Need advice on 3 weeks in July 2010

I haven't been everywhere on your itinerary, but overall, I think it looks pretty good if you are a high energy traveller and your 9-year old is easy going. That's a awful lot to do on your first day, though. Remember, you might be feeling jet lagged. However, if you or your child are tired, you can always cut short your time in the Burren.

Yep-we are young and fit and energetic. 9 year old is super smart and very laid back! He is a great traveler and can usually handle the craziest schedule in stride! It can't be worse than his schedule now in 4th grade-ski club, cub scouts, trumpet lessons, school, swimming etc. : )

Hubby and I both agree that if need be... at any time; we can just scap a day of sightseeing and hang out all day. First day can be whatever we feel up to. We plan to start changing our sleep schedule about 10 days before we go. You know...get up really early and go to bed early. I hope that will help my son adjust quicker.

One thing I can say is that unless you MUST fly into and out of one city or the other, you might consider flying into Shannon and out of Dublin. Since you're renting a car, it's easier to get used to driving on the other side in the Shannon area, since it's out in the country, not in a big city. Then you could plan to drop your car a day or so early and see Dublin before you leave.

Also, check your driving times between locations, particularly for your day trips. Driving is notoriously slow in Ireland, particularly on the small roads you'll be using much of the time. I use www.viamichelin.com and add about 25% to their estimated driving times.

Hi, Kim! Sounds exciting!

That's a lot of room changes/checking in / checking out, etc. I would think about splitting your trip into 3 1-week stays at self-catering cottages, or a good B&B.

This will give you a great place to base out of, will make things very easy if you change plans (you don't have to change hotels, etc), and it's very nice to have a place to call "home" with all that traveling.

Plus - staying at the same home base each night will give you a chance to meet the locals. If you love history, they will LOVE to talk about it.

Even if you stay a couple nights at other places, the weekly rates can be so much cheaper it's worth just keeping both rooms. We did this last summer. (Based out of a lovely cottage in Westport.)

Hope that helps! Folks on here will tell you there's a lot of great cottages and B&B's in Ireland for fantastic prices right now!

PS - Ditto on the drive times - whatever you're expecting, double it.

Thanks for the info. I felt the same as I was doing the itinerary but I checked all the drive times on aaireland.com. I kept almost all of them around 3 hours and included adding the recommended 25% onto the suggested drive times. Originally, we were going to book our first week at a timeshare but when I started calculating drive times out and back to the timeshare it was WAY more driving than moving place to place. Also, flying into Shannon and out of Dublin also added more driving since we are basically doing a coastal circuit route. This plan has us checking in/out 11 times in 3 weeks. Do you all think that is still too much? If it is...what would you cut out? Thanks again for the support and guidance.

Hi Kim,
Check out irelandexpert.com for an Ireland only travel advice site. When you are in Westport, be sure to drive up by Delphi--very beautiful. Are you visiting Connemara? We thought it one of the best areas of Ireland, especially Lake Nafooey. Also, do a day trip or possibly even an overnight to the Aran Islands. Clifden is a nice base, a little more convenient for Connemara and the Aran Islands. The Bunratty Castle banquet is a lot of fun, even though it is touristy. We also enjoyed the Gap of Dunloe-boat return trip out of Killarney. Are you going to Donegal? We haven't been there yet--it will be our next trip--but it is supposed to be beautiful.

Another plug for self-catering. We haven't gone yet (mid-May through June), but have been able to book 3 or 4 night self-catering rather than the whole 7 nights. Not all websites will allow this, but if you can get in touch with the owners (homeaway.com tends to be more owner owned rather than company owned), all but 1 (out of 7) was willing to do shorter term - even in June - July might be trickier, but it never hurts to ask - the tourism was way down in Ireland last year, so they may be more flexible. I'd especially look at the area around Kenmare (Berea one way, Killarney park the other) and maybe Dingle. Three nights gives you 2 days of full sightseeing (we're doing 4 nights, but all of our sightseeing and travel is by bicycle).

Kim, your intinerary IS ambitious, but it wouldn't bother me to move around that much. As you said, you can always scrap a planned day and just hang out if you get tired of moving.

After more reading-we decided to cut out Clonakilty completely, and add another day to Kenamre. We also will take one day from Kilkenny and add it to Cahir. We also want to stay in Donegal instead of Sligo. These changes will make it a bit less driving. That will make it so we are staying each place atleast 2 nights and a few of them we will stay 3 or 4. I would like to self cater....we do that every summer in the Adirondacks. It is easy and nice to be able to cook your own food but it seems like it is sooooo much more driving than going from place to place. We would like to have this trip be an intro trip and then go back to revisit whatever area we like the best on our next trip. The best thing about hubby and I both being school teachers...JUNE, JULY, AUGUST together as a family!!!

I like your idea of changing from Sligo to Donegal town. We had planned to stay in Sligo, but had to cancel due to an accident on our trip. We did go through Sligo, but we didn't like the looks of it because it was a larger city, and we were happy to have the 1 night in Donegal town instead, and wished we could have stayed in Donegal 1 or 2 nights longer. Dan

I really like the info I am reading about Donegal and the Northwest coast! We still plan to stop in Sligo and catch the sites around there but Donegal seems like a nice place to stay. Does anyone have an estimate on the amount of time to allow for Dunluce Castle, Giants Causeway and the Rope Bridge? These are on our list of top things to do while in Ireland so we want to plan accordingly.