Trip Planning Again!
Posted on March 23, 2007 17 Comments
As many of you know, I absolutely live for trip planning and vacation travel. I’m pleased to say that bf and I are planning another one! This time to Ireland in May, for 10 days. We can’t wait!
As always, we’ll be totally frugal in our travel. No fancy-pants hotels or tours for us. We actually tried calling a travel agent (my dad’s cousin) but the trips she had available were about $2,500 on Contiki travel and the dates didn’t work. Plus, bf is convinced that we can do this trip cheaper. LOL. Not sure how realistic that is, but we’re trying to piece this thing together from scratch now.
To start our trip planning, we spent a day at Border’s browsing travel books and taking notes, like we always do. We ended up buying a Rick Steve’s guide to Ireland book, mostly because it had a lot of helpful Web links listed throughout, but also because when I went to Spain in college these two guys on our trip had a RS book they fondly referred to as “The Rick.” We took The Rick all over Spain and it never steered us wrong. So, bf and I will be taking our own The Rick to Europe in hopes for another good trip.
Based on our research, we want to definitely hit up Dublin and Galway, and also spend some time in the Southwest region (Ring of Kerry, Cliffs of Moher, Dingle peninsula, etc.). We want to do lots of outdoor sightseeing, and at night hang out in pubs and listen to Irish music. Since bf is Irish, he has some ideas of places north of Galway that he’d like to see based on his heritage. We have a lot to get in!
Now that we both have our travel dates approved, the next step is to book flights. We picked out our flight on Sunday, an American for $444 round trip, but when we went to book on Wednesday, the cost bumped up to about $650. So we need to do a bit more shopping. Aer Lingus looks to be a little cheaper, but still in the $600 arena. Next time we see a cheap fair, we’re booking immediately!
We still have some outstanding issues. We don’t have our itinerary completely figured out, we want to travel most of the long trips by rail (despite the advice of everyone to drive) and we have a lot of logistics research to do (B&Bs). We want to see sights, but don’t want to be locked into the schedule of a tour. And I have no idea if my cell phone can even make international calls to make reservations.
But that’s all the fun of it for me. I’m such a geek for this stuff. I’ll spend hours, days, online to research it all. But my methods usually turn out right, since we haven’t had a bad trip yet and we’ve been planning them together for the last eight years.
Here are a few of my favorite trip planning Web sites. I hope you enjoy them!
To research travel:
- budgettravelonline.com
- Great ideas for where to go, where to stay and how to do it cheap!
- tripadvisor.com
- I always research hotels and other vacation services here.
- fodors.com
- Nice starting point for researching your destination
- frommers.com
- Again, good starting point and usually has plenty of budget options
- travel.nytimes.com
- Great for finding the perfect restaurant, and usually has a good pulse on what’s happening NOW at your destination
- ricksteves.com
- For trips to Europe, The Rick won’t steer you wrong
- nps.com (national park service)
- If you like the outdoors, this should be bookmarked
To book travel:
- orbitz.com
- hotels.com
- southwest.com (love them for Vegas)
- aa.com (sometimes surprisingly cheap, especially when you fly during off-peak hours)
- aerlingus.com (for our Ireland trip)
- It’s important to note when you’re using these search engines, use the “dates flexible” option whenever you can. Trips can very by hundreds of dollars with the difference of a day, and this option allows you to look at all the dates in the month
For couples:
- site59.com
- Good for last-minute travel ideas
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17 Responses to “Trip Planning Again!”
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March 23rd, 2007 @ 12:39 pm
I’m a regular reader, but never a poster. I’ve been to Ireland twice, first to Dublin and second to Galway, Cliffs of Moher, that area. I would definately recommend just 1-2 days in Dublin. It’s much like any other large city and not particularly “irish” feeling. Galway though was wonderful and full of culture and heritage. There’s actually a small town called Salthill outside Galway which is a beach area and I would recommend staying there, it was great. Literally minutes from Galway. Also, definately drive! It’s sooo much easier and you get the hang of it quicker then you think. You can email me at kari0417 at hotmail dot com if you want any further info
March 23rd, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
I would check back for your $444 flight again this Sunday- for some reason, fares go up on Wednesday and then go back down by the weekend. Can’t tell you why, but I know it happens- at least with domestic flights. The trip sounds fantastic!!
March 23rd, 2007 @ 2:42 pm
I have found these websites helpful in my international travel:
http://www.sidestep.com
http://www.venere.com
March 23rd, 2007 @ 3:11 pm
When we went we signed up with a B&B voucher program. There are two main ones in Ireland, most of the B&B’s belong to one or the other. For example, you get 10 vouchers, good for 10 nights, and just redeem them at any B&B that’s in the program.
