Being a Tourist on Inishmore

The post to follow is part of a series of posts of my honest opinion of my time on Inishmore, however it should be noted that some of the expenses of this trip were waived or paid for by the Aran Island Hotel and the tourism board for the Aran Islands. Don’t hate me for taking free stuff and I promise, if I didn’t love the island, I wouldn’t write nice things about it.

by jmenard48When I came to Inishmore, my only real priority was to immerse myself in the Irish language and culture for a bit. Fortunately, I was kidnapped by James (aka “Blue”) who works for the Aran Island Hotel and who promised me an amazing day of site seeing. Our day started early (as early as I could muster: 11) at the Aran Island Hotel where I was greeted and shown around even though the hotel doesn’t open until April. The hotel looks simple enough from the outside, but is absolutely amazing on the inside. Adorned with rich dark wood paneling and vibrant colored decorations (including beautiful stained glass doors), it was love at first site. The hotel boast a huge banquet hall and conference room and an even bigger bar room with extensive bar space, loads of tables and stools and a real Irish feel. They have live music from either locals or mainland Irish acts shipped over for special occasions. I can tell that this place is a blast when the room is full. I had originally planned on staying at the hotel while I was on Inishmore but because I decided to come in low season, they pointed me towards Seacrest B&B instead.

Seacrest is a super cute bed and breakfast with a great location just off the main drag leading from the docks up to the top of the hill and less than a 5 minute walk from the ferry port. The room was comfortable, clean and quiet, which was just what I needed. My room also boasted a mounted television which I definitely watched considering I haven’t watched television in… who knows how long. The best part of Seacrest for me though, was the amazing full Irish breakfast that was waiting for me when I woke up after a long night of drinking. My first course was muesli, cornflakes, yogurt and fruit. Of course I had a large glass of orange juice and tea to go with it. Second course were generous portions of bacon, sausage, eggs and toast. I felt like a million dollars after I ate. And I was glad for the added energy as I had an exhausting day of semi-hung-over sightseeing to do.

I met Blue at a pub and over a coupleby celesteh of glasses of cider he offered to spend a day driving me around the island to show me all there is to see. We started the day by driving up the incredibly steep hill up to Dún Aonghasa which is an old three walled fort on the west side of the island. Three wall forts have three walls (obvi) but the less obvious part is why, unless you’re looking at it. The third “wall” of protection is the sheer dropoff of a 400 foot cliff. The fort had several layers of walls, with various modes of protection dividing them. The first was a series of rocks piled up loosely with their sharp ends pointing up meant to stop any mounted attack, the second, a ditch dug around a taller wall meant to stop people. The fortress truly was an amazing site to see and I spent a good hour just sitting on the edge of the cliffs marveling at the long drop to the water. I didn’t feel as vulnerable as I had the day before just a bit farther south because these cliffs were a bit more stable feeling and there weren’t as many crumbled up rocks on the edge. So glad I didn’t die yesterday.

After Dún Aonghasa, Blue drove me up to the most northern part of the island which looked out onto a lighthouse on a separate island, hosted a bunch of lobster cages and fishing boats and had a stunning view of the Connemara coast. We drove back on the ocean road (passing a dozen or so bikers who dared to tackle the huge hills – I was happy to be in a car) and made a stop at Ti Joe Watty's where we grabbed a pint and a bowl of chowder and chatted about the island and about Tedfest (the festival in honor of Father Ted of the Irish sitcom Father Ted – learn more about it here) and how crazy the event had been this year. After another pint at the American Bar, Blue bid me adieu and I headed for the ferry back to Galway. But this island hasn’t seen the last of me yet.

I was blown away by the amount of Irish culture you’ll find here. In addition, it really captures the small town feel without losing conveniences (since It is such a major tourist hub) so it really has everything anyone would ever need. I was amazed that every person passing me said hello and every car gave me at least a nod as I walked along the coast road. No, I will be back to Inishmore for sure.

Getting Lost on Inishmore

The post to follow is part of a series of posts of my honest opinion of my time on Inishmore, however it should be noted that some of the expenses of this trip were waived or paid for by the Aran Island Hotel and the tourism board for the Aran Islands. Don’t hate me for taking free stuff and I promise, if I didn’t love the island, I wouldn’t write nice things about it.

