Need Help planning family trip to England, Ireland, Scotland

For flights, I would fly into London, take the train to Scotland, fly to Dublin and fly home from Dublin. Or you could reverse it. Really cheap flights between Dublin and Scotland.

I would start with guidebooks to see what things might interest you and go from there. There is lots of options....

Hi Liz, Stephanie gave a good suggestion there about flying into London and out of Dublin. Another option would be to fly into Dublin from your east coast airport and fly home from there also, in my experience the flights are cheaper when you fly in and out of the same airport. It cheap and easy to get from Dublin to London with a budget airline. Also there is US pre-clearance on your way home. Heathrow Airport in London is an overwhelming nightmare a lot of the time, whereas Dublin airport is small and friendly and only has two terminals, 1 minute walk from each other!
Its really great you are considering visiting 3 countries in one trip, it'll be a lot to cover, but it is possible to get the main sights in.
Don't forget the North of Ireland also!
Stephen MccPhilemy
Tour-Guide

Three countries is really a lot for two weeks. I am currently planning a return trip to Ireland (last there in 2002) and have a hard time coming up with a two week itinerary for the Republic of Ireland alone! You are probably going to be mostly in the bigger cities, which is less conducive to the off the beaten path "not touristy" style of travel. If you can cut it back to England and Scotland, could avoid getting on a plane and make it more manageable. Personally I will go to extreme lenths to avoid getting on a plane within Europe. Even in England, you almost have to go east-west from London or north-south unless you want to keep an especially brisk pace over two weeks—in that country alone. Dublin is a nice town but not remotely all that Ireland is about—real fun is in smaller towns.

I'm an American living in Waterville on the Ring of Kerry. I fly from Baltimore-Washington International (it's just easiest for storing my car & family is nearby). Let me give you and many of the others reading this a bit of news about flying in to Ireland!!!

There are MANY Airports!! Who knew?? Not me, a few years ago!! Everyone in America seems to fly in and out of Dublin or Shannon. I do not agree with this for many reasons - and personally I think the airlines push those two destinations (for reasons of their own). You can fly to Cork (a big, fantastic airport) or Knock, or Kerry (Farranfore), or many other small airports.

Here's what I do: I fly British Air from BWI to London Heathrow, have a layover, eat lunch, and then fly to Cork. I love being sort-of close to Kerry (where I live) compared to Dublin or Shannon. I love Cork City. And the Cork Airport Hotel is a wonderful place, a stone's throw from the airport front door, to get over initial jet-lag or spend your last night. If you're on a budget, there's a city bus from Cork City to the Airport & hotel. A cab, I would imagine, would be VERY cheap anyway as it's only a few miles from downtown. NOTE: Sometimes the flight is not bookable on line. I call the operator (British Airways has ridiculous wait times on the telephone line) and say "I know I can fly to Cork via Heathrow but it's not letting me do it on line" and they book it without charging me the operator fee. The Heathrow to Cork leg is on an Aer Lingus plane, but it books through as a BA flight. I'm betting you could do this same thing from New Jersey, Boston, etc.

An alternative, and good if you want to primarily spend time in the West, is this: I've flown Richmond to Heathrow on British Air (I love BA - everything is free and United once canceled a flight due to weather 8 1/2 hours before flying NY to BWI on a beautiful day so I'll never trust them, again!). Once landing in Heathrow there is a shuttle bus to Luton Airport or Stansted Airports and I flew Ryan Air to Kerry. If you don't know about Ryan Air, you have to pay to check a bag but hey! My flight next week from Kerry to Stansted is 10 euros - I'll gladly pay to check my bag for ten euros ticket! (Ryan Air also charges a small fee to convert the euros to american dollars if you're using an American credit card. A scam, but they ARE trying to make a profit!).

Another thing to know is their are many ferries to and from Ireland!! There is ferry service from Dublin to Holyhead (Wales) then hop on the train to England or wherever. I've done that at least 10 times. That's just one ferry choice - you can do other routes! The best site I've ever seen is Seat61.com -- a train freak that created a great site on rail travel in Europe. He explains the ferry system perfectly, with links to the various ferries and trains! I book through his links all the time....

An important thing to note is that most of the complaints by Irish tourists to the Tourist Board are for rental cars (called "car hire" here). Know this: if you're buying insurance from another website for your car, they might not take it when you get to the desk. PLEASE talk to a representative when you book your car. Write her name down - she will in all likelihood give you bad information, and you will have to write a complaint letter and hound them for a refund on additional insurance when you get back. I practically lived here for a year before I got engaged, I was here renting a car, often. And STILL I got "stung" by car insurance when I arrived twice.

Regarding car insurance - just like Austin, Texas (where I used to live) there is a tax on car rentals at the airport, here. I look wherever I travel now to see if there is an "in-town" car rental office. Sometimes the taxi is $15 from the airport, but you save $80 on tax on the car not renting at the airport. Think about it!

It's alot to see in two weeks! Consider skipping a country and returning again! Enjoy!