Kellytoots

We are planning a 26 day trip in the British Isles, scheduled for June 16 through July 11. On June 14, we will be leaving an apartment in Provence, driving to Calais (with an overnight stop along the way). We would take the ferry on the morning of June 16 from Calais to Dover. On the afternoon of July 11, we will return to Dover to take a late afternoon ferry to Normandy. As presently outlined, the British Isles itinerary looks like the following. (We visited Dublin, London and the Cotswalds in a previous vacation, which is why they have been excluded from this itinerary. Also, the comments about what we might visit and where we might go are just illustrative to explain why we selected the destination. Once the basic itinerary settled, those activities probably will be the subject of a follow-up message):

Day 1 - Cross to Dover on a morning ferry from Calais. (Visit cliffs and caves and spend night in Dover.)

Day 2 - Drive to North Devon (5-6 hrs). Spend Days 3 and 4. (Visit villages such as Sampford Brett and Dunster; Exmoor Park.)

Day 5 - Drive to Wales. Spend Days 6 and 7. (Not at all sure whether to head north [Portmadog] or south [Pembrokeshire], but don’t think we can do both.)

Day 8 - Drive to Fishhead and catch the 11:30 fast ferry to Rosslare. Drive to Kenmare, where I have found a great apartment in town. (Longish day of traveling, but the days are long, aren’t they?) Spend Days 9, 10 and 11. (Visit Ring of Kerry, Skellig Michael; Dingle.)

Day 12 - Drive to Galway. (4-5 hours) Spend Days 13 and 14. (Visit the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren)

Day 15 - Drive to Northern Ireland (maybe Portrush). Spend Day 16 and early part of Day 17. (Visit Giant’s Causeway, Bushmill Distillery)

Day 17 – Ferry from Larne to Stanraer, Scotland. Drive to Gourock and stay overnight.

Day 18 – Take ferry to Dunoon and drive to Oban. Spend Days 19 and 20.

Day 21 – Drive to Dundee (look for relatives). Spend Days 22 and 23 on day trips, including one day to Edinburgh.

Day 24 – Drive to North Yorkshire. Day 25 – visit Hadrian’s Wall and Durham Cathedral.

Day 26 – Drive to Dover (all day drive) and take ferry back to Calais. (Whew!!)

We enjoy outdoor walking, scenic beauty, and small towns and villages (although we enjoy eating well). As is apparent, a lot more detail is yet to be hashed out; however, before working on details about precisely what sights to see, villages to visit, walks to take, etc., I would appreciate a Fodorite vetting of the Itinerary. Are we trying to do too much, or too little? Are my estimated travel times unrealistic? Have we chosen the best locations? Please be candid – our skin is tough enough to take criticism.
A couple of other pertinent facts: This 26 day trip is one portion of a much longer stay, for which we will have a long-term leased car. (I can hardly wait to drive in England in a car that has left-hand drive -- the roundabouts should present an interesting challenge.) In any event, we will be driving throughout this trip. Also, some readers may suggest other Channel ferry crossings that are more convenient to our itinerary; however, we will have our two dogs with us. Because dogs must be confined to the car from an hour before ferry departure until arrival, we have chosen to use the relatively brief Dover/Calais route. Also, in part because of the relative difficulty of finding places that will accept pets and in part because we have come to hate the routine of daily packing and unpacking, we have tried to avoid moving to a new place every night as much as possible. Finally, this message doesn’t ask for help with lodging because we intend to stay in self-catered houses or apartments, because hotels and such are difficult to live in when you have dogs with you. Also, self-catered joints are usually are more economical; and we prefer when traveling to be able to get up in the morning, fix our own coffee, and putter about in a way that you often cannot do in a hotel or even in some B&B’s.

hetismij

If you are taking the ferry from Fishguard (not Fishhead) it makes most sense to stick to South Wales/Pembrokeshire. Are the dogs allowed out of the car on that ferry? Even the fast ferry takes two hours.

Don't forget to get the dogs deflead and wormed in time for you cross Channel trip.
Have you looked a Speedferries - Boulogne Dover - they are fast and cheap.

Kellytoots

I had not looked at Boulogne Dover ferry because it looked a bit longer, but with the faster ferry it would save almost half the time of the Dover Calais run. We will probably stay over in Calais the preceding night, because I am told that Calais has a lot of vets who are familiar with the unique British pet visa requirements.

Speedferries, like all the other ferry operators I have looked at, requires dogs to remain confined in the car. But my guys are good for 4-5 hours, if necessary; beyond that, however, it wouldn't be fair to them.

Thanks for the input

ron

My belief is that self-catering establishents in the UK tend to operate on the basis of weekly rentals, Saturday to Saturday, especially in high season. Have you evidence that you can, in fact, make a series of 2 and 3 night bookings in these kinds of places in June/July?

I have no comment on the itinerary -- not my kind of holiday at all. If I had 26 days, a car and 2 dogs, I would make one week bookings in three different places, the other 5 days would be transition between places.

janisj

You have some absolutely <u>hellacious</u> drives there. All in a left hand drive car and w/ pets!!

It just seems totally crazy to me.

I'd go back to the drawing board and cut your destinations in half and your daily drives to reasonable lengths. I'd also seriously look at cutting out Ireland and spending the time in England/Wales/Scotland. Even then you will be a bit rushed.

