Fanad has no town to speak of, only villages strung along its two coasts. Coming up from Letterkenny on the eastern shore you pass Ramelton with its old quayside warehouses, Rathmullen where the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell departed Ireland forever in 1607, Clondalon, Anny, and finally Portsalon, the main beach resort with its long pale curve of Ballymastocker beach. The western side, facing Mulroy Bay, runs through Milford, Kerrykeel, and Rosnakill. The total population was about seven hundred in 2016. The 1835 surveyor John O'Donovan recorded the locals' own ambiguity about where Fanad began: people in Killygarvan and Tully who considered themselves civilised denied being from Fanaid at all. The border is half geography, half identity, half argument.

Fanad Head Lighthouse is reached by a scenic winding lane. The first light, in 1817, had limited range; a more powerful one was installed in 1886. The three lighthouse keepers' cottages, once held by the men who tended the lamps, are now available for self-catering. A few miles east lies a quieter wonder: the Great Pollet Sea Arch, an offshore islet whose grass-topped span is, by local claim, Ireland's largest natural arch. Follow the narrow signed lane north of Doagh Beg village, scramble down a hillside, and the arch reveals itself only at the last minute. The whole peninsula rewards this kind of arrival. You cannot see the best of it from the road. You have to walk the last hundred metres yourself.

On the Lough Swilly shore stands the ivy-wreathed ruin of Killydonnell Friary, founded in 1471 for the Franciscans and suppressed in 1603 during the Tudor conquest of Donegal. The graveyard kept being used long after the friars left. Further north, the line of artillery batteries built to guard Lough Swilly against Napoleonic invasion still stand in various conditions. One has been converted to a private residence, in surprisingly good repair. Several others were retained well into the twentieth century in case, as the Wikivoyage author drily puts it, the sly Napoleon was biding his time. The forts at Leenan and Dunree, both visible across the lough, formed part of the Treaty Ports, held by the UK until October 1938 and then transferred to the Irish Defence Forces.

Portsalon Golf Club is a links course at the north end of Portsalon beach, six thousand one hundred and seventy-two yards off the white tees, par seventy-two. Otway, a nine-hole course near the junction of R247 and R268, is older and quieter. South across Sheephaven Bay, the Rosapenna Hotel runs three links courses, the Old Tom Morris, Sandy Hills, and St Patrick's. The Wild Atlantic Way, the 2,500-kilometre coastal route from Malin Head to Kinsale, runs the length of Fanad on its signposted route south. The Harry Blaney Bridge, opened in 2009, finally connected Fanad westwards to the Rosguill Peninsula across the outlet of Mulroy Bay. Before the bridge the journey was a slow, scenic detour through Letterkenny. Now it is a fast scenic crossing.

You need a car to explore Fanad, and the roads are narrow, twisty, and unevenly maintained. This is not a complaint. It is the only honest preparation. The peninsula is one of the few corners of western Europe where signal coverage still drops out for kilometres at a time, and where the rhythm of travel is set by the size of the next hedge-lined turn rather than the speed limit. You will pass farmsteads, sheep, the occasional church, and lookout points where the lough opens beneath you. Stop. Walk. Eat at the Blue Goat in Ramelton or Narrow Quarter in Kerrykeel. The peninsula's pace is unhurried because it has to be. Anyone who comes to Fanad expecting efficiency leaves having missed it.