We never reserved any B&B’s except for the last night, because we needed to be close to the airport. The voucher programs include a book of all the participating B&B’s so we just looked up some in the area and drove by. Never had a problem, usually didn’t start looking for a place for the night until 4:00 or so.
Even if you just go without vouchers, you literally can’t throw a rock in most of Ireland without putting it through the window of a B&B.
We went in early May, just before peak season, so it would be busier later on.
Our trip and tips, if you’re interested: http://jasonmorris.net/trips/ireland/
March 23rd, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
Try kayak.com for finding good air fares. It checks most of the other sites very quickly.
March 23rd, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
My friend, who is a regular reader of your blog, directed me to your site because I’m going to Ireland with my family next week. I’ll keep an eye out for things that I experience there and let you know!
March 23rd, 2007 @ 5:36 pm
Thanks everyone! Your travel tips are invaluable
March 23rd, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
I handle online advertising for two travel clients so I’ve learned a few things over the years. First while it is smart to look for rates on Orbitz/Travelocity they will always be more expensive than going straight to the source (that’s how they make their money, through an upcharge).
Also search engines like Kayak.com are great because they’re just metasearch’s which means you can’t book through them but they’ll show you how much a United flight is on United.com, CheapTickets, etc.
VirtualTourist is similar to a TripAdvisor and has great reviews from real travelers.
Good luck, I’ve always wanted to go to Ireland. My bf and I are planning a trip to Vienna this summer!
March 23rd, 2007 @ 8:18 pm
As a Dubliner myself I can tell you that it can be pricey in Ireland for Americans, but worth it. The museum system is totally donation only so be sure to check out the National Museums as well as the Chester Beatty Library. Also, the blog over at EuroCheapo details some great free and fun stuff. Temple Bar (the “cultural quarter”) usually has free stuff going on as well, like the Handel Festival in April, so that might point you to something too. Finally, the good news is that Dublin is a small and totally walkable city, so pack some good shoes!!
March 23rd, 2007 @ 10:40 pm
Hey Nicole!
I went to Ireland last year and it was awesome! You’ll have such a great time.
My travel pictures are here… I know I always liked to look at other people’s pictures when I was planning our trip… let me know if you have any questions about anything!
Have fun planning!
March 25th, 2007 @ 6:17 am
As far as your cellphone goes if it’s tri-band or quad-band (which if it’s not extremely old it probably is) and you have GSM service than it should work fine when you are overseas. Just make sure to put a “+” symbol before the full number you are dialing. For instance the country code for Ireland is 353. Let’s say the phone number you want to call there is 555-5555 than you would dial +3535555555 on your cell phone.
March 25th, 2007 @ 11:34 pm
I definitely recommend kayak.com as well.
And I love site59 which you mention. I’ve used it for better (direct) and cheaper flights with dinner at a BBQ restaurant included (to Memphis).
Have fun!
Wylie
March 28th, 2007 @ 12:35 am
Two more suggestions for you- for booking flights try http://www.kayak.com- it searches all of the search engines (orbitz, travelocity, cheaptickets, etc) as well as the major airline sites. I’ve found this to be the easiest way to check the most places all at once.
For lodging, try http://www.hostelworld.com- it’s a site that lists traditional dorm-style hostels as well as guest houses, small hotels, apartment rentals, etc. It has pictures and (my favorite) ratings and comments from people that have stayed there before. Don’t be put off by the “hostel” part- you can find traditional, private hotel room accomodations as well. We stayed in a gorgeous hotel in Greece that I’ve since recommended to anyone traveling in Athens. (Yay Hotel Cecil!!)
Good luck and have a wonderful time!
March 28th, 2007 @ 1:40 pm
Here’s another website for booking flights: http://www.mobissimo.com
It’s similar to Kayak, but in my experience has cheaper fares. It’s worth checking out. I just bought tickets to Bangkok, and they were much cheaper on mobissimo than any other site!
Good luck and have a great trip!
April 5th, 2007 @ 3:21 am
Definitely going to jump in and say Kayak.com is the cheapest when it comes to airfare. After doing thorough searches on dozens of flight booking sites and always ending up buying them through kayak.com, I don’t even bother with any other websites now.
April 21st, 2007 @ 7:31 pm
LOL. MY sister and I just booked tickets for a 10-day trip to Ireland in June-July, so this is a very timely post. We don’t have any plans finalized, so please post back with any more info about you itinerary or the trip once you get back! The other comments look awesome too!
Thanks!
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