Taking a trip to the Aran Islands was something I wanted to do since I learned of their existence and their importance in the role of preserving the Irish language. However, with the launch of my new site and a plethora of writing commitments hounding me day in and day out, I found myself in my last couple of weeks in Ireland still having not gone. So I just went. I had originally planned to take the 5 PM ferry over, spend the evening and night on the island and then had a day of sightseeing put together for me by the Aran Island Hotel before hopping on the 6 PM ferry back to Galway. However, the insomniac that I am, I found myself awake at 7 AM (damn you Home & Away reruns) and so I decided to pop on the early ferry and spend a day of exploring on my own first.

by krat-osAs soon as I arrived on the island, I was hungry. After checking into my B&B (A lovely place called Seacrest which comes highly recommended) I headed to the American Bar which happened to be the only place open at the moment. As I mentioned in my post on the Irish language I sat in this bar for quite a while listening to the gentlemen sip their Guinness and banter about man stuff. I ordered a fresh tuna and sweetcorn sandwich (one of my favorite foods these days) and a cider (which has become like water for me) and listened to a conversation I couldn’t understand for a good couple of hours. A bottle of Jameson sat on the bar open and apparently available for anyone to pour into their glass at anytime. I really felt welcome and at home here. No one really gave me notice, but no one outcast me either. I was casually invited into conversation here and there, but for the most part, we all just enjoyed the comfort of other bodies near us.

After my gastric needs were satisfied, I decided to walk down and around the southern tip of the island. There’s really only one main road that runs down the island, so I knew I wouldn’t get lost, but I also didn’t really know what I was looking for to begin with. Like Galway, the tides here are extreme. At low tide, the beach is almost 100 yards wide, but at high tide, the water comes nearly up to the break walls keeping the water off the road. I found some amazingly perfect seashells, chased some birds digging for crabs and marveled at the strange sand formations created when half of the life of the beach is spent underwater.

I walked down the road past severalby celesteh houses and an old cemetery (which I found out later is actually several layers deep with relatives constantly being buried on top of one another and forming a sort of dome of graves). I found a hiking trail and decided to follow, not really knowing where it went. I walked through some fields that looked like a natural golf course and when I approached one of the “holes” to see if that was, in fact, what it was and learned very quickly that I was on top of an enormous rabbit field. I saw the rabbit dive into the hole and pop up about 20 meters away. Now looking for them, I saw the rabbits. Hundreds of them. Absolutely littering the field. Every step I took sent 2 or 3 dozen rabbits scattering for burrows or mounds of dirt to hide behind. And this went on for a good ¼ mile. At one point, I turned around to see if the rabbits came back out after I passed them and they did, it was like I was this orb of rabbit free zone. When I came out of rabbit town, I was on a cliff. It literally just ended like that.

I stood there about 20 feet over the water and looked over the black rock into the ocean. The weather was absolutely beautiful, so I took off my coat and balled it up as a pillow and took a little nap. When I awoke, I was accompanied by an old fisherman trying his luck as the tide came in. Nothing coming in today, he said. And he disappeared back around the edge of the cliff. I wondered now, if I could continue all the way around the base of the island and walk back on the West coast. I started up the hill to find a large old stone circle watchtower filled with stones. I was walking on incredibly unstable ground, climbing over piled stone walls used to divide livestock and sure I was going to fall off the edge of the cliff into the ocean at any minute. I threw a rock into the watchtower (not sure why, but looks like other people had done it) and proceeded across the unsteady ground around to the West, hoping to find, well, anything.

by Rusticus80Then I was there. And don’t ask me where because I don’t actually know. It was just… this thing. The cliffs I was on stopped and I was on an overhang. This oval carved out of the side of a mountain. The cliffs were at least 400 feet high here, and I was on a sliver of rock jutting out over the seemingly unforgiving churn of ocean below. The waves thrashed against the walls and I watched the water rise and fall at least 50 feet in a small cave/blowhole thing. Do one thing every day that scares you, do one thing every day that scares you, I kept repeating to myself. Any Holy Jesus I was scared. I am not afraid of heights, I am not afraid of jumping off cliffs, but Oh. My. God. I was scared. Don’t be a statistic, don’t be a statistic, my psyche suddenly shifted. I gotta get out of here. But not before I video tape it. I'm having some difficulty connecting my camera to my laptop but I will upload a link to the video once I have it up.

