Travelling around Ireland - need help

Nanotekkunt

Hi all,

Myself and my girlfriend want to travel around Ireland. We plan to start in Dublin, then Belfast, and then work our way around.

However, the logistics are not as easy as we expected (we don't drive).

I had a look at the Irish tours website Paddywagon, and it looks great. However, it is extremely pricey (6 day all Ireland tour - 368 Euro each standard, or 568 Euro each deluxe, the latter which includes private room and breakfast).

We mainly want to see all of the main attractions, such as Giant's Causeway, Cliff of Moher etc, so this Paddywagon tour sounds suitable. However, do you have any other recommendations, considering the huge price? Also, have any of you done this Paddywagon tour before, and if so how was it?

Many thanks.

Civilian_Target

Nanotekkunt wrote: »

Hi all,

Myself and my girlfriend want to travel around Ireland. We plan to start in Dublin, then Belfast, and then work our way around.

However, the logistics are not as easy as we expected (we don't drive).

I had a look at the Irish tours website Paddywagon, and it looks great. However, it is extremely pricey (6 day all Ireland tour - 368 Euro each standard, or 568 Euro each deluxe, the latter which includes private room and breakfast).

We mainly want to see all of the main attractions, such as Giant's Causeway, Cliff of Moher etc, so this Paddywagon tour sounds suitable. However, do you have any other recommendations, considering the huge price? Also, have any of you done this Paddywagon tour before, and if so how was it?

Many thanks.

the price sounds about right, it would probably cost much the same by public bus and finding your own places to stay, although that might be a nicer way to go... you could also probably hitch hike to most of those places for free though :-)

dubbie82

I have done it years ago and it was great. I used only buses and the odd train and did get around. Started in Dublin did some day trips from there ( plenty of cheap hostels and transport links are better)
Then on towardsTipperary, Kilkenny and Waterford for a few days and continued to Cork and Kerry. Killarney is another goood base as you can do the Ring of Kerry, Beara and Dingle from there easily, you may consider day tour operators, plenty to choose from Killarney.
Up to Galway, Westport, Sligo, Donegal and across to Derry and finished off in Belfast.
I did all above in about 3 weeks but I can't tell you how much I paid. I stayed mostly in Hostels but also B&B's, it's better for meeting the locals and you can't beat having your own room versus sharing with a bunch of strangers.
Check out Bus Eireann Homepage they offer some tourist passes where you have unlimited travel for a certain number of days, also if you know where and when you are traveling check irishrail.ie as the train tickets bought online can work out cheap on special offer.
I would not reccommend Paddywagon, they look good on paper but they take to much in and you won't get much time for yourself, to be honest you can choose better operators.
Oh and one last piece of advise, don 't plan every single detail because you are travelling on irish public transport after all :-)