Customer Reviews

Frommer's Ireland's Best-Loved Driving Tours

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book was a great resource during our weeklong driving adventure throughout Ireland. Not only did we use it in planning our trip, but it remained with us in the car as a daily reference and guide. A large map of the country is partitioned into numerous, individual driving tours. We would pick a destination, find the appropriate tour, and the book would suggest an itinerary as well as provide an informative reference to the landmarks, scenery, history, restaurants and accommodations in the area. We will definitely be using this again!

This book has some beautiful pictures to inspire you to visit Ireland (something that Lonely Planet, e.g., lacks), but has little else to recommend it. The information on where you should stop consists of about 5 sentences; not enough to help you decide if you want to stop or to assist you once you are there. We were in Ireland for 10 days; during that time, we found this guide useful for about 5 minutes, when we were trying to find Cliffs of Moher. Not a very good investment. For beautiful pictures at no cost, search the internet instead.

The two guide books I would recommend are Lonely Planet and the Blue Guide. (...) Finally, make sure you get a good map once in Ireland, if not before.e

This Best Loved Driving Tours Travel Guide is one of the best, if not the best, guidebook to use for planning your Ireland trip before you leave. There is a tremendous amount of useful driving material, it has quite a bit of information,and a number of different driving tours, it is convenient to carry with you or keep in the car. I read about a lot of attractions here that I couldn't find in other reputable publications, and found more details as well. The best way to go...and I learned through experience and the hard way....you want to fly into Dublin and head south, then west and north....and leave out of Shannon...the experience of the City first, with the hustle and bustle is GREAT!!...and then the calming of the countryside and the politness, kindness and friendliness of the Irish people will definitely fill your heart...and leave you with a good feeling.

Since I was going to Ireland on a self-drive vacation, when I saw this book on the shelf I grabbed and bought it immediately. I studied the book before leaving the US, deciding that several of the tours suited my needs. What a disappointment, however, upon getting to Ireland and trying to actually use the book. Directions from the book itself were not very helpful, we got lost several times, only finding our way back using a regular road map. The book mentions Routes that have no signs posted anywhere, so it was hard to know if you were going the right way. I agree with the reviewer who pointed out that there was not nearly enough information about each suggested "stop" on the tours - hard to decide whether it was worth it or not to make the 10-mile detour to check things out. I could have also used some kind of description about the road conditions, such as if it was a mountain road, straight, or with many curves - those things definitely affected driving times.

I can't disgree with the reviewers who point out what this book isn't: thorough, detailed and specific.

Having taken two driving trips through Ireland, though, I'd like to suggest that the first time visitor could benefit greatly by taking some of these suggested drives.

Main reason? The reasonable scale of the drives. Ireland looks small and it can be a mistake to plan drives based only on how many miles a certain trip would be. It is very easy for a new visitor to plan a trip only to find that they are in the car for seven hours.

Go easy, plan realistic drives like the ones included here, and have fun!

This book is a wonderful resource with a person familiar with the type of tour and terrain one wants to travel, NOT for the first-time Ireland visitor. One must be comfortable with the road-marking system and road conditions of Ireland, and one must have a decent comprehension of what one wishes to accomplish during one's visit for this book to be of help at all. That having been said, for the person who is traveling back to Ireland because they just can't get enough of the lush landscape and the many, many things to do this book is a great asset and time-saver. It should never be used as the primary or ONLY resource, however, for visiting Ireland, but it does give one wonderful ideas on where to visit and how to plan a trip

I found this book not very helpful. It has more or less unrelated circle tours, but this is not how most people would tour Ireland. Most of the information is readily available in other ways, such as Frommer's Ireland 2006, which is much more comprehensive.

My husband is very pleased with the book and will use it to plan our trip to Ireland next year.

We would not want to be without this book on our visits to Ireland. It really helps you to plan your day as you explore all that the Emerald Isle has to offer. It is well written, fun to read and includes clear maps and directions.

The book has lots of good info for a first-time traveller to Ireland, but I'll know more about how useful the book is in early September. My daughter and I will be travelling to Ireland in late August and hope to put the book's info to use while we're there. Stay tuned....