It was starting to get dark and I needed a beer ASAP, so I headed back to the American bar and spent an amazing night with some really awesome people: a mix of locals, people working on the island and tourists like myself just in for the night. We stayed up late playing pool, drinking and talking about how we never want to leave this place. It truly is as magical as everyone warns you.

Speaking Irish on Inishmore (Aran Islands)

The post to follow is part of a series of posts of my honest opinion of my time on Inishmore, however it should be noted that some of the expenses of this trip were waived or paid for by the Aran Island Hotel and the tourism board for the Aran Islands.  Don’t hate me for taking free stuff and I promise, if I didn’t love the island, I wouldn’t write nice things about it.

For St. Patrick’s Day this year, I was asked to write an article for BootsnAll on how the Irish language is still alive and flourishing.  I begin by mentioning that when I first came to Ireland over 2 years ago, I did not know that there was such a thing as the “Irish” language.  Rather, upon initial descent into Ireland, I thought that Irish was just a sort of thick accent with its own lingo and dialect (like Ebonics or Jamaican).  After spending a couple of months in Galway (in Irish Galliamh pronounced GAHL-yiev), I’ve been able to spend some time really diving into the culture and history of the language as well as learn a bit myself. 

If you want the full history and lesson of Irish, read my article here on BootsnAll.  For those with limited attention spans, Irish (in Irish Gaeilge pronounced GAYLE-guh), has been spoken on the Emerald Isle since 1200 BC. During British rule in Ireland, most spoken Irish was banned or pushed to the far west of the island (hence why the highest concentration of Irish speakers is in the West).  After the Republic of Ireland gained its independence in 1922, the language was slowly reintegrated into the everyday life of those living in the country.  Most street signs and road signs are in both English and Gaeilge; sometimes only Gaeilge in areas known as the Gaeltacht (Gahl-TAHCHT) which are those areas where Gaeilge is still the primary language.  Children are now required to learn Irish in school and some schools are taught exclusively in Irish. Needless to say, the Irish language is beginning to become a larger part of everyday life for those living there.  One of the best places in the world to hear spoken Irish is on the Aran Islands.

The Aran islands are a string of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay in County Galway in western Ireland.  The three islands have gone through an extensive history of renaming and ownership and so some people call them different things (I’ve seen Inishmore spelled Árainn, Inis Mór and Inishmore), but the accepted names for these islands are Inishmore (pronounced in-nish-MORE), Inishmaan (pronounced in-nish-MAHN) and Inisheer (pronounced in-nish-SHEER).  The islands are all VERY small (the largest being just 12 square miles) and the in total only claims 400 permanent residents. 

To get to the islands requires planning.  There are a limited number of beds on the island (only 200, last I heard) with one hotel, one hostel and only a handful of bed and breakfasts.  There are only two ways to get there; either fly (via Aer Arann Islands from Connemara Regional Airport west of Galway City to the airport on Inishmore) or take one of the daily ferries that leave from Ros a’ Mhíl or Doolin and go to the islands (you can buy a shuttle through the same company to Ros a’ Mhíl from Galway City). 

Once there, it is not difficult to hear by Keith Williamson Irish being spoken.  For the easy route, turn on the television in your room.  The main television station broadcast on the islands is in Irish, and trust me, you’ll know it when you hear it. When I arrived on Inishmore, it was lunch time and as such, I headed straight for the pub.  I casually listened as the dozen or so old men around me chatted gleefully in what I will call Engrish (a mix of English and Irish) but most of what they said was in Irish.  The men sat and talked about man things, I presume as an Irish football (and no, that is NOT the same thing as soccer) game played (in Irish) on the television behind them.  The bar I was at was called the American Bar so the walls were littered with posters of JFK, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Marilyn and a wall collaged with police patches from various US cities (which I’ve found is quite a common decoration for “American” bars in Ireland).  But this place was far from American. 

As I sat there listening to the men chat, I couldn’t help but wonder why I never knew that this language exists.  As Americans, we’re pretty obsessed with all things Irish; whether it be the men, the accent, the heavy drinking culture.  We love to associate ourselves with Ireland and most of us find any excuse to say we’re Irish (my sister has reddish hair, so that MUST mean there’s Irish in my blood somewhere, right?). So how does it slip through the cracks that Irish is still a big part of the culture in Ireland?

