adding Ireland to the 22day UK trip

I should add we'll probably try to do it without a car, as we are under 25 and it gets expensive for us.

Is it critical that you fly in and out of London? It would make a lot more sense time-wise if you could either fly into or out of Dublin. (We flew into London and flew out of Dublin last summer. Flying out of Dublin was so much easier than flying out of Heathrow....I'd definitely do it that way again.)

I found very inexpensive flights out of London (7pounds to 30euros) directly to the home nearest airport (stuttgart, germany) so that was my main reason. I did some searching for cheap flights from Dublin and did not find any. I did find some flights to Munich, so either way I'll have to pay for train/bus to London or from Munich home... :-/

I guess the thing to figure out is how much time it will take you to get to and from Ireland, and whether it is worth it to you. If you have to get back to London for your flight home, and you take the ferry and train from Dublin, you will end up spending the better part of a day in transportation. If you are already in the west of England when you go to Ireland and take the fast ferry, that wouldn't be too bad. Otherwise, you might spend a lot of time on transport both ways. I know the flights are pretty quick, but you still have to spend time in the airports, etc. I guess the more days you have to tack on to your trip, the better this plan would be. If you are only going to add 4 days, and have to spend 2 of them travelling, it might not be worth it?

You're right. After some research, I decided to reverse the trip, so I will fly INTO Dublin to start the trip, and leave from London. So hmm...