Ireland · Donegal · Premium route guide
Wild Atlantic Way — Donegal (Sligo → Malin Head → Donegal)
626 kilometres of the northernmost Wild Atlantic Way — Sliabh Liag's sea cliffs, the Rosses, Bloody Foreland, Fanad Head and Malin Head at the very top of Ireland. The road is quiet, the weather is Atlantic, and the villages take bikers as they come. Full loop on the map, GPX for your GPS, rider-vetted stays.
- Distance
- 625.8 km
- Peak elevation
- 264 m
- Elevation gain
- 3,633 m
- Best months
- Apr–Oct
The route
A loop from Sligo north into Donegal via Bundoran and Donegal town, out to Killybegs and the Slieve League cliffs, through Ardara and the Rosses to Bunbeg, Bloody Foreland, Dunfanaghy and Letterkenny, up to Fanad Head and around Inishowen to Malin Head, then back south. Pins are motorcycle-friendly stays other riders have vetted.
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Works with Garmin, TomTom, BMW Navigator, Calimoto, Kurviger, komoot, MyRouteApp. Import as a track to ride the exact line. Road data from OpenStreetMap (ODbL); elevation from SRTM.
Track vs. route — how to load this into your GPS
What you're downloading is a GPX track — a dense, road-snapped breadcrumb of the exact line, with elevation on every point. It's not a GPX route (a short list of turn waypoints your device re-plans between). Tracks preserve our road choice; routes let the device pick its own way and can send you down a boring motorway shortcut.
How to use it on your navigator:
- BMW Navigator / Garmin Zumo / zūmo XT: import as a track, then Convert to Route (or Trip Planner → new trip from track) if you want turn-by-turn prompts. Keep Recalculation off so it stays on our line.
- TomTom Rider: import the GPX in MyDrive — it loads as a track / itinerary. Enable Follow the exact route so it doesn't re-plan.
- Calimoto: open the GPX and choose Import as tour — Calimoto follows the track line.
- Kurviger / komoot / MyRouteApp: open the GPX and pick Import as track to keep the road choice. Only choose Import as route if you want the app to re-plan for your bike profile.
- Google Maps / Apple Maps: these don't read GPX. Use the map on this page for turn cues, or import the file into a GPX-capable app first.
Rule of thumb: if your device asks "track or route?", pick track to ride our exact line — pick route only if you want the device to re-plan.
Elevation profile
From ~-2 m at the base to 264 m at the top — 3,633 m of total climbing across the route.
Three days minimum, four if you want to see Sliabh Liag and Malin Head properly. Donegal is the least-populated county in Ireland and the roads reflect that — some of it is empty single-track through peat bogs, some is second-gear boreens along cliffs. It's the Irish coast at its wildest.
The obvious pattern: night 1 Killybegs (for Sliabh Liag at dawn), night 2 Dunfanaghy (for Bloody Foreland sunset), night 3 Malin Head or Buncrana. Weather often forces changes — Donegal gets Atlantic fronts fast, and "tomorrow will be better" is not always true. Ride to the weather, not the plan.
The road, honestly
Donegal riding is not about corner speed. It's about landscape, silence and the fact that you can pull over anywhere and hear only sea. The single-track sections in the Rosses and around Fanad have blind crests every couple of hundred metres — commit slowly, cover the brakes, and expect a sheep.
The two big-ticket bits are Sliabh Liag (Slieve League) — sea cliffs almost twice as high as the Cliffs of Moher, on a quiet single-track road with a viewpoint car park at the end — and Malin Head, the northernmost point of the island, with a spectacular signal tower and the light of the whole northern Atlantic sky.
Weather, fuel and rain-day plans
The riding window is April through October. Even in July, expect at least one wet day in three. Fuel is easy in Sligo, Donegal town, Killybegs, Letterkenny and Buncrana; sparser on the Rosses / Bloody Foreland stretch and on Inishowen. Card acceptance is universal.
Rain-day plans: Glenveagh National Park (glacial valley, castle, one long road), the Ulster American Folk Park, or a sit-down in Dick Mack's in Dingle... except that's the southern route. In Donegal it's Nancy's in Ardara, or Kitty Kelly's in Killybegs.
The Malin Head loop is worth an afternoon
Inishowen is the peninsula that ends at Malin Head, and the loop around it is 100 km of quiet coastal riding — Fort Dunree, Grianán of Aileach (Iron Age ring fort with a 360° view), and the signal tower at Banba's Crown at the very tip. Do it in a half-day from Buncrana or Letterkenny.
What to see along the way
- Sliabh Liag / Slieve League cliffs — Sea cliffs almost 600 m high — nearly twice the Cliffs of Moher, and 5% of the crowds.
- Killybegs — Ireland's biggest fishing port. Overnight, fish supper, morning coffee before Sliabh Liag.
- The Rosses — Bog-and-lake landscape with a maze of single-track roads. Slow. Empty. The Irish west at its most Irish.
- Bloody Foreland — Named for the red glow on the rocks at sunset — real, and worth timing a stop for.
- Fanad Head lighthouse — One of the most-photographed lighthouses in Ireland, at the tip of the Fanad peninsula.
- Malin Head (Banba's Crown) — Northernmost point of the island of Ireland. Signal tower, ÉIRE stones on the cliff, and the North Atlantic in every direction.
Rent a bike
Rent a motorcycle or scooter for Wild Atlantic Way — Donegal (Sligo → Malin Head → Donegal)
Flying in? Pick up a bike near the start of the route. We've pre-filled the pick-up city with Donegal town / Letterkenny — change it if you're basing elsewhere.
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Rider-verified stays within 30 km
Automatically selected by proximity to the traced route — no editorial cherry-picking. Sorted by how close they are to the road.
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