Driving Ireland May / June 2015
 

Hello,
My wife and I are in the very early stages of planning a trip to Ireland the last week of May into June for 10-14 days.
Our idea of a vaction is not climbing onto a bus with a pile of others to see the "sights".
Rather we would prefer to rent a car along with a couple of bicycles to have with us and just take our time driving through the country stopping to hike, bike and take in Ireland as it comes.
Ideally we would like to find lodging on a day to day basis so that we are not tied to a specific schedule, route or area. So as a general rule how difficult is it to find lodging this time of year in Ireland? I would rather not have to spend the night(s) sleeping in the car and I'm pretty sure my wife would not like that too much either. I just don't like the idea that if we find an area that we really like and would like to spend more time exlporing we will have to leave just because we already have lodging scheduled farther on down the road.
As far as a route that is very up in the air at this time. Generally though we are looking at traveling the costal areas of the southwest, west and northwest.
Dave

If you KNOW that you plan to be in a certain town on a certain date, you should, by all means, pre-book in order to get an ideal location and facility. If you aren't sure where or when, though, winging it in May / June is not generally a big problem, but as anywhere, in highly desirable areas, preferred accommodations DO book up early. In areas where special events (like Music Festivals) are scheduled, it is ALWAYS a good idea to pre-book. Any nights in Dublin should also be reserved, also.

Even if you plan to wing it the whole time, it still pays to be proactive. Once you have figured out a general route, I recommend that you make a 'Short List' of places you might be interested in, complete with telephone numbers. Most larger towns have Tourist Information Offices that will find you a place to stay for a 2 or 3 Euro fee. I always try to secure my lodging no later than 2 PM. By that time of day, you should have a pretty good idea of where you expect to end up. Then, even if you get held up or delayed, as long as you keep the host advised, you won't have to stress about trying to find a vacancy at 6 or 7 PM.

You are a bit early for the heaviest crowds. And only being two, finding rooms will be easier than w/ a family. As I_C says, there are tourist offices where you can check and they can find you rooms for the next couple of days. So if you are in say Ennis and decide to stay longer you can go into the local TIO and have them find you a room two days later near say, Dingle. So you can sort of wing it but have each night booked (don't try sleeping in the car -- not a good idea)

http://www.discoverireland.ie/Touris...mation-Offices

>>along with a couple of bicycles <<

My guess is you have not seen Irish roads - right? Generally very narrow, no shoulders, stone walls, blind curves, different rules of the road, etc. - not easy for biking.

I don't understand the glitches on Fodors lately. My entry posted -- but the thread list still shows only one response and refreshing the forum doesn't do anything . . .

This has been happening for a couple of weeks. Eventually the thread list will 'correct itself'. Weird.

In 30+ years winging it I have slept in the car Once! that was arriving late at a pre booked hotel who had conveniently lost my booking, but were willing to sell me a €100 per night room.. They still charged my card with the €30 the following morning as a "No show" Nice one Raddison!

For my standard winging answer see http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...omment-8992821

Thank you all for the advice. Good stuff.
I will get in touch with the tourism offices as we work on a route. Good to know that the odds of sleeping in the car are minimal.

janisj,
No I haven't actually been to Ireland to see the roads. I have been using the heck out of Google Street View though and yes I do see the roads are narrow and full of turns. But there seems to be a lot of roads that head off the main routes that pretty much dead end to small communitys / farmsteads. This is the type of roads that we would be most interested in biking. Maybe we wouldn't use the bikes too much but I would think that there would be a few times they would be just the ticket.
The Survey map is on the way. I trust that will be a big plus on planning a route.

>>But there seems to be a lot of roads that head off the main routes that pretty much dead end to small communitys / farmsteads. <<

Those are especially not bike friendly. Very narrow, tractors, local traffic that drive fast because they know every bend in the road . . .

If you really do want to do some cycling then consider the Greenway http://www.greenway.ie/Greenway-01.html in Mayo. see also http://www.getirelandactive.ie/conte...Cycling-IT.pdf