Our first trip outside of the States

>>What suggestions do y'all have for first time travelers out of the United States?<<

Suggestions for what . . . air travel, or budget, or anything in particular?

>>Do we need special permission for a vacation of this length?<<

What country are you from it makes a difference. American? - then no 'special'permission required.

>>What are must sees and those places we can go without seeing<<

OK-- I'll be gentle here You are talking about two countries that each have hundreds (thousands) of things to see/do. That is sort of like asking "We are going to the USA. What should we see and what isn't worth it?"

Do you have a guidebook(s)? Do you have a 'wish list'? Do you plan on driving or taking public transport. When are you going?

We can help you focus/refine a plan . . .but coming up w/ a basic idea is really your job.

...and even on a more basic level...please look at a map of the UK/Ireland.

You are off to a very good start by choosing only to visit GB and Ireland and not trying to run all over Europe. Start with a couple of good guide books, perhaps Fodors for lots of good basic information and Eyewitness, for beautiful small pictures of famous sights. Against many other opinions, I also like Rick Steves for practical stuff like opening times of museums, etc., though you can also get that here.

Look at some Irish travel and English travel web sites that have pictures and stories to help you narrow choices. Think about what you like to do: visit pubs and bars, visit museums, both, etc. Get a big map. Look to see where things are located. When you decide on some of the things you want to see and places you want to go, people here can tell you how best to do it. Have fun planning.

If you are U.S. citizens, the "special permission" you will need is a U.S. passport.

Read some UK and Ireland trip reports right here at Fodors. Browse Barnes & Noble for guidebooks for both countries. (Allows you to look at all possibilities without having to buy. Then when you do buy one, you'll know which ones you like best.)

Don't wait on the passports. Just go ahead and get them now.

What time of year are you going? Make sure you're aware of weather during the time you're going and plan accordingly.

Good luck!

Definitely read as much as you can to see what sort of things you are interested in - trip reports on this forum, guidebooks, other travel forums like Lonely Planet, SlowTrav, Frommers etc, talk to people who have travelled. The more informed you are the more likely you are to enjoy the trip.

I'd suggest a week in London. There is a huge amount of things to see but only you know if you want to see museums, or shop, or go to theatre, or do guided walks, visit castles/palaces, parks etc.

If you haven't already decided, I'd suggest going in May/June/July for better weather and more things happening.

This website has everything you need to know about transport in London www.tfl.gov.uk

Also a ton of info, including accommodation, on www.londontown.com

Kay

Good advice above to start reading guide books and get a good map. When is your trip?

For 1 month I would recommend a week in London as well. There are loads of things to see and do in London as well as great day trips. To get you started on London take a look at London Walks www.walks.com for an idea of what is around, they do great affordable day trips as well.

For the other 3 weeks your choices are endless - depends what you are interested in and what time of year you are visiting. If its the summer you may want to go to the seaside, or Cornwall. York is lovely anytime of year.

Do you want to include Scotland? Edinburgh is worth at least 3 days.

Transportation is important as well. You may think about flying into say Dublin, then travelling the counryside (do you plan to drive or rely on public transport) and flying from Shannon to Edinburgh, spend some time there, then train to York for a couple of days and then ending up in London for the final week and flying home from there. Try to fly into one place and out of another to save the cost and time of backtracking to London.

As you can see there are lots of variables to think about and plans to be made. Start by figuring out what you want to see and then come back and let us help you with the logistics etc.

The one mistake alot of newbies make is trying to see too much, you dont want to spend your whole vacation in a plane, train or automobile - so make sure you budget time to actually see the places you are going to. I rarely stay somewhere 1 night as that doesnt give me a full day - so try to keep to 2-3 night stays, more in larger cities like London and Edinburgh. Dublin probably only warrants 3 nights.

Hope this helps!

affordabletours.com many good safe tours for a first timer
Had a great time there with Globus when a newbie.No clue about your budget but if you elect to self guide here are a few sites.

ricksteves.com
eurocheapo.com
seat61.com
londontown.com

cheapoair.com cheap flight into LON work your way around from there cheaply like a local on regional train.

travel.state.gov for entry
just a passport all you need for up to 3 months.

Good luck!

I think y'all should see the Cliffs of Moher (Ireland) and the Cliffs of Dover (England).