A bit of Irish to help you feel important around your friends:

Hello – Dia duit (pronounced DI-ah GWIT)
Goodbye - Slán (pronounced SLAHN)
Cheers – Sláinte (pronounced SLAYNT-chee)
Thank You – Go Raibh Maith Agat (pronounced GUH REV MAH ah-GUT)
Fun (used a lot by Engrish speakers, like “what’s up” and may or not be actual Irish, but it’s still good to know) – What’s the craic? (Pronounced CRACK)

For more on the Irish language, check these sites:
Irish Language on Wikipedia
A good beginner's guide to the Irish Language
Beginner's Irish Phrases and Pronounciation

For more on the Aran Islands, check these sites:
The Aran Island Hotel
Aran Islands on Wikipedia
Aran Islands Travel Guide
Aran Islands on Wikitravel
Aran Islands on Google Maps

Castle Hopping and Cliff Diving in County Clare

I was fortunate enough to be invited along on a driving tour of some of Western Ireland’s most treasured scenery the other day with Mr. G and his cousin Orlaigh – who happens to be the daughter of one of the only “Burrenologists” and brought with her a book written by her dad with enough information to fill a couple brains.  Naturally, she ordained me a burrenologist myself (along with her her father and one other, we’re the only ones in the world).  So I feel like I can speak to the area.

There’s a place just south of Galway City where you are transferred to a place that seems completely out of it’s element of both time and location.  I’m talking about The Burren (pronounced BURN) which is a national park contained within County Clare in Western Ireland. The Burren is only an hour or so drive from Galway city and is a fantastic day trip recommended for anyone.  The scenery is out of this world.  Giant rocky cliffs covered in green peat moss. The road is incredibly windy (and not recommended for anyone who just started driving, either on the left side of the road or a manual transmission) and the hills don’t make the driving situation any easier. 

Along the way are several castles.  The first of which is the Dunguaire Castle located just outside of Kinvara.  This castle dates back to the 16th century and was home to some ancient kings (don’t ask me who).   The island the little castle resides on is a tidal island and the castle is completely surrounded by water at high tide. Tides here in Western Ireland are more fluctuating than any other I’ve experienced.  At low tide, I live on the beach. At high tide, I live next to a rock wall that holds the ocean out of my house.  It’s crazy.  Anyway, this castle is a must see stop and is absolutely beautiful.  In the summer time you can walk inside, but during the winter, the gates will be locked, so don’t try.

Another great castle is Leamaneh Castle.  This castle has a really interesting history being inhabited by the same woman, Mary O'Brien, through several successions of husbands.  Mary’s first husband was killed in a battle against the English.  Knowing that her beloved home would soon be acquired by the British army, she offered to marry any Cromwellian officer who would have her as long as she could remain in the castle – thus retaining her estate, and living the rest of her life in her home.   This castle isn’t the most beautiful to look at, but it is a nice site and a good break in the windy drive.

If you happen to be near Ballyvaughan, another great site to see is the Corcomroe Abbey.  This old church dates back to the early 13th century and is a must see on a nice day.   The Abbey is home to beautiful carvings, a crowded cemetery, lots of very old tombs and an effigy.  There are even eagles that nest in the old tower so keep your eyes to the sky when you first walk in.

If you are inclined at this point, you are only about a half hour from the Cliffs of Moher (pronounced MORE) which, in my opinion, are a must see for any tourist who is in Western Ireland for more than a couple of days (sometimes even then).  The cliffs are located near the town of Doolin and can be accessed from the north or south.  You will have to pay €8 to park or you can take part in a charter tour (of which several run from either Galway City or Cork City).  Some people don’t think too much of the cliffs, but I was absolutely blown away.  Possibly because I had no pre-conceived idea of what they would look like.  These cliffs TOWER over all that is below.  Seagulls look like houseflies near the ocean which crashes into the side of the mountains in itty-bitty-tiny 20 foot waves. 

On a sunny day from the tops of the cliffs (which I was lucky enough to experience), you can see all three Aran Islands (Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer), Galway City, Connemara, the cliffs and the vastness that is the Atlantic ocean.  There is also a cute watchtower (O’Brien’s Tower) at the top of the hike where you can walk in and up for an even more stunning view of the panorama.  The cliffs are equipped with an informative and new visitors center which is built cleverly (or annoyingly, as some locals will tell you) in the side of one of the cliffs.  Oh and don't actually cliff dive off these.  There is nothing but rocks at the bottom and the anti-suicide lines right before the gates will remind you that it's not a joke. 

