Finnish blogger in Lahinch

Hundreds of thousands of people in Scandinavia, and elsewhere around the world, are set to read all about County Clare and the Wild Atlantic Way.

Finnish travel blogger, Satu Vänskä-Westgarth is taking on the “challenge of her lifetime” – cycling the entire Wild Atlantic Way, or some 2,500 kms along Ireland’s western seaboard over a five-week period.

Satu arrived in Lahinch on Tuesday and will spend the next few days exploring and then blogging about what the area has to offer. She will then travel along the coast to Kilkee before continuing to the South West.

Tourism Ireland invited Satu to undertake the marathon cycle, to experience our newest visitor attraction and then inspire her readers and followers to come and discover it for themselves. A self-confessed “total newbie when it comes to bike touring or biking”, she has named her adventure, Ride Wild 2014.

Her plan is to cycle approximately 100 kms each day, five days a week, and then take the weekends off to rest. She aims to visit almost every corner of the West of Ireland, arriving in Kinsale, County Cork, in early September. She was joined by a Norwegian friend for the first two weeks; her brother and an English friend will join her for the final few weeks of the journey.

Satu is documenting her five-week journey, with daily updates on her Destination Unknown: www.todestinationunknown.com/ride-wild-2014 travel-blog, as well as on the popular online magazine, Skimbaco Lifestyle: www.skimbacolifestyle.com.

Tourism Ireland has set up a dedicated page on its website, Ireland.com:www.ireland.com/en-no/what-is-available/cycling/cycle-routes/articles/ride-wild-2014, about Satu’s adventure.

Readers can also follow Satu’s journey on her social media profiles<twitter.com/SatuVW, as well as on Tourism Ireland’s Facebook: www.facebook.com/DiscoverIrelandNordics  page and Twitter: twitter.com/TInordics stream (using hashtag #RideWild2014).

Aileen Hickey, Tourism Ireland’s manager in the Nordic Region, said, “Satu’s five-week cycle is a really effective way of engaging with people through social media, sparking their curiosity about the Wild Atlantic Way.”