Two of my friends and I (females in our mid-late twenties) are looking to take a 10-14 day trip in early June, and Ireland is one of our options. I need to do much more research, but with what research I have done, I'm hoping that you experts can help get me pointed in the right direction.

We're looking for walks and hikes, scenic drives, time in the countryside, history, and bucolic villages. Nightlife and pub crawls don't appeal to us. We're looking at spending about $500-$750 per person for car rental, gas, and lodging.

Right now I'm looking at flying into and out of Shannon and spending our time in counties Kerry, Clare, and Galway. Sights that look interesting so far: Ring of Kerry, Killarney National Park, Dingle Peninsula Drive, Ross Castle, Adare Castle, Cliffs of Moher, Bunratty Castle, Connemara National Park, Aran Islands.

Would it be possible to choose one base town/city for each of these three counties and do all of our exploring from the bases? I'm looking for recommendations for base towns/villages, recommendations for B&Bs, and suggested itineraries.

I'm also open to other suggestions of counties/regions to visit, I just need to make sure that everything fits together into a doable 10-14 day trip.

Thanks in advance!

Hello -
I think 3 counties is very doable and you should not add more. You can easily choose 3 places to stay as bases. For Kerry you might consider Dingle or Kenmare, for Clare Doolin or Ennis would be good spots, then for Galway there's Galway City, Roundstone or Clifden. If you like villages one of the latter 2 might be better.

Going out to the pubs in the evening is an important part of visiting Ireland. That's where you'll meet people and have a chat, hear music and probably have your evening meal. No need to have more than a pint. So it's more a pub walk than a pub crawl

If you want to do hiking you might want to pick up the Lonely Planet book called Walking in Ireland. It details wonderful hikes. Both Kerry and Galway have great hikes and Clare has lovely walks on the Burren.

For history - Clare has several interesting places to visit in addition to Bunratty - you'll see those in the guidebooks.

Not-great news first: I think your budget is going to be tough. I went with a friend in 2007 and paid about 35E per person per night for bed & breakfast accommodations, which is about $48/night right now. So if you're set on that budget, I think you're looking at hostels. Which is fine, if you're OK with that. Once you get lodging settled, you can eat pretty cheaply, especially if you're staying at b&bs, as those breakfasts will fill you up!

Money aside, I think this sounds like a lovely and relaxing trip! I can really only help with Kerry and a bit of Clare. I highly recommend Dingle - I loved it. We stayed at Emlagh Lodge in Dingle town - it's on the harbor and a very short walk to the town center. I think it's worth having two bases in Kerry; I wouldn't want to drive from Dingle to see Killarney NP. I'd look into Kenmare for a few nights for that purpose. (I didn't stay there, but wish I had instead of Killarney.) As you're interested in hiking, we did the Gap of Dunloe tour. The tour company picked us up in Killarney, drive us to one end, then had boats for us to cross the three lakes before they picked us up at Ross Castle. It's about a 7-mile hike, I believe.

We stayed in Ennis in Clare; if I remember correctly, it was about an hour and a half or so to Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher. We took the Cliffs of Moher cruise, which I highly recommend (I think it was 20E).

I agree that the pubs may not be exactly what you're thinking of. I'm not a bar/club/pub person at home either - I mostly just go for trivia night. But as rosetravels said, we'd go, have dinner, relax awhile, listen to music and chat with others if we felt so inclined (we met six awesome middle-aged Norwegian men our first night in Dingle - one of my favorite trip pictures).

My trip report might help you, as we're similar ages and you're going to a few of the same places we did. It's here:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...lus-philly.cfm

We went to the UK first, so scroll down till you get to Ireland. Have a great time!

Oh yes your budget. That's a hard one. The way we've saved a lot of money going to Europe is by plunking ourselves in one base spot for a week and renting an apartment or cottage. It's a lot less and then we can have dinner in if we'd like. In Ireland they're called self-catering and you could stay a week in Kenmare then a week in or near Galway, visiting Clare on the way to Galway. A self-catering week in Ireland is Saturday to Saturday. Even if you leave a day early it's usually a lot less if you have 3 people.