Cholmondley_Warner

I second the driving comment. These are drives that would make an Englishman want to lie down in a darkened room at the thought.

For instance on your first day you are driving all day (and that's if the traffic plays ball).

You are also driving past (sort of) Winchester and Salisbury. Why not break your journey?

optimystic

I also agree the itinerary is crazy! You say yourself &quot;in part because we have come to hate the routine of daily packing and unpacking, we have tried to avoid moving to a new place every night as much as possible&quot;, yet in this itinerary you are driving whole days and then just spending a few days at the destination (and doing lots of day trips at that). Part of the attraction of some places you have selected is the slow pace of life but you will not really appreciate that at this itinerary pace.

I agree that you need to cut your destinations down. Pick the ones you really want to see. In June/July you will not find many s/c places that will rent for less than a week (there are some out there - but harder to find - and your pets make that more difficult as not all places take them). But I do agree that s/c is a nice way to do things, especially with pets, so I would suggest week-long rentals that are easier to find and more relaxing than moving about all the time. Sat/Sat is the most popular, but you can find Thurs to Thurs, Fri to Fri, and Sun to Sun as well, so its possible to have a couple of nights somewhere else between rentals (e.g. you could book a Fri/Fri then a sun to sun and then a couple of nights somewhere else in between).

We go down to Devon each year. Its a 4 hour drive (less than your drive from Dover). The traffic can often be awful! The days afterwards we just want to relax. We go out walking and do not want to see the car! IMO this is the way to experience places like Devon.

Barbara_in_FL

I think you will not be able to find self-catering rentals for just two or three days at a time at that time of year. If you were traveling in December, it might be possible. But in all the research I've done for our last couple of trips, I cannot remember a self-catering property that I was interested in that allowed &quot;short breaks&quot; in the high season. Of course, you mentioned that you had found an apartment in Kenmare that worked for you, so it is not impossible. But it will be difficult.

It sounds like self-catering would work better for you than hotels or B&amp;Bs, especially because of the dogs, so I would second the suggestion to pick three places where you can spend a week each.

For example, right now your day of looking for relatives in Dundee would be, at best, a few hours, after you make the drive over from Oban, and then you want to make day trips on your other two days there. You could pick a place within a reasonable driving distance of Dundee and stay a week. You would miss the west coast of Scotland (which is lovely, of course) but you could position yourself within reasonable distance of a day trip to enjoy some Highlands scenery, and still have a much saner (and more enjoyable, I think) time over on the eastern side of the country.

If you like walking and scenic beauty, then I would pick one week in Wales, one in Ireland, one in Scotland, and then use the travel days in between to &quot;hit&quot; a few of the other places you want to see. I really think Wales deserves more than two days. But maybe that's because I haven't been there yet and I am still planning (dreaming of) my own trip there.

Kellytoots

I did ask you to be candid, but I suppose brutality is a form of being candid. Thanks for letting in the cold light of day.

If we were to reorganize this 1500 mile trip (Dover to Wales to SW Ireland to Scotland and back to Dover) as suggested into three primary stays, Barbara's thoughts make sense. While I would miss seeing the west coast of Scotland, staying near Dundee is really necessary and puts both the Highlands and Edinburgh in play.

Locations for the first two stays are less obvious to me. In England, both the Devon area and Wales are appealing. Is there a location that might enable us to take day trips to both areas, taking into account what you say about the summer traffic?

In Ireland, the area around Kenmare has obvious appeal, but the same can be said for Dingle. I really want to travel to Skellig Michael (weather permitting) and would like to tour the Burren. Might there be a compromise location in that vicinity?

bilboburgler

Wow

Just to support the previous guys you need to imagine that the motorways are tightly packed, moving at 70MPH and spotted with exhausted truck drivers with their wheels on the left hand side so they cannot see what we on the right hand side are doing. For a Brit to drive such a long way is to risk exhaustion.

Despite this we have very few accidents in the UK so must be doing something right.

Never ever stay in Dover it is a pit.

Like the rest chose some areas and stick to them, good luck

janisj

Kellytoots: Sorry, but no one was &quot;brutal&quot;. If you want brutal we can definitely accommodate though

But really - since Scotland is a must I definitely think you should skip Ireland. Realize that even in a right-hand drive car, in rural parts of Ireland you would be <u>lucky</u> to average 35 mph. Driving a LHD car means you will hardly ever be able to overtake (pass) so you will likely average even less. Get stuck behind a farm wagon could mean going 5 MPH.

June 16-19 could be spent wandering along the south coast/Salisbury/Bath. Then on Sat June 20 head to a pre-booked self catering cottage in Devon for a week.

Sat June 27 drive up to Wales and stay a couple of days on the Pembrokeshire coast, a couple of days in N Wales and then around July 1, drive up to Scotland.

If you can find a Fri to Fri cottage (not impossible) you'd have Wed/Thurs to see a bit of the west coast and then head to a cottage somewhere in the triangle of Edinburgh/Perth/St Andrews. This would be a base to see just TONS of central Scotland including your stop in Dundee.

Then you would have Friday and Sat to make your way back to Dover (a HELL of a drive but doable w/o stops)

Ireland just complicates things immeasurably

sheila

I wonder if Dunkeld is an option for your Scottish stay. It's less than an hour from Dundee, and you could do Oban on a day trip, too, if you wanted to.