Ireland
& Scotland

The trip begins in the late Arizona afternoon. Bags go on the shuttle, Sky Harbor handles the rest, and by nine o'clock the desert is behind you and the Atlantic is ahead. Eat well at the airport, then treat the flight as the first night of the holiday: shoes off, watches forward, lights down.

• 5:30 PM
  Airport shuttle pickupAZ Shuttle Select allows up to 50 lb per checked bag, but pack to the trip-wide limit of 20 kg / 44 lb (max 80×120×120 cm / 31.5×47.2×47.2 in) now — that's what Ryanair enforces on Day 11, and bags aren't repacked along the way. One checked bag, one carry-on and one personal item (max 40×30×20 cm / 15.7×11.8×7.9 in) per traveller.
• 7:00 PM
  Arrive Sky Harbor — check bags, clear security
• 7:45 PM
  Dinner at the airportLast familiar meal for two weeks — eat properly rather than snacking
• 9:05 PM
  Depart Phoenix → London HeathrowBritish Airways BA0288 · overnight, meal and breakfast served onboard

A busy few hours at Heathrow, a short hop over the Irish Sea, and then the best moment of any Ireland trip: pulling out of the airport into a green country at golden hour. The drive west crosses the midlands with a grocery stop in Athlone, and by half past ten you are unlocking the door of a restored 1850 stone cottage with four bedrooms and no neighbours to speak of.

• 3:05 PM
  Arrive London Heathrow, Terminal 3Use the bathroom on the plane before landing — there is no time for one during the transfer.
• 3:30 PM
  Terminal transferThe 90-minute window is tight — no time for snacks or a bathroom stop. Exit security (20–30 min) → Heathrow transfer bus to Terminal 2 (20–30 min) → security again (20–30 min). Move with purpose; do not linger in duty-free.
• 4:50 PM
  Depart London → DublinBA5969, Terminal 2 · approx. 1 hr 20 min
• 6:20 PM
  Arrive Dublin Airport — collect bags
• 8:00 PM
  Collect the vanNew Way Car Rental, Arrivals Hall, Terminals 1 & 2 · midsize 7-seat automatic, unlimited mileage
• 8:30 PM
  Drive west toward GalwayApprox. 2 hr 11 min on good motorway
• 9:16 PM
  Sunset — watch it happen through the windscreen
• 9:40 PM
  Grocery stop in AthloneSuperValu, Lidl or Tesco Express (Monksland) — open until 10:00 PM. Aldi and the large Tesco close at 9:00.
• 10:30 PM
  Check in to the cottageThe Village House, Menlough, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway · Eircode H53 C627

A deliberately easy first full day. Church in the morning, then down to the water in Galway city — a place of buskers, painted shopfronts and the smell of the Atlantic two streets away. Buy lunch at the market, eat it beside the Spanish Arch, and walk the Long Walk, where the harbourside houses are painted in a row of colours no committee would ever have approved. Those with energy left can push west into Connemara for Kylemore Abbey.

• 9:00 AM
  Depart for church — approx. 40 min drive
• 10:00 AM
  Church, Galway BranchUnit 2, Block A, Lisboan Business Park, Galway H91 DW63
• 12:00 PM
  Drive into the city centre
• 12:15 PM
  Galway Market — assemble a picnicPark at Spanish Arch Car Park or Q-Park Eyre Square. Look for the market's famous doughnuts and the fresh oysters, and pick up Irish farmhouse cheese for the week.
• 1:00 PM
  Picnic at the Spanish ArchThen walk the Long Walk for the colourful harbour houses; the Latin Quarter, Quay Street, Galway Cathedral and Eyre Square are all within ten minutes.
• 1:45 PM
  Optional: drive to Kylemore Abbey — approx. 1 hr 30 min through Connemara
• 3:15 PM
  Kylemore Abbey (approx. 2 hrs)The abbey, the neo-Gothic church and the six-acre Victorian walled garden. Open daily 10 AM – 6 PM.
• 5:15 PM
  Return to the cottage — approx. 1 hr 30 min
• 7:00 PM
  Dinner at the house

The most rewarding early start of the trip. You reach the Cliffs of Moher before the coaches do, when the light is low and the crowds have not yet formed. From there the day threads south through Adare — thatched cottages, a heritage centre and Ireland's most photographed village street — and then over the mountains into Kerry, with two of the country's finest viewpoints on the way. Kenmare, and the rest of the family, are waiting at the end of it.

