Help planning 15 day travel schedule for Great Briton and Ireland
 

Hello fellow travelers!!!
My husband and I are planning a trip to Great Briton and Ireland November 5 thru November 22 2006. We would like to do a self driving tour of as many areas as possible. Does anyone have any suggestions for a itenary that we could follow? I also have many questions regarding hotels, B & B's and parking.
Flying in and out of London's Heathrow.
Looking forward to any and all suggestions.

two weeks is not very long to cover 2 countries. Or more like 4 countries if you count Wales and Scotland.

You have not given us anything to go on - except that you want to stay in B&Bs.

Forget about seeing "as many areas as possible". In Nov the days will be short and the weather likely bad at least part of the time, so you really won't want to drive hours a day. And in the countryside you will be lucky to average 35 mph so don't count on 200 or 300 mile touring days.

What sorts of things do you enjoy? Are you interested in visiting London? Or just flying through it? Castles, cities, country hikes/walks - what? What research have you already done - have you made any initial decisions about where to go? Dis you plan on taking a rental car from Great Britain to Ireland??

There are quite literally hundreds of different itineraries you could take - so give us more info and we can help you.

Hi chb,
Driving in Great Britain is not really as many visitors perceive it to be. We are a small island with over 60million inhabitants. That means around major cities, roads are likely to be gridlocked, and in the countryside as janis said; you will be lucky if you get over 35mph.
This all means that if you want to spend 2 weeks touring as many places as possible you will find it very frustrating and end up spending more time in the car than anywhere else.

That said, there are things that you can do to help yourself.
1. Forget any idea of a car in London, you don't need it, there is little parking and its usually gridlocked as is the M25 motorway that goes around it.
2. You should select 2 general areas and use them as a base.
for example:
Cotswolds, select a town or village and cover the surrounding 60-80 miles or so. Next move to another area; perhaps South Wales, then do the same.
This kind of itinary will of course limit you to smaller areas, but it will enable you to get quality and not just quantity from your trip.
So I would suggest picking just 2 areas, if those areas are cornwall and scotland, forget it, they are too far apart for a 2 week trip.

Let us know what your interests are and we can certainly help you get the most from your trip.

Muck

Thank you for the prompt reply.

I am very grateful for your response. Here is where I am thus far... I bought a map of Ireland and Great Briton, Fodor's guide book of Great Briton and Ireland for Dummies.

I don't know what I want to do...I just know what I don't want to do, I don't want to go on a group trip with all the other tourists. We are adventerous people so I thought a driving tour would suit us.
Janisi, we are not interested in spending too much time in London, in fact right now I have to think just flying in and out. We would love to see the country side, small villages and Castles maybe even spend a night or two in a castle. The only initial decision made is to take the trip :) I know that the weather will be crappy (maybe) and the days short... but with 3 children in college this is when we can afford to take the trip. I am over whelmed by the information in the books and just getting to know the names of the different regions , I would like to take the car from Great Briton to Ireland. One point of interest My husband Kevin will turn 50 while we are on the trip and his great grandparents (maternal) immigrated from Portsoy Scotland to the USA so seeing that area would be nice.


Muck, what a great idea to use an area as a base. Should I look at area to spend 2 nights should I stay in two different hotels/B&B's? or consider the same one?

Since I am not interested in London at this time should I fly into a different area, Like Ireland or Scotland?


Thanks again for all/any advice, and truly I appreciated your prompt reply's
chb

OK - you have to make some difficult choices. (FYI - it is Great <u>Britain</u> - Briton is a person, Britain is the country)

I assume you realize Portsoy in on the northern Scottish coast. Using London for either Ireland or Northern Scotland doesn't make much sense. And trying to combine part of England, Scotland and Ireland in a short visit in Nov. is pretty difficult.

Some of the logistical problems:

- there no ferry you can takle from Scotland to Ireland. The only sea connection is to Northern Ireland. NI is a great place to visist - but probably not what you had in mind when you said &quot;Ireland&quot;.

- There is ferry connection between Wales and Ireland - but that is a loooooong way from Portsoy. There are also ferries from Liverpool - but still a very long way from the north of Scotland.

- Taking a rental car from the UK to Ireland is difficult - the ferries are expensive and most rental agencies won't allow it anyway.

- Which part(s) of Ireland were you considering? Most visitors to Ireland really want to see the west and southwest. Those areas are a looooong way from the east coast of the country - and pretty slow going.

