and sheep, and of course, the brilliant beauty of the Emerald Isle, all of which are much harder to come by in a modern city like Dublin.

So I made the best of Dublin for a few days and then set off. Sometimes you just have to escape and get lost by driving, hiking, or whatever, to find the true spirit of a destination. I rented a car and drove south out of Dublin, and within minutes of the last city building, I began to find the lush beauty that I craved from Ireland. Yellow flora against rolling green hills, and loads of sheep that littered the streets around various sharp turns upon skinny haphazard country roads.

I was searching for emeralds, but I found something even better, I found diamonds. I drove and drove for a week, touring the countryside and staying in tiny little villages. Some of which seemed to have been free of a single tourist for months. I stayed in family-owned inns, shopped in boutique stores, and drank with farmers and sheep-herders. It was a brilliant time that I will never forget, and I look forward to experiencing again sometime. It’s important to not only step off the beaten path, but to run full-force in any whimsical direction, here and there, and every which way. It’s okay to get lost while traveling – that’s sort of the point; let yourself go and be guided, and molded, along the way. I hope you will remember this the next time your travels feel a bit stale – it’s likely that only a few turns or a few miles away there’s something waiting for you, that’s better than you had imagined.

(This piece was written by Brandon Elijah Scott and originally published on HostelsClubBlog.com)