• 7:00 AM
  Depart the cottage — approx. 1 hr 30 min
• 8:30 AM
  Cliffs of Moher (approx. 2 hrs)Timed entry window 8:00–10:59 AM. O'Brien's Tower and the cliff paths first, visitor centre (30 min) after.
• 10:30 AM
  Drive to Adare — approx. 1 hr 30 min
• 12:00 PM
  Adare (approx. 1 hr 30 min)Park at the Adare Heritage Centre car park. Quick lunch from Centra, eaten in the park, then the village walking trail past the thatched cottages, the friary and the Augustinian priory. Toilets at the Heritage Centre.
• 1:30 PM
  Drive toward Kenmare
• 2:30 PM
  Killarney — top off the fuel tank
• 3:00 PM
  Ladies View (10–15 min photo stop)Named for Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting, who declared it the finest view in Ireland in 1861. They were not wrong.
• 3:20 PM
  Moll's Gap — café and a leg-stretch
• 4:00 PM
  Check in at Kenmare14 Páirc Roughty, Kenmare, Co. Kerry V93 DW20
• 5:00 PM
  Meet up with the extended family
• 5:45 PM
  Cash and groceriesWithdraw €150–200 at an AIB, Bank of Ireland or Permanent TSB ATM, then shop for the Kenmare stay.

No driving, no tickets, no alarms. Kenmare is a planned market town laid out in a neat triangle in 1775, and everything worth seeing is within a fifteen-minute walk. Collect the Heritage Trail map, see lace being made by hand the way it was in the 1860s, stand inside a Bronze Age stone circle, and spend the afternoon in a riverside woodland. This is the first full day with the whole family together — the schedule is deliberately loose.

• 10:00 AM
  Heritage Centre & Tourist OfficeCollect the Heritage Trail map here first
• 10:30 AM
  Kenmare Lace & Design CentreUpstairs in the same building. Open 10:30 AM–1:00 PM, Monday to Friday only — today is the day. Steep staircase; anyone who would rather not climb can browse the shops below.
• 11:00 AM
  The Heritage Trail (approx. 40 min)Kenmare Stone Circle on Market Street — fifteen stones and a central dolmen, €2 honesty box · Holy Cross Church, for the stained glass and the carved wooden ceiling · Cromwell's Bridge, an ancient arch of disputed origin
• 12:00 PM
  Lunch in town
• 2:00 PM
  Reenagross Woodland ParkA gentle riverside and woodland loop right on the edge of town — moss, oaks and estuary views
• 4:00 PM
  Free timeGalleries and craft shops along Henry Street and Main Street, or a Kenmare Bay boat trip for anyone wanting the water
• 6:00 PM
  Dinner
• 8:30 PM
  Live traditional musicPF McCarthy's, O'Donnabhain's or Crowley's — all family-friendly early in the evening. Sunset around 9:15 PM.

The Ring of Kerry gets the coaches; the Ring of Beara gets everything else. Today is a loop around the peninsula the tour buses cannot fit on — sub-tropical woodland with a hidden waterfall, a tunnel blasted through raw rock, a hairpin mountain pass on the Cork–Kerry border, a working mussel harbour, and a stone circle standing alone above a valley since the Bronze Age. Start at the farmers market to build the picnic that makes the day.

