Do I need a GPS in Ireland?--Is driving there worse than the continent?
 

This will be our first trip to Ireland, but we have taken lots of driving trips on the continent so we know all about the need to have super good, detailed maps. We've done fine for these trips with just a map and with occasional use of my husband's antique GPS which was basically directional only.

Is it a lot worse trying to navigate in Ireland? We'll be doing primarily rural areas and small towns in the W and SW. My husband has found a Gamin that is loaded with European maps for about $175. He of course likes toys of this sort so would be more that willing to buy it if we need it. But, my question is if we really need it or if we can get by with just a good read atlas. Thanks.

People have been driving Ireland for many years without a GPS.

Yes, you should do fine without one as long as you are good at navigation. Keep in mind that roads are often signposted by where they lead (i.e., Dublin, Kilkenny) rather than a road number, like N45, on the atlas. Also, in the west of Ireland, some signs may be only in Irish, rather than the English in the map.

We prefer the GPS as we like getting deliberately lost to find new things, and having the reassurance that we can always find our way home :)

A good map should be sufficient but make sure you get one that is written in Irish as well as English. Some of the Gaeltacht regions especially around Connemara have place names written only in Irish and if your map has the English translation it gets very confusing.

Greendragon--you made me laugh. When we were hopelessly confused, we occasionally used the old GPS at roundabouts to at least point us in the correct direction.

To me, it is driving throught the cities that is most confusing, and we won't be doing a lot of that on this trip so I am guessing, after hearing your replies, that a good map should be fine.

Thanks.

We were totally lost in a Gaeltacht region because nothing corresponded to our map, which was mostly in English. Eventually we saw a truck driver in an industrial area whom we asked for directions. His English wasn't very good, as he was Polish, so he basically said, "Follow me," and led us at a breathtaking speed to a freeway.

What's "freeway" in Ireland, anyway--dual carriageway?

Anyway, we could have used a GPS in that one area.

If so far you have only been driving on the Continent, this is probably the most important street sign you'll see in Ireland :-)

http://tinyurl.com/2vbzpbe

I'm with GreenDragon on how a GPS can be handy. Three reasons ... 1)it always has its map keeping up with your progress. Even if you don't use it for directions you'll know where you truly are. 2) When you see the castle "over there", it's comforting to know you can wander off your track and efficiently return to your main route. 3) When you go out for dinner at night and it's dark and/or raining when you return, it's comforting to have the GPS accurately lead you back to your hotel or B&B. Finally, with all of the GPS advantages, keep a printed map handy - GPS has been known to be wrong or confused!

If we do get a GPS, it will be to be used in combo with our map because I know technology can have problems too.

Cowboy--
Great sense of humor! Since we live in the US and have never driven on the left, driving on the left is definitely going to be different.

One thing you should be aware of is the speed limits, and the fact that the locals tend to drive at the speed limit. Even tiny single track roads can have a speed limit of 50 (80km/h) or even 62 mph (100km/h) on them!
SHould you be caught speeding (highly unlikely on most roads :) ) you have to pay an on the spot fine.
Speed limits are be given in Kms, but occasionally you will still see one in miles, and the same is true of signposts - though again occasionally the distance is given in miles.

Especially note Hetismij's warning about signage in kilometers and miles. Once I was going down a back road and saw _____25. At the next crossroad, the sign said "_____ 35". I was wondering if I had gone the wrong direction, while my sense said I was heading north as I knew I needed to.
At the pub that night someone explained about the signage, and I realized that the first one was in miles and the second, in kms.

Re. signs in miles or kms..

If the sign is green (national, "N" roads) or blue (motorways, "M" roads), the distance is always given in kms, but "km" is also on the sign.

If the sign is white, and it looks a bit faded or beaten up, the distance will be in miles unless you find "km" next to the distance given.

It gets a bit complicated when you find a mix on the same post:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/66/15...44b6c165e1.jpg
All distances but that one to Cork should be in miles.

Something you will probably not have seen on the continent are destinations or place names in brackets on the road signs, like this one:
http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/...6/sign_hed.jpg
It means that at this intersection you turn right on N21, both for Limerick and Killarney. But if you want to go to Killarney, you will at some point have to change from N21 to N22.

