Our first trip abroad – Trip To Ireland

Our Trip To Ireland

A little over a month now, Jose, Cope, and I jumped on a plane and headed to Ireland… casual right? Haha… not quite. Jose and I, always verbalized how there are so many places to see here in the states, that we were not really ever interested in traveling overseas. The real underlying factor was our comfort level with traveling abroad. Noken reached out with their self guided app, and we felt prepared enough to jump out of our comfort zone and head to Ireland. We had so much fun and so much to share we know we couldn’t cover it all… Here are the top FAQ’s during our trip!

Trip Recap

Day 1

Our trip started with 2 nights in Dublin. The first night we arrived at 5am, to try to get caught up on sleep we all sleep for a few hours and hit the town around 2pm. This was the first and only rainy day on our trip. We checked out Grafton street and brought Cope to his first every Disney Store trip. 

Day 2

We stayed in Dublin, and hit the historic sites like that of the Trinity Library, Guinness factory, Dublin Castle, and St. Patricks Cathedral. 

Day 3

We jumped in a car and headed to the west side of Ireland, to a cute little town of Killarney. Here we checked out the Killarney Cottage, Muckross house and estates, and a little shopping in the downtown area. 

Day 4

We drove the Ring of Kerry. This was the super scenic drive of the trip. Winding around the hills and mountains of Ireland, looking out on rolling rolling hills of sheep and cows. The Ring of Kerry brought us to the Cliffs of Portmagee, were (due to the off-season) we had the cliffs all to ourselves. 

Day 5

We left Killarney and headed to Galway. The most beautiful place we have ever stayed at was called the Glenlo Abbey. Gorgeous and stunning doesn’t come close to capturing how breath taking this place is. We ventured out to downtown Galway and were lucky enough to visit during their Christmas Market. 

Day 6

We finished up at Glenlo Abby and headed right to the famous Cliffs of Moher on our way back to Dublin to finish out the trip. The Cliffs were gorgeous and they had a little Cafe we could duck into to get out of the cold. The few hours drive across Ireland back to Dublin was a great way to end the trip, reflecting back on all the sites we saw.

Best Places To Shop?

I LOVED shopping and walking downtown Gallaway the best. The shop fronts were so cute & the restaurants were all accessible & for the most part family friendly. Also, in the month of November when we went they had the cutest downtown Christmas market that we got to walk about and experience some of the local culture at Christmas. Highly recommend checking out Gallaway & give yourself a good day or two to check it out and enjoy the scenery.

What travel app did you use?

We used Noken to travel to Ireland and we absolutely loved it. Noken is a new type of travel agency that plans and books your trip for you. We really liked that Noken removes all of the hassles of researching and booking your trip, and lets you seamlessly book a full trip in moments. Instead of booking everything through different sites & companies, Noken curates the best options to choose from, so you can build and book your entire trip on one platform. After booking your Noken trip, you receive an App Guide that has all of your trip information and your daily plan for exploring. No more PDF itineraries or digging through your email for your plan. You have a personalized guide in your pocket & their team is available to answer any questions you might have!  

How did Noken make traveling easier?

It gave us a lot of peace of mind to not have to worry about the logistics and details of the trip, and everything has been planned for us by the professionals at Noken. We honestly wouldn’t have ever done something like this on our own, having the support of the App Guide and Noken team while traveling is what sold us on taking a trip abroad. We also really enjoyed that the App Guide had all of the information is there for us from the places we were staying, food reservations, sightseeing, and more. Noken guided us through the entire trip and gave us so many ideas of things to do that we never could have came up with on our own!

This app contains your itinerary, consisting of your daily plan/route, hotel reservations, transport reservations, and activities. Noken makes things so much easier on you because not only do they optimize your route and secure your bookings, but also leave you the room to explore on the go with the curated suggestions laid out in the Guide. 

What were some places you stayed and visited?

Dublin

Killarney

Ring of Kerry

Cliffs of Moher

Cliffs of Portmagee

Galway

Would you recommend visiting Ireland in November (off-season)?

Absolutely! We traveled in mid November. The rough window of tourist season is late June to August, from talking with some of the locals and others that traveled to the Ireland during the peak season, a lot of the main attractions and towns can be uncomfortably busy so we highly recommend traveling during the off-season. Mid November was still decent weather for our Michigan blood in the upper 40’s lower 50’s, when you hit the cliffs, the coolness from the water and wind, did cut some of our time outside a little shorter but when you have the cliffs to yourselves we felt like it paid off. 

What kinds of clothes did you bring with you?

Since we went during the off season, we packed for the cooler weather. I would recommend a rain coat. Ireland does love rain, so a nice rain coat that can be packed away or always with you is a need. I used [this rain coat] From there pants, and layered tops were the wardrobe everyday. I wanted to pack light so I packed layers like cardigans that I could layer daily. As far as the babe and the other babe we all wore beanies, gloves, scarves, & jackets. I joked at the end of the trip since we were outdoors so much it really didn’t matter what I wore daily. Which was awesome!

Best tips for traveling with a baby?

A baby carrier for the win! We brought both a stroller and a baby carrier. Our first and second night (in Dublin) we used our stroller. The first was our only night of rain, and it was really nice having the stroller because the little canopy makes it rain proof for little man, and a nice little shopping cart to put all our goods below! After that, baby carrier was the only thing we used when we were out and about. I don’t know if we would bring the stroller again… hard to say. We do like traveling through the airport with it, but strictly when it comes to traveling around Ireland, we could get by without it at this time with a child under one.

For the flight: We took off at his bedtime for the 6 hour flight & that worked out so well! If you have a newborn or young infant I highly suggest booking the bulkhead seats as they often have a bassinet in that area. We didn’t use ours because of so much turbulence, but it was handy to know it was there! Cope slept on me the whole way there which was enjoyable for the both of us. We did make a mistake by bringing an infant carseat and not his toddler carseat as you are only allowed to put the babe in a forward facing carseat on the plane, but it ended up working out just fine. Bring plenty of snacks, small toys, & portioned out formula if you formula feed. Think of keeping the babe busy for hours and what that takes for your little. I also highly recommend having sanitizing wipes, medicines, & a ready made bottle available for take off, all readily available so you don’t have to dig. We took one backpack for Cope, one for me, & one for Jose so all of our stuff was separated and organized.

What were you favorite places you visited in Ireland?

Trinity College

Galway

Cliffs of Portmagee

Gafton Street

We have been doing a lot of traveling this year, clearly abroad, but a lot in the states… and I have to give all the credit to our little traveling buddy. He was a trooper for all of it, I know those that are intimidated by traveling with a baby, they add a new element that brings Jose and I so much joy. I hope this helps curb some of those fears of traveling, Noken completely has opened our eye and has us with a travel bug to make memories. I have already received a lot of questions that we are so very happy to answer, but if you have any more please feel free to comment below and we’d love to chat more about our trip. Thank you Noken for this unforgettable family trip and thank you all for stopping by the blog today and every other day. XxLiz Marie