Lorraine

I'm putting together an itinerary of southern Ireland flying in and out of Dublin. I do want to spend a couple days in town and need to decide whether to start or end there.

Possible "Dublin to start" scenario:
Shuttle from airport into town, tour for a few days and then rent car in the city and drive south to Wicklow region (is it difficult to find my way out of town in that direction?). After about a week I anticipate ending in the Valley of the Boyne, spending the last night in Trim and then returning the car at the airport for flight home.

Possible "Dublin at end" scenario: Rent car at airport and immediately drive south to Wicklow region, then drive around for a week ending in the Valley of the Boyne. To drop off the car prior to my time in Dublin I can either drive into town, drive to airport car and shuttle into town, or stay in a northern suburb (which?) connected to Dublin by public transit (then return car at airport prior to flight).

If I wanted to skip Boyne I could end my driving in Galway, then take the train or bus into Dublin for several days of touring there.

All guidance appreciated!

chazman

We spent three nights in Dublin and then picked up the car from Dublin city and returned it after 8 days to Dublin airport. The GPS was very helpful in navigating us out of the city and to the Wicklow Mts. The drive back to Dublin airport was easier, although not all the signs say airport, but just display a symbol.

Lorraine

Did you rent a car with GPS or bring a unit with you?

chazman

We rented one from the auto rental agency. My logic was that a GPS provided in Ireland by the rental company would be more up to date than one that I would bring me. Unfortunately, my assumption was wrong. Be sure to check on the rental agency's web site, which GPS models they are renting. A lot of them are advertising new models. Ireland seems to be rapidly modernizing its road system, building lots of new roundabouts and fast sections of multilane highways. Lots of these are not on the maps of older model GPSs. You can usually manage and will get used to "Recalculating" messages as you travel on newer road sections. However, not having a good GPS can be more a problem. We decided to do the Slea in a counterclockwise manner, as a few guidebooks recommended, and there was some road construction that caused us to detour. We got confused and the GPS, which could have helped us, unfortunately had only the main road on its map. In the end we headed back to Dingle and started the whole trip again in the standard clockwise manner. It all worked out OK, but we felt the GPS had failed us.

wojazz3

Hi Lorraine:

It sort of depends on how accustomed you are to driving on the left. If this is your 1st adventure, driving through Dublin City can be pretty stressful. The M50 can be pretty handy though there is a ton of construction (at least there was in January and it didn't look close to done) and that will be slow going sometimes.

I'd be interested in seeing where you plan to go on this trip and how you have the rest of your time planned out. That would help assessing which plan would work best.

Let us know.

Bill