The details:

The Burren
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burren
Open year round, best seen in the daytime, castle opening times vary, check individual sites for more information.

The Cliffs of Moher
http://www.cliffsofmoher.ie/
Opening hours: 9-dusk (varies, check the website)
O’Brien’s Tower has shorter visiting hours so check the website
Contact Number: +353 (0)65 7086141
E-mail: info@cliffsofmoher.ie

Soaking up the sun in Salthill, Co. Galway

Salthill is a lovely seaside resort town just west of Galway City in the heart of Western Ireland. It also happens to be the place that I call home right now. My own lovely little beach town where I can sit in my bed, writing articles and blog posts and watch the whales frolic in the ocean. Ok so maybe there aren’t any whales (at least none that I can see), but the rest is true!

I’ve been so blessed with my location. Like I mentioned before, my house is located on a hill, in a row of houses that only lines one side of a street. The other side is open to a park, and eventually, the beach/ocean. I can literally watch the waves crash up on the rocks from my bedroom window (yes, while sitting in my bed) and the sun sets straight out over the water. It’s absolutely beautiful.

Everything here is within near walking distance. I have a small market up the block where I can get nearly everything I need in the form of groceries. At the bottom of my hill is the Salthill Promenade (or the Prom as the locals call it) which is a long stretch of bars and restaurants facing the ocean. Across from the Prom is a long walking path that runs all the way from Southpark (near city center Galway) out to Salthill ending at a black rock. Many people use this long stretch of pavement for their morning or evening work out and it’s essential to kick the black rock at the end of the prom (apparently it brings good luck).

In terms of going out, the pubs are a plenty. There’s a great pub down the street that I frequent quite often called the Oslo which is open all day, has free wifi, great food, good coffee and plays most of the good sporting events on a large projection screen in a bruhouse type picnic table setup. Down the street is a great Italian restaurant serving great authentic pasta and pizza next door to a nice Polish restaurant. If you’re in the mood for a bit more traditional Irish food, head to the Cottage where the beer is cold and the chips piping hot (and served with a really great mayo dipping sauce).

My favorite part of living in Salthill is the walk into town. Clocked at between 10 and 20 minutes (depending on how fast you walk, which of the 1000 routes you take and what state of mind you’re in), the walk I take usually winds down the prom along the ocean, then up through some neighborhood streets before popping out and crossing the river onto Quay Street. It’s the perfect amount of time to share a nice conversation with a friend, listen to some pump up music or sober up a bit after a night out.

It’s close proximity to the city make Salthill a perfect place to stay if you’re in town, no matter how long you stay.

Dear Gabbey: How do you score SWEET flight deals?

Dear Gabbey, I’m going to New Zealand to snowboard sometime this summer (their winter). I have no idea where to start with finding a flight and would like some help.  Do you have any tips? – Jenny

Jenny, dear - I am Gabbey… of course I have tips. Finding cheap flights can be a daunting task, especially when you’re travelling to locations you are unfamiliar with. I have a certain set of steps I take to find cheap flights and I’ll go ahead and outline them for you now.  There are plenty of other ways to find cheap flights, but this is my method – take it or leave it.

Situation #1: You know where you want to go and (roughly) when

If you don’t know about Kayak, it’s fantastic.  It works whether you are traveling domestically in the US, from US abroad or even between international destinations.  Although the premise of Kayak is simple, finding the cheapest flights on it is not necessarily straight forward. If you already know where you want to go and when, the search process is easy.  Enter in your beginning and ending locations and dates.  I ALWAYS select flexible date search with +-3 days but my travel dates are usually flexible. I do highly recommend this option though. Also check the checkboxes next to “include nearby airports” and if you want, you can customize WHICH nearby airports are shown by clicking the “custom” link on top of each location.I think the “Compare sites” option is annoying, so I uncheck all of those boxes.

At this point, it is a good idea to look at the calendar shown to the right of the search boxes. 

In this case, I had asked for flights leaving the 1st and returning the 8th.  Notice that the flights at the end of this month are much cheaper (by over $200) and since I am flexible, I would rather go later in the month and save a few bucks.  I will change my dates to 7/25 outbound and 8/5 return.