We've done this in Ireland. One year we visited for around 2 weeks and spent a week in Kenmare, a night in Clare, then a week in Donegal. The next year we spent a week in Westport then a week in Donegal. Both of these trips were relatively inexpensive and we didn't feel like we weren't seeing enough. There's so much to do from each location in Ireland that it was easy to fill a fabulous week at each base.

I'm also trying to plan a trip to Ireland. I was told about this website yesterday and I like what I see so far, about budget accomodations, etc. It's a site started by an Irish lady, not a big company, who was always getting questions about Ireland from people in other countries. Hope it helps!

Rosetravels and Jent, thanks so much for your input. The $500-750 is in addition to airfare; I've used approximate lodging rates, car rental and insurance fees, and what entrance fees I could find, and the total comes out within our range, so I think we should be okay.

Jent your pictures are gorgeous! It looks like you had great weather. My fear is that we may not be so lucky. I went to Hawaii a few years ago, and we had torrential rains the whole time. The trip was fun, but not exactly what I'd planned and saved for. Since so much of Ireland is the scenery, I fear that continual rain or fog may ruin the trip.

We're currently deciding between a trip to Ireland or a trip to Greece (totally different, I know), but if we decide on Ireland I'll be back with more questions on specifics.

Duh! I forgot to name the website I was talking about.... here's the link http://www.dochara.com/

memejs - it sounds like you've done your research! I'll be really interested to hear how your budget and lodging work out. The cheaper I can get a trip, the sooner I can take it, so maybe I'll borrow some ideas! Thanks so much on the pictures. We did have great weather most days, but really we still enjoyed ourselves even when we didn't. It's the sort of thing you can't change, so I figured there was no point in worrying about it - just take a rain jacket and be prepared!

We rented a 4-bedroom place in Kenmare for $700/week. The place had 2.5 bathrooms, big kitchen, cable, A/C, clean, great place. Kenmare is a wonderful town and a great home base for Counties Kerry and Clare: http://www.kenmareholidayvillage.com/

I don't think your budget is realistic. Even using $700. The € is rising right now and could be higher still in June. Today $700 would net you approx €37 a day for 14 days. Of course - if you cut back to 10 days you'd have about €52 per day - which is totally doable. But your money would stretch much farther if you rent a cottage -- and have much more space than in B&Bs.

If the $ falls just 4 or 5 more cents you are down in the €34-€35 per day range. And $500 simply isn't doable (unless you are talking about 10 days/9 "on the ground")

meant to say - "And $500 simply isn't doable - unless you are talking self catering"

BTW - don't let the term "self catering" put you off. It does not mean you have to cook for 2 weeks (though you can if you want). It is just the term used for vacation rentals. You can still eat out, or do anything else you'd do if staying in a B&B. But you'd have the advantages of more space, a washer/dryer/and a kitchen for when you did want to cook. And a "home" to come back to each night after touring all day.

Your budget of $750/14-days comes to about $50/day. Say you spend $30/day lodging (very cheap!), that leaves $20 for car/tolls/gas/food. Not a chance this is proper budget. I suggest a cruise withinthe price range with the girls, reduce the number of days, or increase your budget.

I think you'll only get hostel or camp site lodging for $30 per day. Most B&B's charge around 35Euro per night per person. Eating out will cost you anywhere between €10 to €15 for pub grub. Not sure about car rental but I think it's pretty reasonible. One thing, friends of ours visited from Germany and had trouble with car hire because they had the wrong type of card. Make sure you call in advance to ensure you know what is required (laser card, credit card, id etc.). A couple of good sites to look at are http://www.tripadvisor.ie (lost of great advise in the forums), http://our-ireland.com (general info on Ireland) and http://www.discoverireland.com, lots of info for visitors. You could do a bus tour package holiday with Paddy Wagons or there's a company in Limerick call Barrett's tours that offer good value. If you can visit one city visit Dublin, if want scenery go to Kerry or Clare, if you want to live like queens on your budget go to South America!