IWAHAY

My wife's life-long dream is to visit Irelnad (she has Irish heritage). We will be going for 2 weeks from the end to may into the first of June. Is this enough time or too much time to see the island by car? We will travel independently by rental car. We want to have enough time to see it all (not just the tourist stuff) but don't want to have to start finding ways to kill time. I'm thinking of flying in and out of Shannon. Prefer the smaller town to deal with. Is that a good idea? Thanks in advance for any response.

janisj

&quot;<i> Is this enough time or too much time to see the island by car? We will travel independently by rental car. We want to have enough time to see it all (not just the tourist stuff) but don't want to have to start finding ways to kill time.</i>&quot;

Two weeks is enough tome to see <b>some</b> of Ireland, but certainly not all of it. Believe me, you won't need to kill any time. But you first need to decide if you want to visit the area(s) your wife's family is fromm or just do some general sightseeing.

2 weeks is a good time to sample the southwest and western coastal regions. You need to factor in that on most rural roads you will be lucky to average 35 mph. May/June is a great time to visit Ireland.

Viajero2

First things first: if the motivation for the trip is ancestry, then you need to know where in Ireland is her family from. This will start shaping the route, or at a mimimum, where not to miss.

Get a guidebook out and start listing sights: A Wish List with Must Sees and Nice to see. Mark the Must Sees on a map (could be a whole region; for me it was the South). That's the First Draft. Choose a max of four home bases from where to explore the Must Sees. This first draft should start giving you a sense of arrival/departure airport.

Off the bat, consider arriving in Dublin and departing from Shannon. DO NOT RENT from AutoEurope/Europcar. They are getting notorious for Bait &amp; Switch advertisement and we just learned they have several pending legal actions for this fraudulent practice, specially for Ireland bound travelers. Who knows what will come out of it: BUYERS BEWARE!

IWAHAY

We do not intend to pursue the family tree search. She just wants to visit the country. I like the idea of no more than four home bases. The main reason I am looking at Shannon for arrival and departure is that we don't like big cities and it appears to be much smaller. I don't mind driving a loop to go back to Shannon. Given the advice from Janis I think we will concentrate on the West and Southwest and if time permits go inland and north. Thank you

letsembellish

I took my mother in law (85th birthday) to Ireland last fall. Because of her age I wanted to have a &quot;home base&quot; where we could come back to every night. We stayed near Kenmare and did day trips. Ring of Kerry, Dingle Peninsula, Beara Peninsula, Blarney Castle (she had to kiss the stone), Killarney Forest. It was nice to have a cottage with a kitchen, fireplace, and TV. Have fun on your trip. Loved flying into Shannon. Much easier drive than Dublin.