Trip to Ireland, wow things have changed! Suggestions?

I didn’t do my homework and naively thought I’d hire a little car on the spot and pootle around the countryside in the day and stay in cheap hostel dorms. Try to get an itinerary to catch a friendly session most evenings. Well, cars for next week start at 160 Pounds a day (should have booked long ago) if I book now. With COVID and not many backpackers there seem to be very few hostels still open and those that are, are 80 € + for a dorm bunk! Looks like the plan might have to be to catch a bus to 1 or 2 of the larger towns where I might find one or more friendly sessions and find an Airbnb for 1. Any suggestions where to go are most welcome!

It may not be your style (or suit your physical capabilities or time constraints) but have you thought of hiring a pushbike with panniers and buying a tent? You’ll find campsites in the popular tourist areas but where you do not, I have generally found people in Ireland very amenable to camping in fields, gardens, public open spaces etc. – I’ve even been invited into people’s houses for food, to use the shower etc.

Cut and paste from a Google search on "dublin car rental daily rate" :

"Car Hire in Dublin from £31/day - Search for car rentals on …https://www.kayak.co.uk › …

Dublin car hire reviews and directory ; From £83/dayRated no. 1. Budget ; From £82/dayRated no. 2. Avis ; From £101/dayRated no. 3. Payless ; From £54/dayRated no.
Hire locations: 74
Car types: Compact, Compact SUV, Economy, …
Airport locations: 23

How much does it cost to hire a car in Dublin?
On average a hire car in Dublin costs £96 per day. Search car hire on KAYAK"

If the best you think you can get is £160 a day you should maybe look in more depth. Hope this helps.
PS - Actually you and CMO above may have provided the best solution between you. Buy a tent, and travel by bus.

Kenny, car rental rates have skyrocketed and many of those "from £xx" rates are neither accurate nor timely. If OP is arriving in Dublin on the 19th as their trip posted here says, the absolute cheapest rate available on Kayak for their dates is £140/day. I wouldn’t assume that OP is incapable of basic research.

I’ve done a lot of travel around Ireland by bus and tent, it’s not bad but obviously the weather becomes a major factor. If you’re looking for sessions Galway is usually a good bet, and you’d be a short bus ride to Ennis, Doolin, Clifden, and a few other good spots for music. A bit longer (but quite scenic!) ride would get you to Westport, where Matt Molloy’s is, one of my personal favorite session spots.

Galway also has a bunch of hostels, and it looks like some (not a ton) of vacancies. If you don’t mind moving around and patching together a week from a night here, a night there, etc. you can probably do it; I’ve found recently that trying to stay for longer terms there’s always one pesky night (usually saturday) that makes it all but impossible to find one single place.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. Yes I think the best idea is bus to a major town, take the cheapest airbnb I can find or a hostel. Then either hire a bike or take a bus to some of the other little places. Bigscotia, that’s the type of info I was after. I’ll message a bunch of people on here to see if sessions are still on or moved.

My son-in-law, who comes from N Ireland but lives in Scotland, was also staggered at the price of hire cars now in N Ireland when the family (4 of them) went over the other week. By the time they found this out, they’d already booked flights, but had they known sooner, it would have been a lot cheaper to take their own car over by ferry. The ferries were never cheap in comparison with air fares, but currently are a better deal than flying + car hire!

Are rains no longer a viable means of travel in Ireland?

The Boy from County Cook: "Are rains no longer a viable means of travel in Ireland?"

Trains? https://journeyplanner.irishrail.ie

Yes, there are some very reasonable deals on advance tickets, in fact (e.g. Galway-Cork €16 – compared with €20 by bus).

https://national.buseireann.ie

> rains

Last time we went to Ireland (and spent my birthday in a brilliant session in Ennis) I got an email from the Irish tourist board a few days later, with a questionnaire. The final question was

What, apart from the weather, could we improve to make your next visit more enjoyable?

