Many visitors to Ireland make the trip in search of heritage, tracking down ancestors in obscure villages and wandering through ancient churches, pursuing the dream of a verdant, pastoral homeland. This year, Ireland is promoting this pastime with The Gathering, a tourism initiative of some 2,500 local events and ancestral reunions calling the Irish diaspora back.

But on a visit to Ireland last summer, despite my Irish blood, my wife and I decided to do a road trip rather than a roots trip. We set out for a week of pastoral rambling on the open road — or rather, the precipitous, cliff-hugging road.

We planned two or three days each in Kerry, Connemara and Donegal, connecting scenic drives along with hikes to stretch our legs and pub stops to make them wobbly. It was an ambitious haul — Ireland is about 300 miles top to bottom — and we left each county wishing to stay for another few days.

We meandered from the seaside foodie capital of Kinsale in County Cork, up to the Atlantic Ocean inlet of Ardara in Donegal, Ireland’s most northerly county. Tracing a squiggly doodle, we swerved in and out of the splayed peninsulas of the fingered coast. Occasionally, at places like Tarbert in Kerry, we cut a straight line on a ferry.

Ireland is mired in an ongoing recession following the collapse of an economic boom, resulting in prices that may seem low to tourists. But one lasting benefit of the Celtic Tiger has been the work done to the country’s roads. Highways have been built, rural roads paved and roadway fatalities have steadily declined for years. American visitors might still find the roads narrow, twisting and backward (they drive on the left), but it doesn’t take an exceptionally intrepid traveler to thrill to the scenic drives of the West of Ireland.

We had come from Dublin, but most tourists heading to Ireland’s West will find the Shannon Airport outside Limerick and south of Galway the best entry point. Car rentals there are inexpensive, about $133 a week for a compact with manual transmission (automatics are available but cost more). Drivers accustomed to sitting on the left will surely find themselves jabbing the right-hand driver-side door a few times while reaching for the stick shift.

Our first drive was the world-famous Ring of Kerry, a green loop of 111 miles around Iveragh Peninsula. Its sheer variety of topography, from coastal peaks to inland lakes, makes it feel like a craggy playground of countless secret pathways. You wouldn’t be surprised if a hobbit lived somewhere in Killarney National Park.

The Ring of Kerry is also one of Ireland’s biggest tourist draws, with renowned spots like the Gap of Dunloe and Ladies View. Tour buses line up throughout the town of Killarney, their large rear-view mirrors making them look like giant slugs clogging up the road. But getting stuck behind one simply provides reason for a detour to a random cove or hiking trail.

Other rings in the area, as the circular driving routes are called, include the Skellig Ring at the end of the peninsula. It offers a closer view of the Skellig Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to a frighteningly steep sixth century monastery. In the same neighborhood, in the village of Waterville, is a different kind of oddity: a bronze statue of Charlie Chaplin, who frequently took holidays there.