Ireland Trip Day Zero

This Leprauchan started the whole trip

Several months ago, our daughter-in-law (whose maiden name incidentally, is Shannon Sullivan) called up to ask if we wanted to take a trip to Ireland with her and our son Aaron. Travel. Family. Two of our favorite things. We’re in!!

Below is some trip information we gleaned. If you prefer to skip down to Day One, you won’t miss much.

We are not tour people, so we began researching the trip right away. We also talked to a lot of people who had already been there. Here are the things we discovered so far.
Flights- The Aer Lingus fly drive packages look great if you have the patience to wait for a 2-3 months before to make arrangements. The only drawback is being limited to the bed and breakfasts that participate in the voucher system. We ended up using frequent flyer miles on Delta, so it was not an issue. Aer Lingus is probably your

out tour route through ireland

best deal if you aren’t using frequent flyers.

Car Rental- Important Point: The car insurance provided by Visa and American Express has two or three countries excluded. And Ireland is one of them!! Therefore, make sure you get an “all-inclusive” price with collision damage waiver (CDW) and theft included. We got a great offer from American Airlines. This is great until you find out that it will cost an additional $150/week for insurance.
The best deal for car rental is through the Aer Lingus website. They imply it is for those that fly with them, but actually, you can get the discount by just following the car rental links.
Guidebooks and Websites- The http://www.IrelandExpert.com website is great and has a question and answer forum where Pat answers questions within 24 hours. We liked it so much, we bought her book Ireland 101 and found it gave a very different perspective than other guidebooks and it was well worth the price.
The plan: We plan to spend a few days in Dublin and then do a circle past the Jameson distillery and up the west coast. We will stay in a bed and breakfast until we run out of things to do and then move on. Who knows how far we will get. The farthest north we can possibly make it will be Galway.
OK, no more until we actually get going.