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I know some of you travel extensively. My fiance and I are planning to elope to Ireland this summer, late July early August. I have never planned a trip like this. Do you all have any advice?
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Only thing I would say is to have a general guideline of what you want to see and do. sometimes people go on trips and just sort of show up. that's fine for an all inclusive to the Caribbean but a trip like Ireland with all it's history requires a bit of planning.
cost planning as well. not just the flights and hotel but food and travel once your their can be a surprising cost addition sometimes.
tripadvisor.com has always been indispensable to me. You can search reviews of not only hotels but on whole towns and locations.
take your time and plan it well and you will save a ton of money and get exactly what you want. -
also, search Rick Steves Ireland on youtube. the guy is a tool but he does a good job of covering anything worth seeing in any given country.Comment
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So, you think independent planning is better than getting a guided tour on a bus?Comment
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No I don't mean that at all. By all means, go on a tour! BUT, it still requires all the steps I listed above. A bus tour is not your whole trip. It's a small part of it. I'm the type of person that likes to have the whole picture and understanding of something before I do it. Judging by your posts on this forum I think you are also that type of person. You don't strike me as a rado type person who just sort of stumbles around not understanding the world around him. lolComment
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Research, research, as he stated, and count on the trip costing more than you think, haha. I haven't been to Ireland yet, but honestly food and everything in Europe is pricey.
TripAdvisor is excellent, travel guides from the library, travel forums (I like Cruise Critic when I'm searching destinations and what there is to do, etc). Once you start browsing the internet, you're going to find plenty you "might like to see/do" - just keep researching from there. I am a planner as well. I won't even go to DisneyWorld without a game plan of how I'm going to see/do the most things in my time there.Comment
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Bro, listen to me. Guided tours are for retirees. If you want to hang out with grandpa and grandma all day, then yes. Ireland is an English speaking country. You have NO reason to go on a guided tour.
Do Google searches and make a list of everything you want to see. From there, pare down to something that fits into your schedule. Use TripAdvisor for this, as well as for locating hotels. The TripAdvisor ratings are excellent guides - we have never been disappointed. Strike out on your own - don't let some tour guide tell you what you can do and for how long.Comment
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Disagree 100% with scrum. You can learn a lot on a good tour.
That's not to say you shouldn't also go on your own and explore. Do both for sure.Comment
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To each, his own, I guess. The strict schedules of a tour don't suit me. I want to get to a town and have 2 or 3 days to do whatever I want. Of course, I'll plan ahead so that I am efficient with my time, but I don't want to have to report back at the tour bus at a prescribed time.Comment
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My fiance likes the thought of a guide to learn the back story of location. I'm sure there would be some people our age on the tour.Comment
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Originally posted by AvidFisherman View Post
There's definitely some pros to tours. You can get quite a lot accomplished on a tour because like you said, someone else is giving you the rundown, doing the mapping, driving, etc. I'm one of those people that doesn't need to spend hours and hours at each place. A lot of times I want to hear a brief history, see it to say I've been, and move on to the next thing! But Scrum is probably likely to be the opposite. :PComment
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