The Ireland Trip

For several years my husband Ray and I have been wanting to take a trip to Ireland. That is the land of my heritage. I love anything Irish. Movies, music, stories, books, anything, as long as it is Irish.

 

In 2005 my sister Diane and her husband Harold and I went to England, Scotland and Wales. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time to get to Ireland. The trip was phenomenal. London was so interesting. Edinburgh (which, by the way, is pronounced Edinburra) was amazing. The old part of the city is from medieval times and is made of stone. Wales has lots of quaint little villages. All of the businesses have swinging signs out front with a picture of a very mean looking bull and the name “The Angry Bull” painted on the front of the building, or maybe it is a laughing woman, or a dancing pig. You never see a business named John’s Pub, or Anderson’s Mercantile. That is because many years ago very few people could read, so businesses needed to have a name that could be depicted in a picture they could paint on a sign hanging out front. Isn’t that interesting?

 

I have been wanting to go back to Great Britain ever since 2005 and include Ireland in the trip. Now Ray wants to go as much as I do. Last week Ray asked me to plan our trip, so I went to Barnes and Noble and bought a book to help accomplish the task. I picked up a copy of Fodor’s Travel Ireland 2015. It is a 687 page book telling everything you need to know to plan the perfect trip. Fodor’s has a book for almost any country you want to travel to. Whatever you are interested in, whether it be music, pubs, castles, museums, hiking, the coastline, shopping for antiques, or kissing the Blarney stone, this book will tell you where to go and when. It will also tell you how to save money. Quite the deal, huh?

 

Since this could be the only time I get to go to Ireland (I hope not), this needs to be the best trip in the whole world. How do I make that happen? Research and planning, of course. I will be reading every page of my new book, and picking out all the places we want to go. Then I will take a map of Ireland and plan exactly how to get to all these incredible places in order, so we can fit it all into the trip.

 

Once I have planned the perfect trip, then I will go to one of my new favorite websites. It is called Airbnb.com. You can pick out cities all over the world and find wonderful unique bed and breakfasts at fantastic prices. No hotels for us. We want to stay in these cool bed and breakfasts and meet the interesting wonderful people who own them. By the time we get home, we will not only have awesome memories of everything we saw and did in Ireland, but we will have new friends too.

 

Since I am a writer, I see writing a book as being similar to planning the perfect trip. The more you research your subject and understand it, the more interesting the book will be. You also need to put everything together in order so it fits and flows.

 

It is very tempting to forego the research and planning and jump right into the story with both feet. However, if you want to make sure everything in your story is correct, research and planning is the way to go.

 

Believe me, if readers start telling you what is wrong with the details in your book, you will wish you had taken the time to get it right. Your readers are wonderful, but they will not hesitate to let you know when you make a mistake.  Better safe than sorry.