Need help for a 6 day itinerary please!

My personal preference would be to spend 3 nights in 2 places. Two nights really only gives you one full day at that place and with taking the bus the partial days are even shorter. Since you aren't planning on doing the Ring of Kerry, I would suggest eliminating Killarney. By the way, you make me feel better about my own late planning. I just finished booking rooms for my trip which starts August 25.

Thank you kclyons.

I agree with you and will skip staying at Killarney and will do 3 nights Cork and 3 in Galway.

Are there any convenient surrounding towns to get off the bus and stay rather than paying big prices in the two major towns?

Thanks,
mj

Hello,

Well, I am kinda surprised I didn't hear back from most travel gurus! Maybe everyone is traveling now? Last year I asked some questions and got a great itinerary (which I followed and was great) and other help from djp-syd of Brisbane and acraven of DC and Chani of Tel Aviv.
Where is everybody? I'm on my own RS friends! :(
I do appreciate the one comment I got though. It was a good advice.

Thank you,
mj

For such a limited amount of time I think this would be too much if you are travelling by bus. After leaving Dublin pick just two places to spend your time, and take the train instead of the bus. It's easier and more comfortable, and quicker. I did most of my travel by train, resorting to bus only when the train didn't go where I wanted to. It takes about four and a half hours to get from Dublin to Killarney by train so if you left Dublin as early as possible you could still get there by lunch time and possibly find a half day tour you could do. Skip Cork as the Killarney area has more interesting options for great day tours (Dingle, Ring of Kerry, Gap of Dunloe etc). From Killarney take the train to Galway. I actually did this trip in two parts, stopping in Kilkenny on the way, as it is a bit of a long trip, but no matter how you do it, by train or bus, you are going to use up a day getting to Galway from Killarney, the train is a whole lot easier. If you want to steal a day from Dublin (spend two days instead of three), then you could do the same and take the train from Killarney to Kilkenny and spend one night there, and continue on to Galway the next day. Doing this in reverse order may make sense once you look at the time tables for the train. Galway is only about two and a half hours from Dublin by train. Remember, if you stay two nights you will only have one whole day to do a tour so it is best to minimize the number of towns you stop in as on the days you are travelling between towns you likely won't be able to join a guided day tour as you won't get to your next destination in time. So, look at the day tours you are interested in and see what time they leave and figure out if you can make it work while travelling by bus or train. You may want to consider travelling in the evening to your next destination so that you wake up in the town where you want to get a day tour from. So, if you do a tour out of Killarney that gets back to town around 4 to 5pm would you be able to catch a train to Galway instead of spending another night in Killarney? This would be hectic, but it might be a way to make the most of your time.

Thank you Anita. You have some good ideas since I am concerned with bus schedules. I'll check trains.

I had decided to skip Kilkenny and go directly to Cork & spend two nights in Cork, then one night in Killarney and 3 nights Galway since I like to go directly back to Dublin airport at the end for the flight to Edinburgh. I am skipping Ring of Kerry this time due to shortage of time. But I will look at your suggestion more carefully in the morning to see..

I feel we need some real rest in Dublin because we are arriving with a red eye flight from Hong Kong so the first day there we are going to be quite tired!

Thank again,
mj