Tired from a long day on the road, we pulled into the KOA in Kerrville, Texas—just looking for a place to crash. What we found was bone-dry ground that laughed in the face of tent pegs and had us wondering how we'd ever sleep. But laughter led to luck, and a kind-hearted upgrade to a simple wooden cabin turned our dusty misadventure into one of the most memorable overnights of our journey. That evening, we dined high above the Guadalupe River, watching the sun dip low over the cliffs—blissfully unaware that the same river would be making headlines for very different reasons 13 years later.

There are places in the world that feel less like destinations and more like encounters—and the Giant’s Causeway is one of them. Sixteen years after my first visit, I returned on a wet St Stephen’s Day to find its magic not only unchanged but deepened. The basalt columns glistened beneath the drizzle, the Atlantic roared against the cliffs, and the legend of Finn McCool felt alive in every ripple of wind along the Antrim Coast.

With winter’s quiet and the coastline’s wild beauty all around, this was the Causeway at its most intimate—a place where ancient myth and raw nature meet. From the windswept trail to the rope bridge at Carrick-a-Rede and a warming whisky at Old Bushmills Distillery, this corner of Northern Ireland remains a landscape of stories, storms and unforgettable moments.