Mmmmm...Cliffs of Dover. Exciting. Not.

Kay

A week in London?

ZZZzzzzzz

When are you going? The Olympics are in London this summer, for example, and it will be very hard and expensive to find a place to stay for a couple of weeks before and then during the Olympics. Edinburgh is great during the Festival in August, but it is really hard to find a place to stay. Summer is the rainy season in the West Highlands, the most scenic part of Scotland. Have you looked up the weather in Ireland?

You also need to think about how you are going to get around. Driving in Ireland is hard and expensive because you have to pay for insurance and then more insurance. If you are under 25, you may find it impossible to rent a car anyway. So it will be train or bus. Which goes to what you want to see?

How many of you are there? Many rooms, esp in hotels in the UK are quite small, so you may need two if there are more than two sisters. Hostels with dormitory rooms might be a better bet. In London, you might try to find an apartment for a week or two and use it as a base for visiting pretty much all of southeastern England. Ditto Edinburgh or Glasgow for Scotland. I understand that Dublin is not a great place for a base to do daytrips, but I may be wrong. Search on here among the many threads that tell about doing this: apartments London.

In most towns there will be a tourist information center that can book you a room in a B&B or hotel for a small fee. It is often in the train station or nearby. This is good because you don't have to know in advance where you want to go.

Make a list of the normal sites you want to see as people recommend above, but leave yourself plenty of time just to walk around and hang out and meet other young people. You are young, and you will go back.

Finally, risks. You absolutely cannot afford to use your phone the way you do here, especially texting. Read about what you need to do to make it cheaper, but even cheaper is expensive. You need to be careful about leaving stuff around. It is very safe, but crooks go where tourists go. Finally, don't be too smily with strangers. People don't do that abroad as much, and they may think you are coming on to them. Have fun! Come back and ask more questions after you have done some reading. How you get and handle money and how you get transportation passes are two good subjects you will want to know about.

>>>Mmmmm...Cliffs of Dover. Exciting. Not.<<<

Depends on the person. The first time I saw them from the ferry between Boulogne to Dover I was thrilled. They had seen the Romans arrive and leave. Vikings. Normans. The Spanish Armada. Francis Drake and every famous seafarer of England had passed by them. And my father built and rebuilt radar stations atop the cliffs in the Second World War. Yes... I was thrilled.

Are you going by train or car or bus or a combo?

The train system in the UK is great in that there are tons of trains going everywhere all the time - less so in Ireland but there the bus system is fantastic at picking up the gaps from the few mainline rail services.

So consider the train and bus IMO in both and especially by train in the UK - check out these great sites IMO for tons of great info on train travel - www.nationalrail.co.uk -schedules and fares for all trains in the UK - many long-distance trains offer good discounts if you book online far ahead of time or even once in Britain say the day before or so - full fare can be real pricey - and www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

And if traveling enough check out the various BritRail Passes - there is a senior one in first class for folks 60 and over I believe - a nice thing about a railpass is that you can just show up and hop on any train anytime -and compared to fully flexible hop on at will fares just a few trips can make the pass pay. But remember that serious discounts available if you want to lock yourself into an often non-changeable non-refundable train weeks in advance as those seats are often sold in limited numbers and can go quickly.

It would also help us make recommendations if you give us into on

1) your interests - history, art, fine dining, shopping???
2) your budget category - do you stay at motel 6 and eat at applebees? Do you stay at Ritz Carltons and eat at 3* restaurants?

Once you have done some basic work on sights (WHY ar eyou going) the above will help us give you specifi recommendations?

Don't drink the water

I have found the Cliffs of Dover to be very very exciting as well as Dover Castle, which lies right under the cliffs and to me is one of the finest-looking castles, at least from the outside, in all of Europe.

But yes to glimpse the cliffs from the Channel as your boat nears or departs from Dover is a memorable sight that will have you singing that 'cliffs of Dover' song from WW2 era (I believe)

but clamboring right up on top of the cliffs is a real treat as well - there is a steep stepped largely as I recall path right from the main Dover ferry terminal right up to the top of the cliffs. And once up top you can explore the many tunnels and small forts that were hewn out of the cliffs, especially for WW2 defenses. I do not know if these tunnels are still open to the public as they were when I was there long ago but with a flashlight you could at that time go seemingly forever into the darkness. and there were remains from military days as well - detritus.