Right then! No more whinging!

https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/travel-information/station-and-route-maps/ireland-rail-map

Car hire is out of the question but there are still some nice hostels for around 30 € in Galway and elsewhere. And given the cold bleak weather outlook for next week, I think I’ll take a bus or train and stay mostly around Galway and radiate out from there. Seems there’s plenty of great music every day there. Maybe I’ll hire a bike for a day or two if the weather allows it. Thanks for all the suggestions.

I’m heading to Ireland for 2 weeks tomorrow, and am staggered by the cost of renting a car. Sadly I have no choice and had to go for it! 🙁
I had a lovely fantasy of driving around, taking in sessions and staying in cosy b&bs….but it’s not to be. Travelling solo, air bnbs aren’t actually a cheap option for me either…🙁
Still, I intend to have a great time, sketching and playing wherever/ whenever I get the chance.

https://www.gocar.ie/

Have a look at this link. It works different to traditional car hire. You pay for the journey, not the car you drive. €10 per hour, so a journey, say from Dublin to Galway is roughly 3 hours down the motorway, so should cost €30 for that journey. Check the website, Im not sure if there will be any extras.
Hope this helps.

Cost of accomodation has sky rocketed across the UK and no suprise the same in Ireland.In tourist areas its even worse.
Here in the Highlands you are unlikely to get B and B for two for under £100.There is also a shortage of accomodation post covid with older accomodation providers having packed it in and everyone else trying to recoup losses from no buisiness for two years!It destroyed my business so I have packed in early.

Can’t one just hitchhike around Ireland? If a guy can do it with a friedge, a mandolin should be manageable…

@chris stolz – One can, certainly.  I’ve done it several times (with a mandolin and a fiddle, not a fridge). I suspect it is not as easy as it once was, though – it is no longer a given that a stranger helps a stranger (although some of my best experiences of unconditional hospitality have been in Ireland). Add to that the netrwork of motorways that now criss-crosses Ireland, filtering out much of the long distance traffic, and hitching across Ireland can be a very slow and unpredictable way of travelling. I’d still do it – it’s a more interesting way to get around than getting a train or bus, and I’m an incurable optimist. But if you’re on a tight schedule, it might not be the best option.

Gone are the days of easily hitching lifts around the country - even pre-COVID times, but now adding how people’s habits and comfort levels for things have changed because of the pandemic I can’t imagine a lot of folk would stop to pick up a random hitchhiker - now it might be different if ye were sat in a pub, got chatting to locals and someone might offer ye a lift but just stood out on the roadside it could be a long wait before someone feels comfortable enough to pick up a stranger. I used to hitch from Dublin down the countryside back in the day if friend’s bands were playing in Galway or Cork, and it was common for students to hitch home at weekends but you don’t really see that anymore.

No standing! In the U.K. & the Republic, you walk along, and if you hear a car coming you pause and gesture ahead with your thumb. They like to see that you’re at least trying to get where you’re going on your own. Just standing there with your thumb out makes you look slack & lazy.

Could be moot at this point in history though.

This brings to mind my more youthful days in the 1970’s when, after attending the fleadh in Listowel I decided to hike back to the ferry to England, via Dublin.. With plenty of time on my hands I set of to walk only to be repeatedly offered lifts. By accepting these unsolicited lifts I was in Dublin in no time. As many have pointed out - different times!

"No standing! In the U.K. & the Republic, you walk along, and if you hear a car coming you pause and gesture ahead with your thumb."

That’s OK if you’re on a quiet road, that’s safe to walk along and where a car can pull over anywhere. On a fast trunk road, that is pointless and dangerous – cars whizzing past at 60 mph with a queue of cars behind and nowhere to pull in are not going to screech to a halt on anyone’s account. You walk until you find a good spot (where the traffic is slowed down by traffic lights or a junction, where there is a safe stopping place, on a straight stretch of road so that drivers can see you well before they pass you, not too close to the next junction so you know that all drivers will be going in the right direction for you etc.) and stay there. I don’t care if people think I’m slack and lazy.