The West of Ireland from Shannon Airport

tbheil · Newbie

The West of Ireland from Shannon Airport

Michele Erdvig · Host

Thomas,

Welcome to my forum. You will indeed find changes have taken place in Ireland since you were there 31 years ago! B&Bs still exist and they are better than ever. However, you will be paying more than $10 per night. Take a look at my article How Much Does a Trip to Ireland Cost.

What we do here on the forum is help people fine-tune their itinerary. Since only you know your arrival and departure city, what you want to see and do and your travel style - you will need to give more input and post a tentative itinerary for us to be able to help. There are a lot of "canned" itineraries on the internet but not all of them are particularly useful. It just depends on your circumstances.

It sounds like you are in the beginning stages of planning. Have you perused any guidebooks yet or made up a "must see " list? The more educated you become about Ireland the better your trip will be.

Michele

tbheil · Newbie

My wife and I are volunteers on building health care into African communities. We will be coming from an intense two week trip, where cushy accomodations are non-existent. We scheduled this trip in the hope that we'd get a bit of decompression time, so stress is out of the equation for us. We're steering clear of 3 and 4 hour drives, for example. We know we can't see much in only 6 days. so we'd rather see some great vistas and make fewer stops than cram too much aoiligh into too small a bag, if you know what I mean

The only things that are immovable at this time are:

1) Arrival from Nairobi to London Heathrow - September 28 at 6:45 AM (no plans yet on how to get to Shannon).

2) Return trip LHR to WAS - October 4 at 10:10 AM

3) My wife wants to spend 1 night in Conna Cork County with some folks we know.

4) I want to go to the Aran Islands.

5) If it's impossible to do both, then after 29 years of marriage, guess who will win out.

6) Because of our occupation, we live on a budget and like good values when we can get them.

Our interests are mostly to see some of the beauty of the country. Ocean buffeted shore, gardens, architecture and ruins are the things we most often look for in our travels. We like all things historical, and despise all things touristy (no Blarney Stone kissing, e.g.). I would have selected a trip to Clare County and Galway, and I would love to find specific reading material to help us pick a course of travel.

I am reviewing your other website links and find them very very helpful. One question, do you expect that there are still many of the B&B's that aren't listed on line that we may find along our way, or is most everything bookable on the internet? On my last trip I liked the aspect of our trip that we could determine our lodging "on the go" and not have to commit to too much structure.

I truly appreciate your help and your expertise.

Thanks for your help.

Tom

tony2phones · Guru

Why not fly into Cork from London rather than into Shannon and then do the Arc up to and across from Galway to Dublin fro the flight out.

Sample itinerary might be 2 days Cork area, 1 night Killarney. Drive round Dingle and have a couple of nights in Clare before flying out from Shannon.

Or Fly into Shannon, 2 nights Galway (Inc Arans Trip), 2 nights Dublin and 2 nights Cork, flying out of Cork. (can be done by public transport and tours)

Six days is not long but you can get to see a reasonable amount.

There are several forums available, this being one of the more friendly ones Trip Advisor has lots of local input, and Fodor's might be another. Have a look through some of the itineraries and trip reports which are running.

Michele Erdvig · Host

Tom,

Since you are traveling in the shoulder season you are fine with choosing a B&Bs on the wing. There are some that do not have an online presence but those are rare. Most places have a website nowadays.

I like Tony's idea of flying into Cork first. It will give you time to decompress and visit with your friends. I would be inclined to go to Galway for the rest of the trip. If you need to be nearby an airport for your early departure on Oct 4 save a day for that.

Aer Arann flies to the islands and might make better use of your time than the ferry.

Are you in Africa right now or do you have access to a library with a good travel section? The library is always my first stop for reading material. The DK travel guides have a good mix of pictures, maps, drawings and text. The biggies like Fodor's and Frommer's will give a general overview but many times their info is out of date. My guidebook is up to date but doesn't have the pretty color photos. There is plenty of info out there.

Cork:

http://www.visitcorkcounty.com/default.aspx

http://www.discoverireland.ie/Places-To-Go/Cork

Galway:

http://www.discoverireland.ie/Places-To-Go/Galway

http://www.galwaytourism.ie/

Michele

tony2phones · Guru

Aer Lingus Fly Heathrow Cork, Shannon and Dublin best prices are usually in the 8 to 6 week before flight window.

http://www.aerlingus.com/en-GB/home/index.jsp Baggage restrictions do apply.

Rail and Sail may work out cheaper but takes an awful lot longer especially on a limited time scale.

LHR-ORK 28th Sep @ 09.30 £95 + baggage

DUB-LHR 4th Oct @ 07.30 E42 + baggage

Prices as of now 9pm 30th August,

-- Edited by tony2phones on Thursday 30th of August 2012 03:03:29 PM

tbheil · Newbie

This information is very helpful! I am planning the second route recommended earlier. London to Cork, and back to London via Dublin. In your experience what's the most frugal way of making the trip from and to London, besides swimming? Ferry from Fishguard to Rosslair? Air? And do you have any good resources on them? I've been using Orbitz and Opodo, and I get prices like 92 Euros for a round trip to Dublin, and 450 Euros for an outbound flight to Cork and a return from Dublin to LHR.

tbheil · Newbie

What are three things I MUST do while in Dublin?

Michele Erdvig · Host

Whatever you want. wink My three would be

Kilmainham Gaol
Trinity College: the Book of Kells and Long Room Library
Hop on Hop off bus tour