I am planning to go to UK/Ireland next year. It will be me and my teenage son, and will be our first time overseas. Here are the first of many, many questions. I do not wish to do a guided tour. Should I attempt to plan this on my own, or should I work with a travel agent? I have spoken with one, who offers prepaid drive tours, where car rental and hotels/B&B are paid in advance. Others have said "do it yourself."

So what would be the best way to go?

Thanks.

Hi rdfaye-

Welcome to Fodors. Majority of posters here on Fodors, are DIY types, so naturally, that's what we will recommend.

Since you're not going until 2010, you definitely have plenty of time to plan everything yourself: from booking plane tickets, to booking B&Bs etc.

One place to start, is to go your library and take out Rick Steves' guidebooks on UK & Ireland. While I'm not a huge fan of his, I find his guidebooks very user-friendly, esp for first time trip planners.

Other things to consider:
How long will your trip be?
What time of year?
What places in UK/Ireland would you like to visit?
What's your budget?

Once you have a better idea of where you want to visit, and what you want to see etc, come back here with more specific questions.

There's also the "Destination" info here on Fodors where you can look up information on specific cities.

My 70 year old aunt and I travelled to England and Ireland. We did all the planning and booking ourselves. We hired a car in both Ireland and England and had no problems with the driving there (apart from getting lost trying to return the car in Dublin at the end of the Irish section of our trip).

We used mainly b&b's and pubs (particularly in the smaller towns in England) and only prebooked in London, York and Dublin. We had no trouble finding accommodation in other areas. The only reason we prebooked in Dublin was because we wanted to stay in the rooms at Trinity College.

We travelled first in Ireland, then England. We had four days in London before we took a train to York where we had three nights. In England we collected our car from York and dropped it back in Taunton in Dorset and took a train back to London to fly home. This meant we weren't driving anywhere near London itself.

We did not pre book any sights and had no problem purchasing tickets at the various sights on arrival.

We made a list of what we wanted to see in both Ireland and England - e.g. in Ireland - Books of Kell, Knock, Cliffs of Moher, Kylemore Abbey, Belleek factory etc and in England - York Cathedral, Derbyshire Dales, Warwick Castle, Shakespeare play in Stratford, Minack Theatre (in Cornwall, absolutely fabulous)but apart from this we had a very loose itinerary and had the most amazing time.

Hope this helps. If we can do it ourselves - you certainly can!


Hope this helps.

I do tend to DIY it--overseas is just more intimidating the first time round.

Here are my major concerns about DIY: Can you purchase trip insurance in case of illness, deaths, etc.? And how do I purchase medical insurance for us?

Huett--How was Belleek Factory? That was actually founded by one of my ancestors. There are supposedly castle ruins nearby.

There are several websites that make comparing trip insurance policies much easier.

Check out www.insuremytrip and www.squaremouth.com and then come back with any specific questions you might have.

Hy rdfaye
The Belleek factory was great - we did a tour where they showed the china being made - very interesting and worthwhile visiting if like us you like Belleek pottery. Not sure about the ruined castle.