Kayak then chugs and plugs and scours the internet for all things flight goodness. The cheapest flight will pop back up at the top of the list.  Make sure the selected dates hold the cheapest fares for the week.

Feel free to change the filters along the left hand side, but notice that these will usually eliminate the #1 cheapo flight. If the flight you want on is a non-stop, this is likely the cheapest flight out there.  Your journey has ended, congrats.  If your selected flight has connections, there still may be a cheaper option for you yet, or if not, at least you can make the most out of it.

Consider alternate transportation from your layover, or at least stay a couple days!

In the above example, the cheapest flight I found showed one stop on the outbound leg.  If you click the “details” link below the flight information, the details of the flight will be expanded to show where and for how long your layover is.

In this example, the layover is in Brisbane, Australia for 3 hours.  Turns out, I’ve never been to Australia, and the thought of popping into the Brisbane airport for 3 hours when I’ve come all this way, just really sucks. I wanna see a kangaroo.

Extend your layover, Option 1: Ground transportation
Sometimes booking flights to a certain airport are just pricey either because it’s a small airport or only serviced by budget airlines.  Kayak searches SOME budget airlines, but not all.  For example, you will find flights on cheap European airlines like Easyjet, but not Ryanair (though Ryanair is rumored to be joining Kayak in the near future).  You will find budget Jet Blue, but not Southwest. So let’s say you want to travel from Tokyo to Malaga, Spain.  Your cheapest option will be to book on Kayak from Tokyo to London and then to catch a budget European flight from London to Malaga. You should also look into ground transportation like trains and busses or even ferries (which can be great for traveling between locations like England and Ireland, or Spain and Morocco).

So how do you find those cheap budget airline flights when they’re not listed on Kayak? Well it takes a bit of work, but it can be done relatively easy.  I start with wikitravel.org. Wikitravel is a great online encyclopedia of location specific travel knowledge.  What I use wikitravel for more than anything else though, is to find out what airports are near a city and who flies there. Once you find a city on wikitravel, go down to the “Getting In” section and note the airports nearby (usually will be noted which are major hubs vs. budget hubs).  Visit the airport’s sites directly and find a list of airlines flying into that airport.  From there, you can visit the airlines directly and look on their “Where We Fly” or similar to figure out the best ways to get into a city.  Ya, it’s a bit of a hunt, but you said you wanted cheap, not easy.

Extend your layover, Option 2: Stay a couple days
For this example, ground transportation between Brisbane and Auckland is not really feasible (definitely not for cheaper than a flight) but I want to see the town. I redo the search, but this time I set it up as a multi-city with a stop in Brisbane and Auckland.  Los Angeles to Brisbane on 7/25, Brisbane to Auckland on 7/29 and Auckland to Los Angeles on 8/5. This search returns a flight that is $90 more expensive, but $90 and I get to add another country to my vaca? DUH! Now I am satisfied with my flight choices and move on. 

Situation #2: You have no clue where or when you want to go, you just want out

If your travel plans are a bit more vague, a good idea is to start with a couple of different sites.  First (if you’re based in the US), you should check out Airefare Watchdog. This site allows you to put in your home airport and it will send you weekly (or daily, if you’re into that sort of thing) digests of the best destinations based on years of trending data. This site is PERFECT for travelers who are based in a city but like to take spontaneous weekend getaways or don’t necessarily have a specific destination in mind.
Another great site to get used to is LastMinuteTravel.com. Last Minute Travel allows you to search for flights (or even better, packages) to certain locations at the last minute.  Ok, well not LITERALLY at the last minute, but let’s say my travel plans change, and I want to book a ticket to New Zealand tomorrow. 

Yes, that is correct; $1000 for a flight that leaves tomorrow.  Not a bad deal at all.

Finally, we head back to Kayak for their “deals” section which allows you to search for deals from a city to a continent.  I use this feature A LOT. Try searching from LAX to Europe and see what happens.  You’ll often find great packages and deals you wouldn’t find elsewhere.  If nothing else, it gives a place to find inspiration on where you actually want to go.

If you’re not sure what’s a good deal and what’s not, a good site to check out is farecompare.com which allows you to enter in a starting and ending location and will give you a range of typical airline prices grouped by travel month. 