So yes the Cliffs of Dover can be exciting whether glimpsed from afar or up close IME.

>>Browse Barnes & Noble for guidebooks for both countries. (Allows you to look at all possibilities without having to buy. Then when you do buy one, you'll know which ones you like best.)<<

Check your local library, too. Mine has a good selection of travel guides; we checked out quite a few, read them, and ended up buying a Frommer's England guide.

Lee Ann

I second Lee Ann's idea about getting guidebooks out of the library -- depending on what they have, you can get a wide variety, and it won't matter much if they're old, or heavy. (When it comes time to buy a guidebook to take with you, new and lightweight really matter!)

Apart from each looking at the books, and coming up with lists of the things that you are each dying to see, I suggest coming up with lists of the kinds of experiences you hope to have. When push comes to shove, I usually find that I've got a buried picture in my mind of wanting to be in a bustling Asian market or wanting to climb a hill in a rural landscape or etc.

Even used book stores are a good source of guidebooks... things like the Tower of London or Buckingham Palace are still there! Hours and admission prices may change bot those are easily checked online. I've also bought all kinds of Michelin Green Guides on eBay for 25% of the cover price... the sights themselves don't change even if the book is 10 years old! :^)

I have xeroxed from libraries a few pages from various guides on places I want lots of differing views on - and my library sells old guides in their used book sales for a buck and as ParisAmsterdam wisely says used guides are still valuable. As a previous writer of such guides and one who studied many guides I can say that most guidebooks are only editing for things like times of opening and prices as P-Amsterdam says and the year is changed but examining old guides makes it clear that most rarely change significant content.

@janisj: Sorry I probably should have been a little more specific. We are in Washington state in the US. We understand that there are too many sights that are must sees, but we will be in Ireland with our parents for a week, and then the two of us will be heading to Great Britain for three weeks. I know a week in Ireland is a short time to take in all of the major stuff, but what are the things we absolutely cannot leave either Ireland or Great Britain without seeing. As far as the suggestions on things, I guess I am wondering if we decide to stay in a hostel, are those safe, and how do we go about choosing one. If we stay in a hotel, what is the safest area for two ladies. Best places to eat, and it doesnt matter if it is a whole in the wall, as long as the food is good. We have purchased travel guides, but those can be overwhelming, so I wanted to ask people who have made the journey, or live there. Locals are always able to give a better feel for the area then a book, at least for me.

We are traveling between the September 1st and October 1st. We live in the Olympic Peninsula, so we are used to lots of rain, so I am not worried about having to carry an umbrella around. We also grew up in southern Mississippi, so even if it is hot, we are used to heat and humidity. We have family in Ireland, so they are going to handle are trip while we are there. Traveling around the UK though will be a different story, we do not know anyone there. We wanted to take in a Man Utd game while we were there. Pubs are not really our thing, we are not drinkers. We also would like to see the palaces, any museums, and my sister is a huge Shakespeare and Jack the Ripper fan. We figure if we start to get a plan down we are not going to be those tourists who are walking around spending more time with our noses in a book rather then seeing stuff.

We do not plan on driving in either, so public transportation is going to be our means of getting around. We have been in cities, like New York, where subways are the main and quickest way of getting around, so we are not worried about learning the underground. We will be taking in all of the United Kingdom. We definitely want to spend time in Scotland, and we do not know much about Wales, so I would definitely need suggestions of what there is to see there.

Hopefully some of our Jack the Ripper experts are available.

Sorry we were planning on going this year, but with the Olympics we decided to put it off until next year. I am okay with large groups of people, but that many is why I would never do New York on New Year's Eve. I know that is a huge time frame, but I am one of those people who likes to have everything done as early as possible. We already have our passports so that is not an problem.

I also want to thank everyone for all of your help. I know it can be frustrating when someone, like me, asks a general question like what I have. You all have helped me so much, and I want to say thank you for all of the help you have already given and any help you will give later on. I hope that you are all having a great weekend .

@nytraveler: I am not going to say that money is not an option, but it is not as big of one. We have done both the Ritz and Motel 6. I do not care if the restaurant cost 100 to eat there or 10, as long as I leave there going that is the best food I have ever eaten. My dad was a history teacher, so historical sites are definitely high on our list of things to see.