Official road signs are always bi-lingual in Irish (in italics) and English (in uppercase), except in the Gaeltacht which was already mentioned.

My pet peeve with GPS in Ireland is that some do not differentiate between wide N roads and tiny rural roads and like to send you for half an hour on a 1 1/2-lane road to avoid a 5km detour via wide national roads. So it never hurts to take a look at the map first to check if the system really knows its business if it tries to send you on an unmarked road.

I did find with a map only mae a wrong turn twice.not bad for driving 3500 miles .But gp ar always nice especially a night when you can' see the signs.

On trip before last I panicked when we drove into NI in our car rented in the Republic and realized that speed limits were in miles per hour and our speedometer only had kilometers. Next time I plan to be in both countries I will take along a cheat sheet.

Thanks all. I just ordered a good, detailed road atlas, and it certainly was cheaper than the GPS. I suspect we'll be fine.

Agreed with the differences between roads not mentioned by the GPS. While the R roads are lovely and interesting, they are often tiny, windy, and have sheep/tractors/cows in the middle of them. If I'm rushed, I would rather stay with N roads. But then again, you should never be rushed in Ireland :)

With the road atlas, the downfall of that is it often doesn't list the smaller roads at all. You'd need Ordnance maps for those, though I've done OK with just the atlas. It does occasionally confuse.

julies - I think you will be fine with a good atlas. For our trip earlier this year, we used a good AA road atlas and also a fold out map which had more detail. These were perfect and for all the driving we did, the only trouble we had (which was minor) was in Galway and that is because we didn't have specific directions to the B&B. Road signs were clearly marked for the most part and I saw no need for a GPS - then again, I was the navigator for the entire trip which admittedly became exhausting, though probably not as exhausting as the driving was for my husband! :)

We drove all over Ireland for two weeks this past September without getting hopelessly lost. We did not have a GPS. However, our worst problem was trying to find the location to return our rental car at the Dublin airport. The worst signage I have seen at any airport ever!!! We did use our cell phone a few times when we couldn't locate the address of our B and B-we were usually just around the corner.

We drove around Ireland and Northern Ireland for a week last year with our Rough Guide map and it worked great. We wandered a bit one day around Newgrange, however, but saw some neat sights that we would have missed had we driven straight there. We also got to ask directions of two Irish kids on bikes and they seemed so pleased to help us!
Like SusieKay, we got turned around once in Kilkenny looking for our B&B, but a nice truck driver pointed out that we were just a block away!
So, have fun with your map and enjoy whatever adventures to which it may lead you!

The Irish people are so friendly and helpful, if you travel with a GPS, and never have to stop and ask for directions, you will have missed half the fun of driving in Ireland!!

We drove around Northern IReland and Ireland without a GPS - we had a map and got along fine. Sometimes the GPS can cause more problems than they help.

I would make sure and buy an Ordinance map once you get to Ireland, they're available in book stores. They are updated annually. We drove the entire country and this map never let us down. We had a GPS too and, well just shut the damn thing off after awhile. The Irish are always happy to help with directions. And...any tourist information office will always give you solid directions to your hotel on a local map even in large cities.

Whichever map you choose, make sure it is VERY detailed, and you should be fine. The only time I wished I had a GPS was driving in Cork and Ennis - cursed with many one-way streets and no signs.

I'm Irish and am constantly complaining about the lack of signs and have no idea how visitors ever manage to get anywhere. It drives me crazy when I try to visit attractions at the weekend. Personally I would say yes, get a GPS

Sorry, missed the fact that you are considering buying one. That sounds a bit mad. You can generally get a car with GPS from the rental company for an extra charge.

littlejane, I'm with you on the sign issue! I told my Irish friends that if I were in charge of tourism there, I'd put lots of sign-painters to work!

It's like they don't realize the economic benefits of people spending more money if they weren't driving around lost :)

I can never understand all the "don't get a GPS"
people. Why would you not want to have the best and most up to date help possible? Would they have said "Who needs these new fangled maps of Mercator's anyway?!" LOL

By all means have your husband buy one! It's a much better idea to know how to use one before hopping into a strange car with the controls on the wrong side! Plus there will be all kinds of updates and extra info that can be downloaded before you go.

