Ireland- plan ahead or just wing it?
 

Thanks to everyone with their tips regarding Killarney yesterday.
Anyway, the husband and I are taking a 2 week trip in April. We are renting a car and doing B&B's along our drive.
Obviously, we have ideas of places we want to see, towns we want to stay in. We did make our reservations for Dublin for the first 3 nights. But for the rest of the trip, I think we are going to wing it and drive where we want, decide where to stay and for how long as we go along. We don't want to be tied down to an itinerary. Is this nuts? I see lots of people with pretty detailed itineraries...and like I said, we have a list of some things that are a "must", but I don't want to plan out "when" we are going to see or do them until we get there.
Has anyone else traveled this way and what was your success?
TIA

April is not high season so winging it should work fine. You should be able to find good B&Bs without advance reservations, particularly in smaller towns or rural areas. However, if you know where you'd like to stay any given night, you could ask your current B&B host to call ahead for you. That would give you one less thing to deal with that day.

I wouldn't wing it over Easter, and I wouldn't wing it in Dublin at all, especially at weekends.

I've done this successfully in early June and September. Often one B&B hostess would recommend a place in our next town and we'd offer an extra Punt or Euro for her long distance phone calls for us. You can also stop in a tourist information office at midafternoon and make a res for the same night in a town an hour or two along on your route.

I agree that over Easter you should not wing it. That is a long holiday weekend of April 6 - 9. Make plans and reservations if you are traveling then.

That is one of my favorite things about Ireland, winging it! We've been there over Easter several times (although quite a few years ago) and never had a problem. We've also been there in June, etc., and again had no problems. Love the freemdom. But, I ALWAYS make a reservation for the first night.

Have fun!

PS Dublin was a bit of a challenge, but we did manage to find a nice B & B, and there were 4 of us.

On our recent trip to Ireland, we had reservations for our arrival in Dublin, in Kilkenny because it was a bank holiday weekend, and for our last 2 nights.

The rest of the time, we stopped where we felt like it. Since we were traveling the end of Oct.-beginning of Nov., we knew availability would not be a problem. We were, for the most part, happy with that decision. The pros: On more than once occasion, we found that we did not spend as long at an attraction or in an area as we expected. Not having reservations let us move along and not be tied to a specific place at a specific time. Another pro: Not having to spend time looking for an specific B&B or hotel. We could simply stop where we wanted and could judge for ourselves what was walking distance or not.

The only con was twice waiting too long to start to look for some place to stay--we wanted to find a place before dark-- and ending up in places that were ok, but not great.

Ellenrho

I wouldnt attempt to wing it here ( Ireland) in April, its Easter, and there will be loads of tourist, book ahead and then you can rest easy that you have a nice bed to sleep in :)
Enjoy

Lucie

I seldom pre book in either June or April, but Easter weekend COULD be difficult..
If I'm going to an unfamiliar place, I often drop into a Tourist Information office early in the afternoon and have them book me a place for the night. They charge about 2 Euro for the service, but the added flexibility of not having to maintain a schedule made months and thousands of miles away make it money well spent, IMHO.

Nowadays, I just whip out my cell phone (with Irish SIM) and start making calls once I have an idea of where I plan to end up.

Bob

I went in March a few years ago and had trouble finding places only around Dublin. No problem in the rest of the country. I used the B&B book ffrom Town and Country - lots of good places listed.