A dream of ours (one of the many) had always been to travel abroad in a motorhome. Having talked about it with our friends Steven and Linda (of The Chouters and Bijou), who are currently living in a 22 foot Hymer in Europe, they invited us to join them for a few weeks. Bill and I discussed it and decided it sounded like a wonderful idea! The conversation had initially happened before COVID, so it was put off, but as soon as it felt like the pandemic had subsided enough, we kicked our plan making into full gear!

Together we reviewed their travel plan for 2022 and we chose to join them in Ireland and Scotland. We decided on that area because the timing (late August and September) was good for us (no installs scheduled yet) and I’ve always wanted to go with Bill to Ireland, since my visit there in 2004 with my Dad.

The planning took quite a while, several months actually. I found it easier to break it down into smaller tasks verses tackling it all at once. The first order of business was choosing dates. Next decision was where would we fly into/out of. Actually, before that, we needed to choose where we were getting our motorhome, either in Ireland or Scotland? Based on our conversations with Steven and Linda back at the ranch in January, we knew we would be going to Ireland first, then on to Scotland. So, could we fly into Dublin (or even Shannon) and pick up a motorhome, and then return it in Scotland and fly home from Edinburgh or Glasgow? While that would be ideal, I learned with some companies it was possible, however additional fees for dropping off at a different location, coupled with it being more expensive for 2 one-way airline tickets verses a round-trip, made it cost prohibitive. I reached out to friends, Jim and Diana (of exploRVistas ) because they had gone to England, Ireland, and Scotland a few years back and rented a small motorhome, so I wanted their advice. After talking with them and doing a bit more of my own research, we decided to rent from the same place they did, JustGo. That decision made some others easier and clearer. JustGo had only two places to pick up/drop off and they needed to be the same place to avoid a large fee. We had no plans to go to England, so our pick up/drop off would be in Edinburgh Scotland.

Next, we needed to choose our departure/arrival airport here in the USA. At that time of year, we would still be in PA, so my initial airport choice was PIT, or Pittsburgh airport. Not surprisingly, there weren’t any non-stop flights to Edinburgh, only flights with stopovers mostly in BOS (Boston), JFK, or EWR (Newark) and any of them would have us with a 3 1/2 or longer lay-over. Thank goodness for the different search options on Expedia.com because I finally figured out that if we drove 3 hours to IAD (Washington Dulles) we could take a non-stop flight and save ourselves an exhaustive lay-over.

Once our tickets were purchased, I put a deposit down at JustGo for a 2-berth mystery motorhome.

I can hear you all now – what the *&^% is a “mystery motorhome”? Well, the least expensive 2 berth (sleeping for 2) motorhome was about £3800. A mystery 2 berth motorhome was £3300, so a savings of about £500 – AND – we may end up with a larger motorhome. Longer story short – we would get whichever one was left over after the specifically reserved ones were taken. We decided it was an easy way to save a few $$$.

Once our flight tickets were purchased, we needed to find a place to leave our car. Leaving from PIT would have made this step unnecessary, as I’m sure Michelle or Derek would have taken us and picked us up, but we didn’t want to ask them to drive 3 hours each way. I used a website called SpotHero and found lots of hotels near IAD that offered reasonable rates, all of which were significantly less than the economy lots at the airport. Booking it was easy but not entirely painless at $232.00, or $6.47 per night.

We had our dates set, so we needed to check our passports to make sure they were still good. I initially had a bit of a panic because at a quick glance, it looked like mine would expire before we returned home, but upon a closer look, it was fine. It expires in September 2023 – NOT 2022! As an aside, the only thing needed to travel to Scotland (which is part of the UK) or Ireland was our passports. No special visa was needed. Easy peezy! Bill did have to get an International Driver License, which was required by JustGo for him to drive the motorhome. Thankfully, during one of my chats with Jim, he mentioned getting his at a AAA and there was one right in Somerset! It was easy to get, just walk in and pay the fee (2 separate ones for a total of $35.90)

The next thing we discussed was when would we return to Scotland from Ireland? In other words – how would we break up our trip between the countries? How many days in each? The reason this was important is because we needed to reserve a spot on the ferry from Cairnryan, Scotland to Belfast, Northern Ireland and then return, which Steven and Linda would be joining us on. So, careful coordination was needed.

