Hello ,
A friend and I will be taking a 15 day tour done mostly by rail and foot around Ireland in May 2016.
We plan to land in Dublin and travel immediately to Belfast and stay 2 days there . Then take the train to Westport, Galway and continue in a counter clockwise movement around Ireland and back to Dublin . We enjoy small quaint towns with culture and charm . We also enjoy Farmers Markets , little shops and small out of the way places . We look forward to fish and chips and inexpensive 2-3 star B&B's . We would like to do this fairly low-budget.
For those of you who live in or have been to Ireland what small towns ect would you recommend to us ?
Also any ideas on where to hike or bicycle to once in a town . We are strong and healthy and would love to see some of the wonderful things Ireland has to offer that can't be found in a tour guide book .
Thanks so much !
P.s. We plan to use a EuRail pass. I am trying to remember if this is the best and easiest way to travel by rail in Ireland . My previous trip was sometimes held up in either train or subway stations by automatic doors that would not let you pass unless you had a ticket to pass through a machine. I cannot remember if that was Ireland,England or France.thanks again.
Posted by
Eastern Iowa, USA
8050 posts
I would do some more research on travel by train and in particular a railpass. Travel by train in Ireland is limited, mostly trains go from Dublin to a destination, and back, but less from town to town, meaning the easiest route would usually be through Dublin. Figure a pass will cost you $40-50 per day of travel.
Consider buses, I cannot vouch for this site.... http://www.buseireann.ie/inner.php?id=232 , but they came up in a quick search. There are also, or used to be, some Hop-On, Hop-Off type tour companies that hit the main tourist towns and smaller places along the route.
As for specific sights, we enjoyed the Kinsale area, Kilkenny, Waterford, but long ago enough my information would not be very useful.
Oh, if you want to impress the locals, describe your trip as an anti-clockwise.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Thank you for your reply !
With the EuroRail pass I can travel 9 days for a total of about $550 for 2 people . I was not aware that there is a daily pass that could be purchased .
Thanks again for your tips on where to go . I will look those places up.
:) thank you
Posted by
Oregon
650 posts
Not anti-clockwise, widdershins.
Posted by
Eastern Iowa, USA
8050 posts
I was just breaking down the pass into a daily cost. Based on what you are saying, you are looking at the Ireland Saver Pass for two people with 9 days of travel in a month. A saver pass does drop your daily cost per travel day to about $30-35 a day per person.
I guess I would try to lay out some trips between towns. My concern would be if trains only travel on certain days or once per day for example, or if what should be a quick trip turns into hours due to schedule. A bus pass could be cheaper and travel more direct. For example, on the Bus Eireann site previously mentioned, you can get tourist passes for 20 euro or less per travel day.
Posted by
RIchmond, BC,Canada
932 posts
I did a bus/rail trip about a dozen years ago, and you can definitely find a cheaper pass than the EuroRail pass! I can't recall what the name of it is, and I think you have to purchase it from the national bus company, but it allows X number of days travel within a certain number of days. I seem to recall I had ten days of travel within two weeks so I spent my first four days in Dublin, and my last four in Belfast. This way I didn't have to worry about running out of travel days. You will find that it is far easier to base yourself out of a town for three or four days each than to trying to get to small towns by bus (because the train won't go there). Also, when you don't have a car you will have to probably take a tour bus out to the sights you want to see because public transit won't get you there. I can tell you that I used Dublin, Killarney, Kinsale (best fish and chips down on the dock!), Kilkenny, Galway, and Belfast as towns to base myself out of, and took several guided day trips from most of these places. Remember, that any day you have to get on a train or bus to get from one place to the next you will essentially lose a day to joining a guided tour from any town as most of them go first thing in the morning. I did this trip in three weeks, not two, so you will likely find you will have to cut some things off of your list. When you are at the mercy of the train and bus schedules you need to plan thoroughly or you will find yourself spending too much time trying to get from one place to the next. Always get an early start so you have as much time as possible when you get to your next destination.