Buying tickets to Ireland, plus our itinerary!

In June of last year, I started to get the travel bug. Bad. It made me obsessively check Travelzoo, and Kayak, and all of my other favorite travel sites. We had considered a trip to Ireland for a while, and when I started seeing air fare rates drop on Aer Lingus, we decided it was high time to do it.

After monitoring AerLingus.com for a few weeks, we found a fantastic deal: Los Angeles to Dublin, round trip, for $482 per person, after taxes. We booked directly through the Aer Lingus website - Los Angeles to Chicago to Dublin, and back.

Then, it was just about figuring out our itinerary. We wanted to get a good taste of Dublin, but we didn't want to spend all of our time there. We wanted to see the country, and decided that renting a car was our best option. My boyfriend wanted to see the North West of the country, I wanted to see as much coast as possible.

Dublin

After much consideration and debate, our 8 day, 7 night itinerary looked like this:

Wednesday, September 2 - Depart LAX to Chicago, then Chicago to Dublin
Thursday, September 3 - Arrive Dublin @ 9am, night in Dublin
Friday, September 4 - Morning train to Galway, rent car, night in Ballyshannon
Saturday, September 5 - Driving adventure of Co. Donegal, night in Ballyshannon
Sunday, September 6 - Return car to Galway, night in Galway
Monday, September 7 - Morning train to Dublin, night in Dublin
Tuesday, September 8 - Dublin, night in Dublin
Wednesday, September 9 - Dublin, night in Dublin
Thursday, September 10 - Dublin, Depart Dublin to Chicago, then Chicago to LAX

In retrospect, we spent entirely too much time in Dublin. When it came down to it, we had almost 4 full days there, and we later realized we'd much rather have spent at least one or two of those days driving around.

We did enjoy having a little "down time" after the sightseeing filled days we'd packed in on the west coast, but we're the kind of people who would take lakes and coasts over museums and shops.

Next time, if given the same number of days and nights, we'd do it this way:

Wednesday, September 2 - Depart LAX to Chicago, then Chicago to Dublin
Thursday, September 3 - Arrive Dublin @ 9am, rent car, night somewhere in between Dublin and west coast
Friday, September 4 - Driving adventure, night on west coast
Saturday, September 5 - Driving adventure, night on west coast
Sunday, September 6 - Driving adventure, night on west coast
Monday, September 7 - Driving adventure, night somewhere in between west coast and Dublin
Tuesday, September 8 - Return car to Dublin, night in Dublin
Wednesday, September 9 - Dublin, night in Dublin
Thursday, September 10 - Dublin, Depart Dublin to Chicago, then Chicago to LAX

That would still give us an afternoon, full day, and morning in Dublin, and we'd have four full days to drive and explore.

Where to go on the driving portions is great to leave open, since everyone has different priorities when it comes to what they want to see. Some people would prefer to go south, and see Cork and places like that - we prefer the less touristy areas. The areas a bit more off the beaten path that have lots of character and a genuinely Irish feel to them.

Another option would be to bring the car back a day earlier, and either spend more time in Dublin if it was your first time visiting, or else to take a day trip to the Wicklow Mountains, or another area nearby. That was another thing we'd have liked to have done, but by the end of the trip we were wanting a fairly low key few days.

Hopefully, Aer Lingus will keep up their low fares, and we'll get a chance to try out another itinerary!