Rookie Mistake – Hidden fees on budget airlines

Don’t look like a n00b. Budget airlines advertise discount fares often times because the LOAD on the hidden fees.  Ryanair is a prime example and the punch line of many-a-joke about hidden airline fees (from fees to use the restroom to seatbelt fees).  But you really need to take that into consideration.  Once when traveling from London to Galway, I found that I could save a day of traveling and pay only slightly more (advertised) to fly rather than boat/train/drive/bus. However, after beginning the booking process (and already having decided on flying rather than the alternative) I paid an extra €5 for them to print my boarding pass out for me (no printer), an extra €15 for a checked bag, then €30 in airport surcharges, an €8 fee to use a Visa credit card and Finally when I arrived at the airport, I found that my oversized bag was liable for an additional £56 in fees! I ended up paying double of ground transport because I was lured in by the cheap adverts.

How to keep blogging once you're #rtwnow

This entry is mostly geared towards a group of people known to me as “those #rtwsoon people.”  #rtwsoon is a “tag” used by twatters on twitter who are preparing for their ‘round the world (RTW) trip and are looking to share and absorb advice from their peers and those already on the road.  Unfortunately, I was already RTW when this hashtag was created, so in an attempt to rebel, I created #rtwnow which hasn’t taken off nearly as much, but hopefully will gain some street cred once more of those #rtwsoon people go on their trips already!

Anyway, being nosey, I listen in on the #rtwsoon conversations even though I’m not in the club, and one of the most recently voiced concerns has been over the frequency and ability to continue blogging and tweeting once you people are on the road. 

I started this whole travel blog thing after I started traveling almost 3 years ago (wow!).  And the transition for me was quite easy.  I didn’t do much preparation, a couple pre-trip posts, a new blog host (moved from LiveJournal.com to Off Exploring – which I mentioned in my post on travel blog platforms a couple days ago) and a promise to my mother that I would post EVERY day while I was gone.  That didn’t seem like a huge promise at the time, as I had been blogging almost daily on my LiveJournal and saw no reason why I couldn’t keep it up.

Enters the Eiffel Tower, Colloseum and crappy internet café bandwidth. Suddenly, I realized how daunting the task was going to be.  But I did it.  For 2.5 months, I backpacked around Europe and I published a blog entry every single day I was there. 

So how did I do it?

Set realistic goals
What are you trying to get out of your blog?  Are you trying to make an income? Are you trying to keep your family informed? Are you trying to keep a good travelogue to scrapbook when you get home? If you are trying to blog, or write, as an income, either solely or in part, you need to take into consideration the expectation of your readers and the devastating blow (ok, maybe a bit dramatic) your site ranking can take with a drop off in content.  Don’t believe me? Take a look at your site visits on average on days when you don’t post a new blog entry. If you’re keeping a blog to keep your friends and family informed, blogging frequently may still be at the top of your list.  My mom generally freaked her pants off if I didn’t write every 26 hours. But some people may be more comfortable posting weekly or even less frequently.  And if your blogging solely for your own personal nostalgia, then this is more of a question of how much detail you want to retain in your posts and how insanely long you prefer your posts to be.

Set aside time every [insert time period] to blog
Once you decide how often you want to post, getting it done is as simple as setting aside time and sticking to it.  I found that it was easiest to blog between 5 and 8 PM.  By that point, you’ve gotten most of your daily sightseeing completed and it’s around dinner time, which means the hostels are not bustling with the “let’s go out!” crowd just yet.  Keep in mind that from the time you start looking for an internet, get paid and signed on, check your e-mail and pump out a blog post, you’re talking at least an hour.  The less frequently you post, the more this time block increases.  For me, if I stuck to my 1 blog post a day, I could crank out the details of the previous night and the day in about 45 minutes.  This didn’t include time to upload pictures (which to me, was a secondary activity).  At this point in my life, blogging was not an priority, purely a travelogue and a way to keep in touch with my family and I had no interest in talking about anything besides what I had experienced in the past day or so.  

Don’t be afraid to change your mind
I do not blog on a daily basis anymore.  Mostly because my travel plans are not nearly as aggressive as they once were.  I used to travel for a couple of days in each city and so I had plenty of content to crank out a blog entry every day.  Now, if I were to do the same, my blog would be plagued with entries that started out “Well, I slept in until noon, walked to the coffee shop, read the newspaper and then worked on my [blog/website/tan/beer gut].” Not so interesting. So my blogging style has changed as my travel style has.  Now I focus more on finding specific things about a city and diving into them.  That takes a bit more planning and a bit more time to write. So I’m lucky if I get a blog entry out every 3 days – and I’m ok with that.

