NONIE

My husband and I will be traveling from Shannon up to Dublin August 4th - August 15th. We have reservations for the first 3 nights around Shannon/Galway and Castle Dromoland and then we will be traveling South and up to Dublin. We have FOUR nights without reservations (we do have reservations once we get to Dublin at end of trip). Any need for concern? Will we be able to get into comfortable B&B's in Dingle, Kinsale, Kilarney last minute? We don't want to make advanced reservations in fear of limiting where we might decide to stay? We realize many people do travel with B&B vouchers and thus have no reservations like us. Is it too risky for us to go with 4 nights with no reservations?

herself

You won't have any problems getting great B&B's. We usually try finding a B&B around 3:00pm. That give us time to get there, check in, scope the area, ask the owner about restaurants or activities in the area, and go out and have fun. <BR>You will love Dromoland, Best beds.

shannon

I am not familiar with the availablity during the summer for B&Bs (many people say you should reserve ahead of time during the summer months). However, if you go to one place to see if they have any rooms and they don't they will usually call another B&B for you. That seemed to work for us a couple times. Very good five star B&Bs in Dingle overlooking the water.

Cathy

Nonie, <BR>I would suggest ringing ahead to your next B&B before leaving your current B&B - does that make sense ?. I am after having some friends from the continent visit and they found by doing this they got reasonable priced B&Bs with no hassle - however they left it late on 1 or 2 occasions and had problems. Sometimes you may have to settle for a twin instead of a doubt or not en-suite. Have a good time

Ed

The downside to no reservations: <BR>1) Wise to stop what you're doing earlier in the day than you might otherwise to have a better chance to get a desirable room; <BR>2) More desirable properties and rooms may be taken during peak (e.g. August) travel time; <BR>3) Unless you've researched it well, you may not know that you're hitting town the same day as the 'village fair', 'music festival' or other such event has filled up all the rooms for 50 miles around. <BR> <BR>That said, I understand that mainly like to travel footloose and fancy free. If so, at least take Cathy's advice a call ahead in the morning before you set off for the day. That way you'll know if you may have a problem and you'll have the whole day to work on it. <BR> <BR>European Travel Tips <BR>www.twenj.com/tipstools.htm

Harriett

I had planned our first trip to Ireland entirely around an overnight in Kilkenny. Unfortunately, that was the only place I didn't make a reservation for the entire 12-day trip -- not knowing, of course, that there was some major international football match there the very night we planned to be there. We got a res. through the tourist office, in Cashel (which was 'splendid,') rather than Kilkenny, but I'll never again travel in Ireland in August without a reservation. If you're interested in a backup plan, check out the website for the Irish Farmhouse Bed & Breakfast Assn -- www.irishfarmholidays.com -- we used their listings for our first trip, and all were lovely and very reasonable. Better safe than sorry . . . especially if you have your heart set on staying in a certain town or village. If not, serendipity is a good thing too!