• 9:00 AM
  Kenmare Farmers MarketWednesday market, 9 AM–5 PM. Buy the picnic here: bread, cheese, fruit, cured meats, cakes.
• 10:00 AM
  Depart — fuel up firstFill the tank in Kenmare; stations on the peninsula are scarce and keep short hours
• 10:35 AM
  Caha Pass tunnels — quick photo stopRough-cut tunnels blasted straight through the rock on the old Kenmare–Glengarriff road
• 10:50 AM
  Glengarriff Woods Nature ReserveWaterfall walk, approx. 30 min. Ancient oak woodland kept unusually lush by the Gulf Stream.
• 12:00 PM
  Healy PassA serpentine climb over the Caha Mountains between Cork and Kerry, with a white cross at the summit and both counties visible at once
• 12:45 PM
  Kilmakilloge Harbour — lunch and facilities (approx. 20 min)A sheltered mussel harbour; Ashes is the stop here
• 1:30 PM
  Gleninchaquin ParkUragh Stone Circle — a Bronze Age circle set between two lakes, arguably the most dramatically sited in Ireland · the park loop walk, approx. 2 miles / 1.5 hrs, past the waterfall · the Famine House ruin
• 4:30 PM
  Return to Kenmare
• 5:00 PM
  Arrive back — free evening

Killarney National Park is flat, car-free on its interior trails, and best seen at bicycle speed. Today you ride from the edge of town to a fifteenth-century friary, on to a great lakeside mansion, and finish at a waterfall reached through a tunnel under the road. Roughly twelve to fifteen kilometres total, spread across a whole day, on gravel and tarmac paths with almost no climbing. Bikes, helmets, locks, hi-vis vests, a repair kit and a route map are all provided.

• 9:30 AM
  Depart Kenmare — approx. 40 min over Moll's Gap
• 10:00 AM
  Collect bikes — Killarney Bike RentalDepot 100 m from the Gleneagle Hotel, beside Flesk Caravan Park, opposite the park entrance. Bring photo ID — required for every rental.
• 10:30 AM
  Cycle into the parkMuckross Abbey at approx. 3 km — a Franciscan friary founded in 1448, with an enormous yew tree filling the cloister and tombs and stairways to explore. Gardens free; Muckross House interior approx. €7 self-guided.
• 1:00 PM
  LunchMuckross Garden Restaurant on site, or a picnic on the lawn facing the lake
• 2:00 PM
  Dundag Beach — a lakeshore rest stop roughly halfway
• 2:45 PM
  Torc WaterfallPark the bikes at the jaunting-car area; the tunnel beneath the road by the river leads to the falls. Free. A 20-metre drop, and a flight of steps above it for a higher viewpoint.
• 3:30 PM
  Ride back through the park — approx. 6 km
• 4:30 PM
  Return the bikes
• 5:00 PM
  Drive back to Kenmare — approx. 40 min
• 5:45 PM
  Arrive home

The longest driving day, and worth every mile. Arrive at Blarney the moment the gates open, go straight up to the stone before the queue exists, then come back down into gardens that most visitors never bother with — a poison garden behind locked gates, a fern garden, and a rock close of standing stones and a wishing staircase that feels considerably older than the castle above it. Then east to Dublin, where the vehicles go back and city life takes over.

• 7:30 AM
  Depart Kenmare for Cork — approx. 2 hrs, both vehicles
• 9:30 AM
  Blarney Castle & Gardens (2–3 hrs)Arrive at opening. Stone first, straight up. The queue is minimal at 9:00 and 60–90 minutes by 11:00. 127 steep, narrow steps; anyone opting out heads directly to the gardens. Large car park included with entry; toilets and café on site.
• 12:00 PM
  Lunch (approx. 30 min)
• 12:30 PM
  Drive to Dublin — 3 to 4 hrs with a stopToll at Fermoy (approx. €2.10, staffed barrier, card or coins) · toll at Portlaoise M7/M8 (approx. €2.10) · one break at Fermoy or Cashel services for fuel, toilets and coffee · the M50 barrier-free toll near Dublin must be paid yourself
• 4:30 PM
  Check in to the Dublin house48 Auburn Drive, Dublin 15, Co. Dublin D15 FEF1 · confirm off-street parking for two vehicles before arrival
• 4:45 PM
  Split into two groupsGroup one: groceries at the Tesco Superstore · Group two: Circle K Ashtown for Leap Cards (€5 each, loaded with €12–15) and refuelling both vehicles before return
• 5:00 PM
  Drive to the rental return — approx. 20–30 min
• 5:30 PM
  Return both vehiclesRental City Centre, 36 Old Kilmainham Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8, D08 H79E. Photograph the vehicles and the fuel gauge before handing over the keys.
• 6:00 PM
  Public transport to Temple BarBus G1 from Old Kilmainham to Ormond Quay Upper (approx. 15 min), or the 13 to College Green (approx. 21 min), or a taxi
• 6:30 PM
  Drop-off at Temple Bar lodgingThe Auld Dubliner, 24–25 Temple Bar, Dublin
• 7:30 PM
  Return to Auburn Drive — approx. 30–45 minWalk across the Talbot Memorial or Butt Bridge to Connolly (10–15 min), then the commuter train to Castleknock or Navan Road Parkway (approx. 20 min)
• 8:15 PM
  Arrive home

