Gearing Up for Ireland Trip

Photo: TheLizardQueen

We're inside the 2 week runup to our trip to Ireland. This is a trip that we originally wanted to take 10 years ago when we got married. At that time, we didn't have the money, so we told ourselves we'd go 5 years later. Of course, by that time, we were busy and, while we could have charged the trip and paid it off, we couldn't afford to pay for it outright, so we postponed it 5 more years.

A little over a year ago, we set up a savings plan and started siphoning money off for this trip. After a significant amount had piled up a few months ago, we started booking portions of the trip and paying for them from that account. The flights ($2500 total), hotels (another $1400), car rental (more than a rental car should cost), etc. were all checked off the list with absolutely no debt incurred.

We're going to be doing the kind of travel that we've come to realize really matches how we like to do things. We book hotels smack in the middle of relatively large cities and then see and do things nearby, working out for day trips as it makes sense.

For this trip, we're actually going to spend time headquartered in 3 different cities: Cork, Limerick and Dublin.

We tend to like doing trolly/bus tours in cities to get a good idea of the city layout and what things we'd like to spend more time doing/drilling down into. Things like the free podcast tours of Dublin are a great way to get a more in depth experience of a given part of the city on your own terms.

Walking tours are among our favorite activities in general when on vacation. That they also help offset our other favorite activity (eating lots of great food) is a great side benefit.

We're also getting a car with a GPS for doing the day trip exploration and, after reading some good advice, will be buying a prepaid cellphone while there for emergency and other calls. Gearing up this way frees us to explore without being tied to the rigid itinerary and tourist-trip tendencies of the tour groups without running the risk of getting completely and totally lost.

I've dug through the boxes to find the extra batteries for my Canon digital SLR and have plenty of compact flash storage. I know from previous trips that I'm prone to taking photos that can't later be identified as to location or subject matter. A recent .NET Rocks podcast brought a device to my attention that helps solve this problem by tracking where you are while you're out taking photos and tying the data together later. Theoretically, it should also provide a way to share Indiana Jones-style maps detailing our journey here on the site. So, I ordered one, so we'll see how it goes.

The next 2 weeks are sure to go by quickly both professionally (trying to tie things off before being gone for 9 days) and personally (we need some extra luggage and some other items like windbreakers) before we board the plane on the 3rd of July for the 14 hour flight.

About that flight, given that we're going to be hurtling through the air in an aluminum tube at 500 miles per hour for over 4000 miles each way, I'd really like to be able to offset that carbon properly. The travel site we used to book the flight links to TerraPass, which advertises just such a service. However, I've heard lots of environmental activists frothing at the mouth about how many/most of these services don't "really" offset the carbon. So, is there any company out there which does the offset properly?