Once our ferry tickets were purchased, we could start planning the dates at each location and make campsite reservations. To do this, we compared our individual lists of places we wanted to visit and then Linda worked her magic and sent us a tentative schedule, first for Ireland and a few days later she followed up with one for Scotland. A small amount of tweaking later and we started making campsite reservations for our longer stays. Here’s a list of places we reserved in advance: Camac Valley Tourist Caravan and Camping Park (near Dublin) 4 nights, Nagles Camping and Caravan Park (Doolin) 3 nights; Glen Nevis Caravan and Camping Park Fort William 4 nights, Ferry View Night Stop (Gills Bay) 1 night, Sango Sands Oasis (Durness) 3 nights, and last but not least Mortonhall Caravan Park (Edinburgh) 3 nights. These are not the only places we stayed, just the ones we reserved in advance. I’ll tell you about the others as we go along.

What did we want to DO while there? The choices were almost endless but here is a list of the larger tours/activities/hikes we ended up doing:

Bill and I on our own in Belfast: Titanic Museum. Bill and I on our own in Dublin: Foodie Tour, Guiness Storehouse, Hop On/Hop Off Bus tour (walking around Trinity College and Grafton St), Epic Museum

With Steven and Linda: In Cobh: Walking tour of Cork City, Walk to Cobh town; Killarney: Gap of Dunloe Horse & Trap/Boat to Ross Castle; Dingle: walk around town; Doolin: Aran Island, cliff walk to Cliffs of Moher, walk along Burren; Galway: Hop On/Hop Off, walk around town; Donegal: walk around town, water taxi tour; Bushmills: Giants Causeway; Fort William: hike Ben Nevis, walk around town, Jakobite Train to Mallaig; Dornoch: walk around town, stop at Cocoa Mountain; John O’Groats: Sea Stacks cliff walk, fish & chips, walk around town; Sango Sands: Smoo Cave, original Cocoa Mountain, walk along the beach; Ullapool: lunch at Seafood Shack; Dufftown: (just Bill and I) The Balvenie Distillery Tour; Falkirk: The Kelpies and Falkirk Wheel; Edinburgh: “Free” Walking Tour, Edinburgh Castle, walk around Victoria St, The Royal Mile, and Grass Market.

Another thing that needed to be figured out and caused me a lot of worry, but it shouldn’t have, was our phones. How would they work? Verizon offers a “Travel Pass” for Europe, exactly like what we used while driving through Canada on our way to/back from Alaska back in 2016, except instead if $3 per day it was $10 per day. We would be gone 36 days – so OUCHY! Linda and Steven said as long as our phones weren’t “locked” (they weren’t) we could buy/change out the SIM cards and they would work. It’s not that I didn’t trust them, but I was skeptical. Well, I shouldn’t have been, because it worked like they said. We used our phones like we always do, with the exception being if someone wanted to call me they had to use What’sApp, since I didn’t have access to my USA phone number without switching back the SIM card.

I also called each credit card, for two reasons. One, what are their foreign transaction fees? Second, just to inform them we would be out of the country to Ireland and Scotland, so our cards wouldn’t be denied. I learned that our Sam’s Club Mastercard does not have any fees, so that is the one we used. I had used our VISA when making online transactions and the fees weren’t terrible, but zero was better than nominal.

A HUGE decision that we needed to make was where would my kitty Callie stay? Options we discussed were moving the trailer to Michelle’s driveway and she and Derek would care for her there in her own home. She couldn’t stay inside because they already have a cat, and they don’t get along. A consideration on this option was they are having construction done on their house and I was concerned our 40′ 5th Wheel would be in the way. Next option (which is we did) was to bring her to Billy’s and he would care for her there. The negative to this was she wouldn’t be in her own environment, and I was worried she would feel abandoned. The positive was she would be getting lots of love from Billy. Once we got permission from Billy’s landlord, it was final.