Be prepared
Ok, here comes the Girl Scout in me, but it’s a pretty obvious afterthought that I must throw out there.  Will you spend time out of your day hunting for an internet café or will you only post if you have a laptop? Do you forget people’s names 30 seconds after introduction? I cannot blog without a notebook.  My Moleskin is my best friend and it knows more secrets about me than I even remember.  But it also helps me remember what the hell I did last night after my brain is overloaded from 100 paintings at the Louvre.  I can, however, blog perfectly fine without a computer, and have done it well for years.  I only brought my laptop on this most recent journey so I could work on some graphic design and back home IT consulting while I travel – not for blogging – and I’m finding that it doesn’t impact me much to have it. I’ve actually blogged less in the past 3 months than I have, well, in history.

Basically, know yourself, and know what you’re actually capable of and more importantly, what you actually want to do.  Arm yourself with the correct tools (I prefer to hunt with a shotgun, but you may be a crossbow kinda gal).  Don’t be afraid to change your mind. And don’t push yourself.  A quote I saw once in an article about writing said "Don't ride a bike with the brakes on." If blogging is keeping you from doing what you came to do (i.e. travel) then it’s not worth it.  You must maintain equilibrium in your nomadic lifestyle and your tendency to hole up in front of a computer for several hours a day.

So don’t give me that “it can’t be done” crap. Just set your priorities and get 'er done.

A Walking Tour of the Western Irish Countryside

After my little walking tour of Galway City the other day, I decided that walking out into the country for a day wasn’t going to be as daunting of a task as I had previously envisioned.  I walked a total of 8 miles roundtrip to the Tesco, so what’s an extra four miles?  I plotted a walking tour starting in Salthill and heading West down the coast to Barna, inland a couple of miles and then back to Salthill.  The whole walk was supposed to be 12 miles, but I ended up turning down the wrong road at one point and so I

ended up walking about 16 miles. Let’s just say, my little feed were NOT happy with me when I got home.

Possibly inspired by this clip from P.S. I Love You, I really wanted to get out and experience the REAL Irish countryside.  These little roads seem so charming and every turn off looks like a scene from the Secret Garden.  So off I started, heading straight West on Upper Salthill Road.  I walked down towards the Salthill Diving Tower (where a man was actually swimming! At about 40 degrees F – no THANK YOU!) and kicked the Blackrock Wall at the end of the promenade (it’s said to give good luck).  I walked down past the Galway Golf Course along the ocean and then turned in a bit to meet up with Barna Road and loop around Rusheen Bay.

I found a small castle here, but it was pretty much overgrown and covered in graffiti.  I kept walking along the road, and as I came around the bend at Knockauncarragh to look back towards Salthill, I found one of the most amazing views.  I stood up on a hill quite high above sealevel but could look down a clear path all the way past small farms and a couple houses down towards Rusheen Bay and across to the Burren.  There were even ponies (a grey mare and her baby black colt), and though I couldn’t tell if they were wild or not (I didn’t see any fences, but they were awful close to town to be wild) they were beautiful against the bright green background.  The baby hid from me most of the time so I didn’t get a chance to look too close, but he was there.

At this point, I couldn’t really remember where I was supposed to turn but I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to walk too much farther past Barna.  So I took one of the first streets out of town, which actually took me on a slight outward detour.  I cut back once I saw a sign pointing into down and headed towards Aille, where I had looked up a riding stable I was hoping to pop into.  On the way, the streets were just perfect.  Every driver gave me a cheerful wave as they passed by, but they only drove past every 10-15 minutes.  I was pretty much out there by myself.

At one point, I broke off the road and hiked a bit up onto a hill to take in the view.  There was a faded horse trail, so I was pretty certain that I wouldn’t fall into a boggy hole, but it was a bit frightening as the ground was pretty spongey and wet. Someone told me that they invented the sport of Cross Country Riding here, and I see why.  The only thing dividing most of the pasture land for each farmer are these short stone walls and it becomes quite clear why horses would be bred to travel long distances and jump short stonewall jumps. 

I walked for about 6 hours before making it back to my little house and, though I was ambitious to head into town again, my feet just completely stopped working, so I called it a day and cooked some dinner. 

See all of my pictures from the little walking tour on Flickr.