Preparing to Travel to Ireland

A better example of planning is our upcoming Ireland trip. We are visiting our extended family in London in late June. In searching for decent airfare, I discovered flying to Ireland is much less expensive than anywhere else in Europe. I have a friend and former work colleague who moved to Ireland a few years ago upon his own retirement and is flourishing as a phenomenal photographer. We talked about visiting him. This seemed to be the opportune time!

He has entertained many visitors since relocating to Ireland from Minnesota and has prepared his own list of recommended tours, making our research so easy! Once we connected and confirmed he was available during our dates, he sent over his tour list. We scheduled a What’s App call to discuss specifics and timing of tours. When we land in Shannon, should we immediately visit the Cliffs of Moher, before making the drive back to his place in Clifden? Yes! Should we stay at the Shannon airport after visiting Galway the night before our departure to Heathrow? Yes. Are the tours of Inish Mor and Inishbofin similar enough to do one, or should we do both? Killary Fjord and Kylemore Abbey can be combined into one day. Connemara is best viewed as a sunrise hike, and in late June, sunrise is EARLY! But while it may be earlier than my preference, its only 15-minutes from the house and I can nap later that day.

From there we started purchasing tickets to the various excursions, with a few What’s App messages back and forth on timing, we were set, even booked our hotel at the airport the night before departing Ireland for early morning London flight. Even though I load all the details into a shared iCloud calendar so my elderly mom can always find us, we still print out our spreadsheet itinerary and create a packet with copies of tickets, passports, hotel details and flights. We've learned, you never know when your phone may stop working or getting online is difficult. It's always good to have a back-up plan.