And since you will likely be the designated navigator you should play with it before leaving as well. My wife is always intimidated by new technology but once she used our TomTom for a while she found out they are very easy to use.

And don't be put off by the Luddites who'll predict a GPS will send you over the Cliffs of Moher or some such nonsense... they act as if someone using paper maps never got lost! LOLOL

I love maps and have driven all over Europe without a problem over the years but after using
my TomTom for 2,000 KM in France 2 years ago I'd never go without it again.

Rob

If you plan to drive with GPS and want to stay at B&Bs outside of major towns, ask for their lat/lon GPS coordinates or take that info from their website.
Otherwise you will be stuck with an "address" that consists of just the name of the house/B&B, and the names of village and county - since road names and house numbers rarely exist outside of towns.

Yes, like Rose Cottage, Rathmore. Or White House, Killarney. Very frustrating to GPS :)

Hi Julies, In my opinion a GPS definately improves a driving holiday a lot, especially in Ireland, where roadsign can be lacking to say the least.

Since you quote a GPS price in $, I assume you are from the USA. Remember that - just in the off chance you already have a GPS, you can just go online and pay (less than 175) to get Euro maps for it.

We just returned Saturday from a lovely "windscreen" tour of Ireland. We used the Hertz map and driving directions I preprinted from theaa.com. I am a terrible map reader so I plugged in various itineraries on theaa.com, to cover lots of contingencies. Happily, this info proved to get us where we needed to go, with only a few minor detours.

Here's a hint I received for the roundabouts: the navigator can direct the driver to take the appropriate exit off the roundabout by stating it's "clock" position e.g. M-8 at 3 o'clock; N-4 at 9 o'clock. This piece of advice helped immensely!

Cowboy1968 - excellent tip. Just did that a few weeks ago to find a newly built winery.
(We're from the US) We bought our GPS about a year ago and have found it's very accurate, except for finding restaurants. It has led us to places out of business, a gas station, and someones house in the middle of a village. But it was fun! We used a GPS in 2005 in Germany and really liked it, but it's biggest use was to get us back to our zimmer after a day of sight seeing. We still enjoy getting lost and finding "undiscovered" places. I've ordered a Europe map on SD for our upcoming trip. 99 USD

I always bring a laptop (now netbook) for multiple reasons. Copying photos/videos, communications and GPS.

We have an old ProGin SG108 GPS antennae that magnetically attaches to the top of the car. This plugs into the USB port of the computer. During our last trip to Ireland (Summer 09), we used MS Autoroute 2007 as the software. I was at first concerned, because I had heard how bad the GPS maps of Ireland were supposed to be. It was dead on accurate, even showing the driveway up to the cottage we rented outside of Limerick.

Let's face it, many of the roads in Ireland are really small and not well marked. The GPS was a godsend, as we drive all over the place and never once got lost. It works out great because I use an inverter to keep the computer powered up and the DW just puts it down on the floor when we don't need it. Since it is plugged into a power supply, it is always running and takes only a few seconds to activate.

Can the self-contained units do the same, probably, but since I already have the computer, antennae and software, why spend more. Plus the screen is WAY bigger than any dashboard GPS and thus you can see it lots easier. In addition, the software allows us to do things that only the top of the line GPS systems can do.

HOWEVER, during the planning stages for a trip to Greece, the MS software was worthless. According to it, Greece only has about 6 roads. In Italy, it was excellent, as well as in the UK. Haven't tried it in other European countries. But it also works great in the US. My daughter used it extensively on a multi-city, 4 month theater tour last summer and loved it.

dave

dave

I started this. We did fine without a GPS, and there were only a couple times we would have wished for one. Several times we were on roads that were on the map but were totally unsigned and unnamed (both on the map and in reality). But, in these instances, there wren't all that many other options anyway so we didn't get lost.

Thanks for the update, julies. We have been to Ireland multiple times without GPS. Our Michelin map is very well-worn and now probably out of date. We have had many fun adventures with happy endings while being "lost" in Ireland.