How I Planned My Trip to Ireland

Why I Chose Ireland

Although I’ve been out of the country several times, I’d never been to Europe. I wanted to find a destination that I could easily navigate by myself (logistics, language, etc.) but also would be very welcoming. Being able to cover most of the country within a week was also a bonus factor I was trying to work in. Ireland was at the top of my lists of destinations and it aligned that I could afford to buy a first class ticket in 2020 for 2021. Of course the history and beauty was also a big factor in choosing Ireland, but from a practical sense, it’s a great place for a single woman to holiday. (One note: In Dublin it was almost exclusively males out at night, very few females so I was very aware of that and planned accordingly.)

Price was also a factor. I found Ireland to be very affordable for a European country. Realistically I could have saved some expense had I booked my hotel sooner, but I was very afraid of the trip being cancelled so I didn’t pay as far in advanced as I normally would have.

Where I Stayed

The choice for this was simple. I didn’t want to spent a ton of money on a room as I knew I would be gone the majority of the time, needed to be located centrally in Dublin and be owned by a company I was familiar with. Moxy Dublin City hit all of those. For six nights I spent ~$600 (taxes included). October is when their winter season prices start which are very low.

My goal is always to have place I feel safe and can sleep comfortably. However, my time is spent outside the room so it’s a smaller budget item for me.

What I Liked About Moxy

• It was incredibly familiar to me as I have stayed in one before and there’s one in Chicago.
• I didn’t care about having a lot of amenities and it was very much geared towards that.
• There was a great bar in the hotel (highly recommend the espresso martini as pictured above). They did serve food if I really needed to grab something there.
• Incredibly central to everything I needed in Dublin, there were always taxis out front and easy to walk to.
• I redeemed points for the weekend nights that were higher.
• The incredibly hot bartender, but we don’t need to discuss that now.
• The bathrooms were fantastic – I wish I had the shower in my own home.

Next time I go I’ll focus on visiting regions and staying 2-3 nights in other areas, but if I was staying in Dublin I’d absolutely book this again. My goal is always to have place I feel safe and can sleep comfortably. However, my time is spent outside the room so it’s a smaller budget item for me.

How I Planned

I started planning the trip on Instagram. I simply started a collection and saved photos to put together an agenda. Later I spent an evening mapping out what I had saved and eliminated any stops that were just too remote to work into the week. I do this for trips in the States and it works like a charm and the same thing for international. It’s incredibly simple but helps me get an idea of what the location is REALLY like, not just the curated photos from websites.

Using Instagram for travel is really easy and gives you an aesthetic idea (if that matters to you) of what something really looks like. When you click on the location you don’t just get the #DoItForTheGram stuff, you get all the photos tagged which I find to be a very accurate Instagram vs Reality moment.

When it finally came down to the mapping and planning, I created an excel document that laid it all out, put in the addresses (DOWNLOAD THE MAP AHEAD OF TIME) into my saved places in Google Maps and et voilà! There for you when offline.

Here’s an example of how I created the agenda at a high level before filling in with addresses, times, etc.

Most day tours don’t run on Thursdays so I planned for that to be a Dublin day. I booked tours first and then filled in the days around those items that took up the entire day. Once you have those cornerstones done, you can easily plot out the rest of your time! Don’t forget to give yourself some general kick-back time. Friday night I just needed to be in my room and thankfully that was a scheduled down night.

International Data

Even my boss encouraged me to be OFFLINE, so I took that to heart. I have Verizon so I simply added the international travel day pass. It’s $10/day. It doesn’t charge you unless you use it and is good for 24 hours. I had to use this twice and it was well worth it. The rest of the time I was on WIFI or just not using my phone off airplane mode.

I gave my family and friends plenty of heads up they could read me via DM, email or other WIFI ways of contact. It worked great and since Ireland is six hours ahead of most of my friends, we just chatted when I got back to the hotel and used WIFI.

I really, really recommend truly disconnecting. I felt so ready to be back and get back to reality because I was able to truly enjoy the trip vs balancing life back home and touring Ireland. I’m already excited about the next time I get turn off notifications for everything.

What I’d Do Differently Next Time

Honestly there are very few things I’d do differently! I did a lot of research and planning to make sure I was maximizing the time there. However, the theme of my next trip to Ireland is staying in villages and driving myself now that I am familiar with the country.