ashley_korda

Hello everyone!
It's my first time traveling Europe and im doing it solo i booked my tickets to Dublin July 10-26th. I would like to visit both ireland and scotland and am having trouble with my itinerary and how the best way to get around is. I really don't want to rent a car so I've heard the bus would be my beat bet... Let me give you all my thought process for itinerary and see if you all think its ridiculous!
Day 1 fly into Dublin at 830am take bus to Kilkenny explore for the day
Day 2-3 bus to Killarney spend 2 days there exploring
Day 4 back to Dublin I have a concert there on the 14th
Day 5-6 go to Galloway
Day 7-8 back to Dublin to fly to Edinburgh spend day in Edinburgh
Day 9 train to Aberdeen spend day
Day 10-11 Inverness
Day 12 Isle of sky
Day 13 Glasgow
Day 14 take ferry cairnryan-belfast spend day in Belfast
Day 15 train to Dublin spend night in Dublin
Day 16 fly to Chicago
Does this sound totally nuts? I just don't know any and all suggestions would be so helpful! Thanks

Rastaguytoday

You are shortchanging some wonderful places.

My take is that your itinerary is too busy. Edinburgh is a more than a day city, for example.

Get a map of both Ireland and Scotland and plot out your trip on them to see where you're going.

How are you going to do all of this on public transportation?

ashley_korda

I'm not sure... I would agree as I read it, it just seems like too much! If you were going to do this trip what would you do. Seriously open to anything. I also just figured ill just go where I want and maybe not have a set itinerary. But I do want to see both countries!

janisj

To be very honest - w/ 16 days I'd do <i>either</i> Scotland or Ireland. Especially since you want to rely on public transport.

Tony2phones

Yes Galloway is in Scotland. You might want to try Galway which is on the west coast of Ireland. You might also want to have a serious think about how much time in Days not Hours you will be spending on a bus using that itinerary.

sheri_lp

I did an Ireland-Scotland trip, but had a car rental for the entirety. Is there anyway you could do that? It's not so hard driving on the opposite side of the road.

historytraveler

The trip via train from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh takes about 2 1/2 hours and then you need to take the bus to wherever you plan to stay on Skye. Skye does have a bus system, but it is not tourist friendly. The train from Mallaig to Glasgow takes about 5 1/2 hours, but you have to get to Mallaig. The ferry from Armadale is easy enough but getting to Armadale by bus isn't. Personally, I think trying to include Skye is not really feasible and as some Fodorites have already stated, trying to do Ireland and Scotland is too much with just 16 days and especially trying to do via public transportation.

I have only given information on the train schedules but would assume that it would take even longer by bus.

ashley_korda

Ok people after the replys and thinking about it I'm going to elongate my trip and do 3 weeks. Everyone is right it's just to much for two weeks. So now that I have that down should I rent a car or no? And where would you all go?