Ireland/UK 2009 - Part 1: Visualizing the Route

Alright so I have done some more looking at where we are going to want to see while in Ireland/UK next year, and the list is becoming a bit daunting. Being the visual learner that I am, I decided to put all the destinations into Google Maps and see what the driving distances were like.

One look at the resultant map was enough to make me realize I'm eventually going to need some professional help planning this thing (read travel agent imminent) so that we don't run out of money/patience/steam/time...

It also made me think about the price of rental cars! According to Google Maps the total travel time between all the places represented below is 1d and 23hrs; basically 2 full days of driving/ferry's. Divide that out over the ~30 days we will be there and you have about 1.6hrs of driving EVERY DAY! That's a ton of driving if you ask me, even for a vacation where we will largely be sightseeing from the car.



Although daunting, I know that with the proper planning we can use a mix of Trains, Ferry's, and Cars to get around reasonably well. Smart travel combined with keeping our list of must-see places to a minimum (not like any of them are going anywhere all of a sudden after hundreds of years) will help things go smoothly.

The end result is that we want to have a great trip, with as little stress/rush as possible and if that means waiting a year or two until we're European residents to see the rest of our destinations, then that's fine by us (oops, did I say that outloud?)

Next Time: Looking closer at some of the destinations!