A day of things that are genuinely one of a kind. The Book of Kells is a gospel manuscript made around 800 AD by monks who decorated a single letter for weeks at a time; the Long Room above it holds two hundred thousand volumes under a barrel-vaulted ceiling. Then bog bodies and Iron Age gold at the National Museum — free, and better than most paid attractions anywhere — and a cathedral where Jonathan Swift was dean for thirty-two years. Evening is music and a walk back through a city that never quite settles down in August.

• 9:00 AM
  Walk to the station — approx. 20 min
• 9:30 AM
  Train into the city (approx. 45–60 min door to door)Castleknock or Navan Road Parkway → Dublin Connolly (approx. 20 min), then walk to Trinity (approx. 30 min). Alternative: change at Broombridge for the Green Line tram.
• 10:45 AM
  Check in at Trinity College
• 11:00 AM
  The Book of Kells Experience & the Old Library (approx. 1.5 hrs)Includes the Long Room. Hidden gem on the way out: Trinity's Museum of Geology, small, free and almost always empty.
• 1:00 PM
  LunchWalk down Grafton Street — buskers the whole length — toward St Stephen's Green
• 2:30 PM
  National Museum of Ireland — Archaeology, Kildare StreetFree, open Saturday 10 AM–5 PM. The bog bodies, the Tara Brooch, the Ór gold collection and Viking Dublin. Allow at least 90 minutes.
• 4:30 PM
  St Patrick's Cathedral (approx. 1 hr)Open Saturday until 6:00 PM. Founded in 1191; Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, was dean here and is buried in the nave.
• 5:30 PM
  Dinner in the city
• 8:00 PM
  Traditional music (approx. 2 hrs)
• 10:15 PM
  Return to Auburn DriveWalk to Connolly across the Talbot Memorial or Butt Bridge, then the commuter train
• 11:00 PM
  Arrive home

A restful, flexible day. Church in Clonsilla in the morning, then an afternoon in Georgian Dublin entirely on your own terms. St Stephen's Green is at its best in August, and from its east side it is a short walk to Merrion Square, where the doors are painted every colour in the paintbox and Oscar Wilde reclines on a rock across from the house he grew up in. Three excellent museums nearby are free, which makes this the ideal rain plan as well as the ideal sunshine plan.

• 10:00 AM
  Depart for church — approx. 45 min, Castleknock → Clonsilla
• 11:00 AM
  Church, Clonsilla (approx. 2 hrs)Weaver's Row, Clonsilla Road, Clonsilla, Dublin
• 1:00 PM
  Return to the house — approx. 45 min
• 1:45 PM
  Quick lunch at home
• 2:00 PM
  Train into the city (approx. 45–60 min)
• 2:30 PM
  Self-guided Georgian walkSt Stephen's Green — the flowerbeds peak in August — out the east side to Merrion Square for the doors and the Oscar Wilde statue, then loop through Fitzwilliam Square
• 3:15 PM
  Museums, as the weather decidesNatural History Museum, Merrion Street — free, and unchanged since Victorian times · National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology, Kildare Street — free, 1–5 PM · National Gallery of Ireland — largely free, 11 AM–5:30 PM
• 5:30 PM
  Return to Auburn Drive
• 6:30 PM
  Arrive home — dinner at the house

A very early start, a one-hour flight, and by mid-morning you are in a different country with a different accent, a different currency and a city in the middle of the largest arts festival on earth. The afternoon is deliberately light. The evening is not: a torchlit walk through the buried closes and vaults beneath the Old Town, and then, at half past nine, the massed pipes and drums of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo on the floodlit castle esplanade. This is the biggest night of the trip.