@Ackislander: my sister and I are going to be the only two people on the trip once we leave Ireland. Our parents will be with us there. We are in our twenties, but by then I will be 30. The rental issue is not going to be a problem, being American driving on a different side of the road would be too weird for me. Thank you for all of the danger possibilities. We are generally really nice and respectful, so that might be difficult to turn off. We have spent lots of time in larger cities enough to be cautious of our surroundings. We know though that we will stick out like a sore thumb, but knowing what areas to stay away from at night or even during the day, might be good to know.

Msgirl81, if you are okay with delaying your trip that's fine, but the Olympics will have no effect on your plans.

I suggest you start your planning now by looking at various guidebooks and other resources available. Once you have some idea as to where you want to go and what you want to do, come back here and post. I promise you'll get a great deal of help. Without some guidelines for us, you'll be overwhelmed with posters putting forth their personal favorites and suggestions.

As flanneruk (one of our better informed posters says)...There is no such thing as a must see/do. Select what you find most interesting.

I believe you will find hostels very safe, although I speak without personal experience. Generally you'll find most tourist areas quite safe with only the usual precautions.

For public transportation the train is your the best option but buses are fine for shorter journeys.

Good luck with your planning and please post with any questions.

We had great experiences with the YHA chain of hostels - www.yha.org.uk They have properties all over England and Wales.

We structured our trip, in part, around literary interests - Tolkien, Jane Austen, Patrick O'Brian - so places like Oxford, Winchester, Chawton, and the National Maritime Museum and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich were our "must-see" list. Mr. Pickle is of Welsh descent, so we spent a couple of days in North Wales.

You can go to a pub for dinner and not drink. Many of them have great food which is reasonably priced.

Here is a link to my trip report from 2007: http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/roundabout-the-uk-p-p-the-professor-and-some-p-ob-may-2007.cfm for some ideas and pictures of what we did.

Lee Ann

I will not be overwhelmed trust me. We will be wanting to take a tour of Buckingham Palace. We will do a Jack the Ripper tour,and Stratford Upon Avon. We want to see Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's. We like wine, so if there are any good places to do wine tastings we would really like to do that. We do want to take in a soccer game. My sister is afraid of heights, so as much as I would love to take a trip on the eye I do not see that happening. We love to read so if there are any old bookstores, I know we would love to shop there. As far as other shopping, I do not think we will be doing much of that. We will want to see Abbey Road, and I know it sounds silly, but we are huge Top Gear fans, so we would love to be able to where they film that. We will want to see the Tower of London, House of Lords and Commons, and the changing of the Guards. My sister also wants to go to the church where Anne Boleyn is buried.

thank you ElendilPickle for the link it was definitely helpful.

You need a guide book.

We have purchased the Fodors Guide book from Barnes and Noble.

We are also Jane Austen fans so again thank you ElendilPickle for all of the helpful information. Your trip blog was hilarious to read, and hit all of the areas that we want to take in.

MSgirl, I figured from your screen name that you were from Mississippi, and that's why I mentioned the smiling thing. I used to teach in Jackson and at Ole Miss, and it will be hard, hard, hard for you to turn down the charm! I don't believe for a minute that you can turn it off!

You mention Wales and also secondhand book shops; Hay-on-Wye, a small town just over the border with 30+ book shops is the place for you.

Look at the Morgan Hotel in Bloomsbury for your London stay. It is close enough to walk to many places, including several of the theaters. It is also just a couple of blocks off Oxford Street if you feel the need for some retail therapy.

There is a small French restaurant on South Oxford called le Bistro Savoir Faire that my daughter and I really liked (not expensive). We also like Brown's Restaurant on St. Martin's Lane, which has an early dinner for theater goers at a cheaper rate; and we like to have afternoon tea at one of the Richoux teashops, again not as expensive as the big hotels.

I would think your sister would enjoy touring the rebuilt Globe Theater; you could check online to see if there is a play during your stay, but you can tour it anyway.

You can make a lot of day trips by train from London. Try to see Oxford and Bath, and then go to York by train on your way to Edinburgh. There are local tours into other parts of Scotland from there, Rabbie Burns for one. Wales is a little harder without a car, but there are some places you can see without one.

Good luck with your planning. You will have a great trip pretty much whatever you do.