- When mucky mentioned using a couple of areas for bases, I am pretty sure he didn't mean for 2 days at a time. By &quot;base&quot; we usually mean staying in one place for several days (in <u>one</u> B&amp;B or hotel or cottage) and doing day trips w/i a 50 to 75 mile radius.

The bottom line is if you want to see northern Scotland you would be better off limiting yourselves to Scotland, w/ maybe a bit of northern England (Yorkshire, the Lake District, Hadrian's Wall are all in the northern part of England).

You could fly into Glasgow or Edinburgh or even Manchester. and tour a loop through a bit of N. England, the Borders, central Scotland, Aberdeenshire (where Portsoy is) and back down south alonfg the west coast to Glasgow (or Edinburgh or Manchester)

If you want to see Ireland, you are better off sticking to Ireland. You can fly into Dublin - but for most of the scenic west side Shannon is better.

Don't try to go too far or see too much - as we said you will not be able to cover hundreds of miles a day, and in late Nov you need to be prepared for bad weather (though it could also be fine) so even short drives can be difficult.

I am humbly corrected on the spelling of Britain. Again I am grateful for your time. So change of plans... I have to read up on this before I can come back at you with anymore silly questions.
You have given me the vision that my original plan is to ambitious. I'll be back in a few days

chb

Don't worry - lots of folks are too ambitious at first. It is just so tempting to try to see everything.

Sit down w/ your huspand and maybe a couple of guide books and try to decide what things are most important and then come back w/ a bit more focus.

Hi chb,
It's no problem, the objective here is for you to have a great holiday.

I would set up a base for around 4 nights, but that does depend upon the area you want to visit, if your in the centre of England you can see loads of places comfortably without the hassle of packing your case every day, which believe me takes a huge chunk out of your day, you can digest the area your in, talk to locals get best directions and see things that are not necesarily in the travel guide books, things that only the locals know. Remember I mention quality, you can achieve that in this way. I see no point in staying everynight somewhere different spending many hours packing checking out looking for the new place etc....you get my drift I am sure.
So its better to do this every for days or so and put a compas on a map draw a circle with a radius of 60 -80 miles and see whats within the area. Thats how I would approach it, but you must do it how you like to do things.

I look forward to your next post.

Muck

Good Afternoon Janisj and Mucky!!!

I have new and improved plans. So please read on...After extensive reading, I have scratched all plans for England and will only be visiting Ireland and Scotland. Wow was my original plan too ambitious. So here we go

Flying into Dublin 11-5-06 arriving 11-06.
I am looking for a good hotel in Dublin close to the center for looking at the historical sites. At this time I have Brooks Hotel or the Morrison, any comments about these establishments or additional hotels would be greatly appreciated.
Leaving Dublin the afternoon of 11-9- via rented auto and traveling to Wexford/Waterford area. As a lover of beautiful things I cannot miss the Waterford factory tour. Any and all suggestions of places to spend the night on 11-9 and 11-10 would be appreciated along with any additional ideas for touring. As I mentioned in previous postings I would like to spend the night in a castle I think that would be very cool and probably a once in a lifetime event for Kevin and I.

Leaving Wexford/Waterford on 11-11 and traveling to I don't know where It is here that I get murcky,
I know that the days will be short, I did a historical search of the island and found out that sunset is approx 4pm each evening.

On the 13th of November I need to be back at the Dublin airport for a flight to Edinburgh Scotland. Upon Arrival to Edinburgh we will stay in the city thru 11-16, rent a automobile to tour the surrounding countryside and stay in Portsoy for the 18th. Which is the crux of this trip to celebrate my husbands birthday in the area where his ancestors are from.
I have a read about a Bed and Breakfast:
Auld Cummerton
Glen Nochty
Strathdon. AB36 8UP
It sounds beautiful and restful which for us would be great.
Any comments on this or any thing to do in the area is greatly appreciated.

Leaving Edinburgh 11-22 for home.


Nothing except the airfare from home to Dublin is a fact I purchased that last night. Everything else is flexible. I have built in travel days and we will have 15 days on the ground. Like we discussed earlier the days will be short and the weather may be poor but oh well,

Thanks in advance for looking this over.
chb

You are working on a much better itinerary here. Don't have time right now for a lengthy response - but just one quick comment. I see no reason to travel all the way back to Dublin.

You can fly directly from Cork to Edinburgh. I'd spend my time in the SW (after Waterford head towards Killarney/Dingle/Kerry) and have an easy drive back to Cork to fly to Scotland. There are usually no extra fees for one way car rental so you don't have to go back to Dublin and waste a whole day of your short visit.

janisi
What a brillent idea on the air trip.
chb