• 6:30 AM
  Pre-booked taxi to Dublin Airport — approx. 25 min
• 7:00 AM
  Check bags and clear securityRyanair's 20 kg / 44 lb checked bag limit (max 80×120×120 cm / 31.5×47.2×47.2 in) and 40×30×20 cm / 15.7×11.8×7.9 in personal item size are enforced at the gate as well as at the desk. Bring your own snacks and water bottle for the flight.
• 9:00 AM
  Depart Dublin → EdinburghRyanair FR812 · approx. 1 hr
• 10:05 AM
  Arrive Edinburgh Airport — buy tram tickets (approx. £7.90 per person)
• 10:45 AM
  Tram to Balfour Street, Leith (approx. 50 min)Check-in is not until 3:00 PM. Either arrange an early bag drop at the flat or use the station lockers, then explore Leith on foot.
• 12:30 PM
  Lunch and free time in LeithThe Shore, the Water of Leith walkway, and a Tesco run on Duke Street for the week's basics
• 3:00 PM
  Check in to the flat24 Springfield Street, Flat 2, Edinburgh EH6 5DE
• 5:45 PM
  The Underground Ghost Tour (approx. 1.5 hrs)Meet at 124 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1QS. Arrive fifteen minutes early.
• 7:15 PM
  Dinner in the Old TownStay central — do not go back to Leith between the tour and the Tattoo
• 8:45 PM
  Walk up to the Castle EsplanadeGates open well before the performance; the queue up the Royal Mile is part of the experience
• 9:30 PM
  The Royal Edinburgh Military TattooEdinburgh Castle Esplanade · South Stand, Section 15, Rows X and Y
• 11:15 PM
  Return to Leith — expect crowds; walk down to Princes Street before finding a tram

Everything today is within one square mile, and almost all of it is free. A curved street of rainbow shopfronts that inspired Diagon Alley; a stair off the Grassmarket with the best castle view in the city; a kirkyard where a young Edinburgh writer found the surnames Riddell and McGonagall on gravestones and a school across the wall that looks unmistakably like a house-based boarding school; and then the Royal Mile, where in August the world's performers work the street for free.

• 10:30 AM
  Tram to St Andrew Square (approx. 15 min)
• 10:45 AM
  Walk up The Mound (approx. 15 min)The climb into the Old Town is steep — take it slowly and look back over the New Town as you go
• 11:15 AM
  Edinburgh Castle esplanade — exterior onlyThe Tattoo stands are in place, which is a sight in itself
• 11:45 AM
  Victoria StreetThe curved, rainbow-fronted street widely held to be the inspiration for Diagon Alley. Pastries at La Barantine on the way down.
• 12:30 PM
  The Vennel viewpointA short flight of steps off the Grassmarket — the classic castle photograph you cannot get from the esplanade in August
• 12:45 PM
  Lunch in the GrassmarketListen for the One O'Clock Gun fired from the castle — it has marked the hour since 1861, every day except Sunday
• 2:00 PM
  Greyfriars Bobby & Greyfriars KirkyardFree. The Riddell and McGonagall gravestones, and George Heriot's School visible over the wall
• 2:45 PM
  The Elephant House, George IV BridgeThe original café, reopened in December 2025. Coffee, cake and the photograph.
• 3:15 PM
  Tron Kirk → Old CollegeDown South Bridge to Playfair's great quadrangle — free to enter, and the Talbot Rice Gallery inside is free too
• 3:45 PM
  Royal Mile Fringe performersFree street shows the length of the High Street — comfortably the best free thing you will do all day. Carry coins; the performers pass a hat.
• 4:45 PM
  Tram back to Leith — shop at Tesco on Duke Street
• 6:00 PM
  Dinner at the flat — early night

