How many times a year do you go abroad be it for holidays or business?

Indeed, I lived in a European country that during the winter was like Victorian London! The smell from my clothes was horrendous & the black stuff that came out of my nose 🤢

Not so far away

I’m not advocating that at all - IrelAnd should be helping to feed the world with its quality produce.

Typical year for me is 5 to 7 holidays abroad - 1 or 2 european city break long weekend, 2 weeks in Spain or Portugal sun holiday off-peak times, 1 week in France by ferry & car, 1 week in the states to visit family & bit of shopping , 2-3 weeks long haul in winter in somewhere like South East Asia, South America or Caribbeen.

Plus 2 weekends a year in London to see family, by flight.

Work trips each year is approx 2 or 3 trips to Europe, and 1 or 2 trips to the states east coast.

Pre-Covid, it used to be work meeting in Europe around 15 times a year, and maybe 4 times to the states. Replaced by Teams in the comfort of home now.

Cultural inferiority or expanding your mind? I really don’t know are you just taking the pizz here at this stage.

Also I’ve pretty much done everything on your uninspiring bucket list and plenty more besides in Ireland - you can go abroad and still tick off many a bucket list in Ireland- the two aren’t mutually exclusive you know.

Yes

Yes

Not during a storm, But many other places during a Storm, I don't like Bellmullet

No

Yes

Not Ardara but on Aran Island and Leitrim Town

Possibly more than you have...

Most of it has absolutely nothing on features in Mainland Europe:

Pyrenees, Alps, Picos, South coast of Spain and Portugal, The Adriatic, Norway, Iceland.

The terrain, climate, services and people are way better.

in fairness, ireland should probably have some of the stuff thats in the british museum.....

what the f do pronouns have to do with anything?

If you smoke 20 cigs a day you’d be spending over 5000 euro a year that could go on travel instead - that’s at least 5 weekend city trips including spending money no less a very decent 2 week holiday for two

If you drink 3 bottles of wine a week, reduce it to 2 and you’ll get enough for to head to the Christmas markets .

Its not only what you earn but also how you spend it. I don’t eat out that much, instead have friends over and return visits to them- I don’t buy junk I don’t need- so yes I have money to spend on travel. So what?

Yeah but one of the points in the OP is that you can do many things in Ireland and avoid excessive use of air travel. Of course, people know this in their gut and justify the weekend breaks abroad and flights here & there on the basis that it can't last and they may as well lash into it while they can. Which is moral quagmire. Sure I can appreciate the benefits of seeing other countries and have visited several European countries but only on occasional trips and mostly would holiday at home. But that's how we were brought up - trips to Lahinch and the like.

oh 100% re the holidaying at home, there's loads to do here. But there's a hell of a lot more to do abroad.

I spent 24/7 either in Dublin city, doing all the Dublin city things or out in the Irish countryside. When it's time to holiday, I want to escape all of that and experience something entirely different. As I'm sure most other folks do too.

I've flown twice this year and I have one more flight that I know of at this point, I will probably do another late this year/early next.

I once looked into staying in Ireland for a weekend in January. It would have cost me €300 (for myself and the wife) and that's not exactly splashing the cash (Ireland is cold, wet and dark in January). I also checked skyscanner for cheap flights and got us to Nice in south of France including accommodation for €250, it was 15-16 Degrees and Nice is beautiful with an amazing coastline, I spent two days walking around in a t-shirt and came home feeling like I'd actually been away. If Irish hotels could offer similar value to what you can find abroad, people wouldn't feel the need to go anywhere. It might be the cost of doing business here, the war in Ukraine, inflation etc... but for whatever reason Irish hotels can't/don't seem to want to compete with value for money options abroad, if we looked seriously at the flaws in our own hospitality sector then perhaps people would be more inclined to have a staycation.

April 2023- 3 nights out west- 800 euro with 2 dinners - again the opportunity cost was a damn nice city break in Europe somewhere (we couldn’t travel abroad for various reasons) - you’re right, whilst our break in Ireland was nice, we’d been there done that-it gets awfully boring

nothing nuts about being provided with a product or service that is cheap.

What do you think airlines will do ? I know what I’d do….and I’ve seen done at other airports including Dublin….

id do simply what they call in the industry as ‘tankering’ fuel. Fill the tanks and away they go…example Heathrow to Dublin to Heathrow… only fuel uplift at Heathrow. Tankering is less good for the environment as the aircraft is carrying more fuel than it needs for a leg, therefore burning more fuel quicker because of the much greater weight of the extra fuel which is worse for the environment. Dublin miss out on an incredible amount of revenue, jobs are lost and no benefit to the environment at all, negative in fact as for one leg that aircraft has a far greater fuel burn…

Democracy, people will travel….