We plan to hire a car in southern England & tour
there & then to Wales. Is is allowed to take the
ferry over to Ireland in the hired car & tour & then take another ferry to Scotland & tour? We
would like to tour both the UK & Ireland but aren't sure what to do about the cars.

Many years ago my aunt and uncle made the same plan, only to find that rental cars cannot be taken on the ferry from the UK to Ireland. Since then I have read from posters on this board that it can be done, but there's an additional fee. Be sure to ask that question to the rental car agency.

A couple of years ago, when we didn't have our own car, I asked several rental agencies about taking a hire car abroad - none of them would allow it.

You're actually raising two separate issues here.

Many hire companies do allow cars hired on the British mainland to be taken to Ireland. But many (???all) charge a supplement (they claim it's an insurance thing!!): Hertz for example quotes £70 surcharge for the first week. You need to shop around both to check which companies do offer the facility and for how spectacularly they're ripping you off.

But there's an odd paradox here. Plane fares across the Irish Sea are about the most competitive in the world, and there's hardly a strip of concrete on either side that doesn't offer flights to an extraordinary range of places on the other for less than the price of a cup of coffee. Ferry or supercat fares, OTOH are - especially with a car - horrendous. Ferries are also surprisingly time-consuming, since most of the ports are a fair way from where you probably want to be, and the catamarans that look so fast can't operate in all weathers. Nothing quite matches sitting round Rosslare for a few hours in the pouring rain, waiting for the slow ferry you've got to take because the cat's staying in its litter.

So you might well find that flights based on two circular car hires save you a lot of time and money.

Thanks for the help. I was afraid it would be cost prohibitive. Do you know if Heathrow has luggage lockers? We could do London & some side trips & then leave a suitcase at the airport fly over to Ireland, tour & then fly back & get another car & finish touring.

Hollylee why not just hire a car when you get here( Ireland),that would be a much simpler solution to your problem.

There are left luggage facilities at LHR. Not lockers, but a storage area where an attendant screens the luggage.

But where are you going to be traveling in the UK? LHR is not the only option. Gatwick, Bristol, Southampton, Cardiff and several other airports have cheap flights to Ireland.

After London area & Ireland we want to tour Cornwall, Wales, Scotland & York. Just in the planning stages so just mentioned Heathrow as we will probably fly into there in the 1st place.

You haven't mentioned how long you have for this trip??

Cornwall, Ireland, Wales, Yorkshire, Scotland and so on is a vast area spread over 4 countries. Not something doable in just 3 or 4 weeks.

We plan on 6-7 weeks. I know we won't see everything but we want to get to most of the different areas if only for a short while-Cornwall, Snodonia, Kintyre area & Edinburgh & York.

Well I won't argue if you could accomplish everyting in 3-4 weeks; of course you could. Ten days, no; twice that, yes, but not everything for long periods.

Still, I'd recommend you start planning an "open jaw" trip - fly to Ireland, tour, fly to the UK, tour some more, home. And frankly, if you're flying from Ireland to the UK, there's absolutely no need to use Heathrow, where congestion, airport taxes (higher there than in some other airports) and simple inconvenience make it quite unnecessary IMO. Many of us who frequent LHR only do so because our planes happen to be going there. From Ireland you have many choices using low-cost airlines like Ryanair or easyJet - Dublin to Bristol or Glasgow or Edinburgh or....

Also, most car rental agencies (called "car hire" in the UK) don't hit you with an extra fee for dropping the car at a different place than where you collected it, so one-way or meandering routes are easy.

Regarding bag storage at LHR, last I checked it was running around £5 per day per bag, so over several weeks that's a pile of Pounds. Pack light, or buy what you need from local outlets, rather than storing bags at airports.

Happy planning.

HollyLee,

Your itinerary sounds very similar to ours. A bit longer and a bit more detailed. We are flying into LHR and already have the tickets and upgrades.

The ferry rates are a bit pricey, but I still think it'll be easier than flying especially with our itinerary---LHR, Oxford for the 1st night, pick up car and drive to Cardiff, travel through Wales ending up in Anglesey and taking the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin.

Our Ireland tour will include West Meath, Galway, Sligo,Donegal and Northern Ireland. We plan to take the ferry from Larne to Scotland.

I haven't added up the ferry expenses yet,so may want to consider doing Wales backward and drive to Anglesey first and then south to Cardiff, catching a flight there to Dublin. Now I have to get from Dublin to Scotland. What problems to have!

A far as weather being a factor in the crossings that's a possibility, but it can affect flights as well.

If you don't have much luggage you can leave it at LHR, but it can get expensive.

For pricing on ferries try www.stenaline.com
www.irishferries.com

I would also suggest you check personally with car rental agencies to determine exactly what expenses are involved. You might also see about leasing a car. I don't know if this would elimate any possible charge or not.
Try
www.autoeurope/www.europebycar.com

Good Luck and keep us updated on your plans

history traveler-we are thinking of flying into London with Globus & staying for a week & do some tours to Dover, Oxford & Stonehenge. I know that we could do it alone & cheaper but my husband would like to enjoy some of the scenery without driving & also get some history that isn't from a book.

We are then thinking of flying over to Ireland seeing Dublin & then renting a car & heading over to the west side of the country & skipping some of the more touristy areas-Blarney Stone etal, flying from Shannon back to London & taking the train down to Cornwall getting a car & driving along the coast& up thru Wales & Scotland. My ancestors are from the Kintyre Pen & I want to see the McMillan Cross. We want to also vist York & Hadrian's Wall.

We have also considered flying into Ireland 1st & then going on to London. We want to go the last week in April & stay about 6 weeks.

It's a lot to squeeze into that amount of time. We are used to traveling long days but don't want to see things only from the car.

How long will you be traveling? We are from far western CO so our fligt will be long indeed.

Wow what a trip! It does sound a bit disjointed. I think I would fly to Dublin/Shannon, rent a car then fly to England. If you plan on doing Cornwall, it'd be great if you could get a flight from Ireland to Plymouth or even Exeter. You could rent your car there and then travel Cornwell and Wales and up to Scotland on the M6,and end your trip in London. Or fly from Ireland to Glasgow/Edinburgh and do the above plan in reverse.It'd be best to drop off the car before actually getting to London. Once in London, there is no need for a car as the trains, tube and coaches can take you anywhere you want to go.Oxford is a great palce to drop off a car(that's what we'll be doing). You can catch the bus to LHR or Gatwick from the central bus station there.

As for Stonehenge there are a number of tours that go there ( from London) or you can take the train to Salisbury, visit the cathedral(please do the tower tour if you go). There are buses that go to Stonehenge, some making stops at the train staion which is a few short blocks from the cathedral.

I would advise you to throughly think though the logistics. You have quite a bit planned even for six weeks.

We will be flying into LHR, staying the first night in Oxford where we'll pick up our rental, then drive to Cardiff and travel through Wales. From Holyhead we'll take the ferry to Dublin and spend the Irish portion of our trip visiting, Meath, Galway, Sligo, Donegal and Antrim. Then we'll take the ferry across to Scotland and spend the last 12 days there, finally driving back to Oxford to return car, spend the night and take the bus to LHR in time for our flight.Five weeks total time.I did shorten it from the orginal six we'd planned as it was getting pretty expensive.

We will be leaving from DEN also but not until August. Let me know how your plans are going. Would be glad to help with information, or direct you to some good sources, including fellow Fodorites.