ggushurs

I'm planning a backpacking trip to Ireland for two months. I'm starting in Dublin and plan on just going from there from what the locals tell me to see. I'm bringing $7000 in spending money and also plan on going to London for 3 days and Paris for a week during those two months. What all should I see in Ireland?

I'm also curious about what to do for my phone plan. Should I just buy a prepay phone SIM card and use it there or do most people use the international plan provided by their carrier?

Any tips or opinions would be much appreciated!!!

Thank you!!!

Tony2phones

Phone.
Depends on usage Calls and Texts or Data, bearing in mind you will have access to free wifi in many places?
Depends on your carriers charges? Tesco mobile (Ireland) do a €15 package that gives you free calls and texts in the republic and fairly cheap roaming charges (taken from the €15 credit) You can buy a limited data package from the €15 for €10 leaving €5 for international calls @ 2cent/min and roaming etc? You would be roaming in Northern Ireland your London and Paris legs.
If you have an unlocked phone then it might pay to get a seperate sim for Paris?

Ireland. No point telling you what I would do as my tastes, activities and age are probably a lot different. We need to know what you want to do, where you want to see before we can give the best advice. Time of year might also help.

ggushurs

I'm under 25 and I'm travelling alone. I really would like to see more of the outdoors and nature areas. I was wondering if the trip to see Giant's Causeway would be worth it.

Tony2phones

The whole Antrim area is worth it http://www.causewaycoastandglens.com/ made more popular now by Game of Thrones followers.

To be honest I would be hard pressed to say where around the coastal areas wouldn't be worth a visit. With the time you have you could probably get round the coastal route even by public transport and still have time left.

I would suggest Hostel accommodation for both price and socialising.

bvlenci

I hope you're not planning to bring your money in cash or travelers checques. When you exchange cash or travelers cheques, you always pay a heavy penalty in a poor exchange rate and in various fees. Not only that, it's getting hard to find places that will exchange money, and almost no one will accept travelers cheques in payment anymore.

Deposit that money somewhere and use a debit card to withdraw cash as you need it.

The EU has mandated the elimination of inter-EU roaming fees in the not too distant future, and already they've drastically reduced the cost of roaming. Most providers have reasonable roaming fees, but you often have to sign up for a plan, free or cheap, to get those low fees.

For a short trip, and if you're not using data services, your provider's roaming plan would often be sufficient. However, for two months it would certainly be more advantageous to have a European SIM card. Whether it would pay to get another one for France would depend on how long you'll be there and how much you'll use it, especially if you're using it for data.

You need an unlocked quad-band GSM phone for use in Europe. If you don't have one, you can get one on EBay or Amazon. I've seen cheap phones for talk and text only in the $30 range, and you can get a decent Android phone for under $100. The Android phone is very useful for its mapping facility.

In the UK, including Northern Ireland, there's a very useful app called Traveline, which has all the bus and train schedules. It can tell you how to get from A to B, even including how long you'll have to wait for the bus. Google Maps also now has a public transportation feature, which even gives you walking directions to the bus stop. I've used both of these in Scotland and England, but not (so far) in Ireland.