The day before our departure, we packed all Callie’s things and headed to Pittsburgh. Once out of her crate, she found the space under the couch and that was that. I was sad leaving her but I knew Billy would take the best care of her.

We had been packing for a few days already and when we returned from Pittsburgh, we did a final “do we have everything?” check. Our passports and Bill’s International Driver License were safely tucked away in my pocketbook.

The following morning, after a restless sleep, we headed over to Michelle’s to say our “see you later’s!” and get our hugs and kisses from the girls. Sadly, its hard to explain to them what’s happening, especially Arwen.

The drive to the Holiday Inn, where we would be leaving the car, took 3 1/2 hours. When we arrived, I went inside to ask where to park and they just said along the outer parameter. We had to wait about 10 minutes for the shuttle and we were at the airport after a 10-minute ride. So far, so good!

Our flight was scheduled to board at 10pm, so we had plenty of time to check our bag (only one on the way over) and enjoy a relaxing dinner. After walking around for a bit after dinner, we settled into seats at the gate. We got in line as soon as our “section” was called, and we were in our seats at 10:10pm.

Wish I could tell you I slept like a baby, but that would be a lie. It wasn’t a full flight, and I was able to lay down across 3 seats and attempt to sleep, but I was restless. So much excitement!

Our long, thankfully uneventful, flight was finally over, having landed right on time at 10:45am Edinburgh time. We got through Customs/Immigration and got our luggage. Once outside security, I called my Mom (left a message since it was 6am Eastern time) to let her know we had arrived safely, and to also ask her to let the kids know. I tried to find a SIM card, but there was some type of issue at the airport and SIM cards couldn’t be activated, so we didn’t buy them. An airport employee allowed me to use her phone to call JustGo, and I was told they had no record of us needing to be “collected” from the airport. So, out to the taxi area we went. The gentleman was very nice and gave us advice on where to get some groceries and also SIM cards.

When we arrived, we had papers to sign, and we needed to wait for our motorhome to be ready until about 2:10pm. We got an orientation, which Bill paid more attention to than I did. While I was excited, at this point I was also exhausted, and we weren’t nearly done with our day.

Finally, we got the keys, and we were able to leave to find the grocery store the taxi driver had told us about (which I confirmed with the lady at the desk) and we headed out to Morrisons in Gyle Mall. Bill did great navigating circles or “Roundabouts” (considering he was driving on the “wrong” side of the vehicle and “wrong” side of the road!) while using my Travel Plan on my phone for GoogleMaps. Morrisons was a very nice store, and we were able to get all we needed. It did feel like we were in there forever reading packaging and looking for things since we were completely unfamiliar with where anything was or their brands. It’s no wonder we needed to go back in a second time for stuff we forgot the first time. We got our new SIM cards at Vodafone, which was right next door -£40 for unlimited for me, £10 for 21gig data/unlimited call/text for Bill. We got new phone numbers but could still use USA numbers for WhatsApp on my phone – good deal! We also needed to go back into Vodafone to figure out why SIM cards weren’t working and discovered it was operator error on our part – didn’t use the country code correctly – oops!

Once everything was packed away as best we could do, we entered Stena Line Ferry, Cairnryan into GoogleMaps and left on our way – we had a 3-hour drive in front of us. Once we were outside the city limits, the number of roundabouts lessened. We drove by some beautiful scenery, arriving just at dark and got parked – free (instead of £5) because credit card machine was broken. We unpacked, made the bed, etc, got settled and went to sleep about 10pm Scotland time – 5pm Eastern. We didn’t even watch any TV – we were so tired!

I think I’ll end here – it’s a lot. It is taking me forever to type it out because I keep stopping to think about and remember our trip. I originally thought it would take about 5 posts but at this rate, might be more. Hope you don’t mind!

Bill’s Lingo Lesson for the day:

On day one, Bill started a list in his phone of words/phrases that are different than we use in the USA, so I’ll be sharing some of them with you here near the end of each post about our trip.

rubbish = garbage/trash

crisps = chips

chips = french fries

slush box = where you dump chemical toilet (cassette)

Previous Post: Summertime in Somerset 2022 Part 2

What’s Next? Belfast and Dublin Ireland/Scotland Trip #2

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