Twelve and a half hours, several hundred miles, and the most spectacular landscape in Britain. The coach climbs out of the Lowlands into Glencoe — a glacial valley of near-vertical walls with a dark history — passes beneath Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles at 4,413 feet, and runs the length of the Great Glen to Loch Ness, where a cruise takes you out onto water deep enough to hold every person on earth several times over. Everything today is done from a comfortable seat except the photographs.

• 6:30 AM
  Breakfast at the flat
• 7:00 AM
  Walk to the meeting pointBurns Monument, 1759 Regent Road, Edinburgh EH8 8DR
• 7:30 AM
  Check in — be early rather than on time
• 7:45 AM
  Departure — full-day Highlands tour (approx. 12.5 hrs)Glencoe · Ben Nevis and Fort William · the Great Glen · Loch Ness with a cruise on the loch
• 8:30 PM
  Return to Edinburgh — bus or tram back to Leith
• 9:00 PM
  Arrive back at the flat

South through the Scottish Borders, across the frontier into Northumberland, and into a castle that has been lived in by the same family since 1309 and, more recently, played Hogwarts. The broomstick flying lessons in the Outer Bailey take place in the exact courtyard used in the films, they are free with admission, and they are the reason to arrive knowing the day's session times. Back in Edinburgh by six, with just enough time to catch an early Fringe show.

• 7:45 AM
  Tram to St Andrew Square (approx. 15 min)
• 8:30 AM
  Check-in closesGates J and K, St Andrew Square, Edinburgh EH1 3DQ. Check-in closes fifteen minutes before departure — this one is not flexible.
• 8:45 AM
  Depart — Alnwick Castle & Scottish Borders tour (approx. 9 hrs)
• 10:15 AM
  Kelso (approx. 40 min)A handsome market town with Scotland's largest market square, and the ruins of Kelso Abbey — one of the great medieval foundations of the Borders
• 11:30 AM
  The Northumberland Coast (approx. 10 min)An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty — rugged cliffs, wide sand beaches and open sea views. Keep the camera to hand.
• 12:15 PM
  Alnwick Castle, with admission (approx. 3 hrs)Broomstick flying lessons in the Outer Bailey — free with admission, several sessions daily in summer · the film-locations walking tour, pointing out both the Harry Potter and Downton Abbey spots · the State Rooms of the inhabited castle · the grounds · lunch on site or in the town, which has a famous second-hand bookshop
• 3:45 PM
  Dunbar (approx. 25 min)Back across the border into East Lothian; birthplace of the naturalist John Muir, founder of the American national parks movement
• 6:00 PM
  Return to Edinburgh
• 6:15 PM
  Dinner in the city
• 7:30 PM
  An early-evening Fringe show (approx. 1.5 hrs)
• 9:30 PM
  Bus or tram home to Leith

A long day of travel, made easier by knowing exactly what happens in Philadelphia. You clear US immigration and customs there, not in Phoenix, which means reclaiming your checked bags, walking them through customs, handing them straight back at the airline recheck belt, and clearing security a second time — possibly in a different terminal. Build in no plans for the evening beyond your own bed.

• 7:30 AM
  Tram from Foot of the Walk / Balfour Street to the airport (approx. 1 hr)
• 8:30 AM
  Arrive Edinburgh Airport — check bags, security
• 11:25 AM
  Depart Edinburgh → PhiladelphiaAmerican Airlines AA279
• 1:50 PM
  Arrive PhiladelphiaClear US immigration → reclaim checked bags → clear customs → re-drop bags at the airline recheck belt immediately after customs → clear TSA security again → possible terminal transfer
• 5:38 PM
  Depart Philadelphia → PhoenixAmerican Airlines AA1984
• 7:46 PM
  Arrive Phoenix Sky Harbor
• 8:30 PM
  Shuttle pickup — home