Travel agents & planners in England and Ireland?

I suggest that you go on the England & also the Ireland Travel Forums here on RS. State the information about your party and the places you have pencilled in to visit. Also name the place ‘just west of Birmingham’ that you wish to visit for family history reasons. At the same time, keep monitoring this thread to see what turns up.

what you are thinking about is an "Incoming" agent and that's not something that really exists in England. When my younger cousin lost his job because a major retain travel agent went bust during covid, I actually suggested he should start an Incoming business but the future was too uncertain.

From the outset it is clear that you don't need to be in London, so I would say don't book flights to Heathrow! Unfortunately there are no direct flights from Chicago to Birmingham (BHX). I'm leaning to a round trip flight to Dublin with the english bit in the middle, or an outward flight with Aer Lingus to Birmingham with transfer at Dublin, and direct flight back (I'm told Dublin has US immigration before take off which can be done during the inevital hanging around so you can walk straight out at Chicago).

"About 8" could be problematic, because a rental mini-van will be 9 including driver (and won't have space for 9 lots of baggage). Hire one with driver and you are 8 maximum. Bigger vehicles can be hired with driver but are not so comfortable. And nothing hired, with or without driver, can go on the Irish Sea ferry.

Hotels depend on exactly where, but in either country start playing around in www.booking.com to see what actually exists.

Our basic plan is to fly from O'Hare to Dublin, and spend the first week there; specifically, around the Maynooth area, with maybe a day trip or two to places like Hill of Tara. Then, we'd fly from Dublin to Birmingham for Week Two. Regarding Birmingham, we're especially interested in the area within the Dudley-Rowley Regis-Halesown-Cradley area. Again, with a possible day trip somewhere out a little farther.

We'd like to rent a house for the entire group instead of hotel rooms.

If it's hard to find travel agents who can plan things like this on the Europe-side, would U.S. travel agents be able to take this on? I've never used a travel agent and assumed we'd be planning the trip from the ground up. But a voting member of our group insisted we should explore the agent option first.

the british market for british tourism is pretty much set up for self service on the internet. Property owners will list with specialist booking agents and since the massive majority of customers will be from britain they won't bother to try very hard/spend any money to attract from elsewhere. But you are missing the obvious first step from USA and that is AirBnB (who are effectively a travel agent so fulfill what was voted for!). Try searching for homes suitable for 8 in Dudley. You won't get many because it's not really a tourist area. But you only have to go a few miles west and things pick up. Try searching for Kidderminster or Bridgnorth - but make sure they are actually in the area and not just the system trying to fill the page! Bear in mind that rooms are usually smaller in britain so maybe ask for space for 10!

Also try www.cottages.com and www.booking.com

Ordinary agents for the residential market will deal in properties for minimum length stays, typically 6 months.

We worked with McKinlay-Kidd, based in Edinburgh, for our trip to Ireland last year. They primarily work in Scotland and Ireland. They have pre-set itineraries or you can work with them, as we did, to create a bespoke itinerary. We told them our interests and the types of hotels/b&bs we were looking for. They created an initial itinerary and we tweaked it (for example, we choose to spend 4 nights in Killarney as a base for day trips rather than the 2 nights they’d originally proposed). We also added excursions to their initial itinerary and substituted a B&B in Galway in lieu of the hotel they originally proposed. It was the best of both worlds as we could provide a lot of input but they did most of the heavy lifting. We found them really easy to work with and their fee is very reasonable. We’ll definitely work with them again in the future. Just google the name and you’ll find their website.

The "voting member" should be assigned the task of finding a travel agent. If that's your mom, she may need to learn that if she's not doing the planning, she can't tell the person who is doing the planning how to do it. Do travel agents even exist in the US anymore except to book cruises? You could also search for the thread on this forum about using AI to plan trips. You would need to verify all its suggestions, but it might provide you with a starting framework. If you're not planning to drive and want to use public transportation, you may want to figure out your transportation before you book lodging.

remember that if a travel agent isn't intimately familiar with an area they will be using the same internet as you could.

And they will only suggest properties on which they can make a commission - either from the owner or you. Higher price, more commission. So may not save you any money and may likely cost more.

I used to work the very good train line linking Kidderminster - Stourbridge Junction ( an ancestor used to work in Stourbridge on brass, not glass ) - Lye - Cradley Heath - Old Hill - Rowley Regis which are in that order, on the way to Birmingham Snow Hill via West Bromwich and the Jewelry Quarter. Fast frequent comfortable trains.

Dudley is the only outlier, it being on the Birmingham New Street to Wolverhampton Line.

The towns you list are all working class areas and not touristic. You may be able to find a house large enough for 8 or 9 in Kidderminster.

In all honesty with the advent of the internet and websites, Airbnb, Vrbo, et al, the concept of a travel agent is forgotten. I was born when Truman was in office and stopped using a travel agent well over 20 years ago.

I’m a loyal Virgin Atlantic customer. Easy peasy overnight flight from ( hell on earth ) LAX to Heathrow (LHR).

Also flown from LAX to Orlando. Stayed with friends for a few nights then was driven to Miami to board a chartered flight to Havana. This was in 2012.

I book my own accommodations and fly to London nearly every year. Favorite city on the planet.

Check Marriot, Residence Inns, Premier Inn and Travelodge websites for UK. Residence Inns, Radisson, Hilton and Travelodge for Eire.

Hi scare-boron,

The agent mentioned above (McKinlay-Kidd) sounds like a good resource. I've mentioned in other threads that I have some experience with Toronto-based DH Tours. They're UK & Ireland specialists who serve as a broker for certain tour operators but also do bespoke planning. This page is worth a read and you may want to contact them to see if they could arrange your type of trip (even though I know you're not looking for a tour) or offer recommendations. https://dhgrouptours.com/coach-tours-rail-tours/custom-travel/

Best of luck!

There are many travels agents in the U.S. who do more than just book cruises. It all boils down to just how much money you want to spend for their services. We used two in Naples, FL when we lived there. Mad Travel and Preferred Travel. The first one helped us with our travels in Ireland.

If you're feeling overwhelmed, maybe you should delegate responsibility among the good planners in the family. One for accommodation, one for rental cars (make this one of the drivers), one for flights, one for family history and one for general sightseeing. The days of using a travel agent for a small group trip like this are over. As someone else suggested, you could work with a tour company to do a custom tour, which I expect would cost twice as much or more. Former RS guide Sarah Murdoch's company offers custom tours. https://adventureswithsarah.net/ondemand-tours/

It's not my area, but there must be specialist private group tour companies in the Birmingham (England) area who can put that kind of thing together.
In my part of the world (the Lake District/South West Scotland) we have at least two- Dumfries Tours and Solway Tours who do exactly that. Certainly Dumfries Tours will give accommodation recommendations. They are anything but cheap, and of course only cover Scotland and the Border Region.
But there must be someone similar in the Midlands.