A year or 2 ago I came to the conclusion ad I and probably everyone else should really visit the places nearest to them first before venturing further afield. I’d already been all over Ireland, Northern Ireland and a handful of trips to England but for some reason had always ignored Scotland and Wales. In […]

Luxembourg was NOT on my bucket list! It was another one of those trips that came about as a result of a Ryanair deals email. Flights were cheap, it was a new country we hadn’t been and we needed a summer vacation as we’d nothing else planned. The absolute best thing about this trip that […]

I’ve heard plenty of people give out about Venice, over priced, over touristed, dirty etc.. but I still believed it was a must see place so off we went for just a quick 2 night Spring stay. One weird issue I had boking accommodation was that a lot of the hotels in Venice don’t seem […]

The Fab 4’s first Christmas market abroad and all of our first times in Poland. It took me weeks to learn how to pronounce Bydgoszcz (Bid Gosh Ch) so I cold tell people where I was going exactly because it’s not one of the main tourist places in Poland. Like many of our trips I […]

My 50th birthday treat to myself and my “carer” Joanne! Greece and Santorini in particular had long been a bucket list place for me and I’d never been before this trip. We weren’t quite sure what the weather would be like in mid/late October. I mean you can research what it’s usually like but that […]

This was my eagerly awaited first time to see my girlfriend’s cousin’s lovely little house by the seaside in the sleepy little town of Eccles-on-Sea, Norfolk on the east coast of England. Home to Jessie Buckley also! A short hop from Ireland you’d think but it’s an epic journey since they cut flights to Norwich […]

Our third Eurocamp trip with the extended family and my kids first time in Ireland’s favourite sun destination, Spain! Not my first time but I’d not been in this part before at least. Palamós is in North East Spain on the Costa Brava, just above Barcelona and we flew into the small airport of Girona […]

Our March trip 2025 was to Budapest, another bucket list place for me personally. Initially I just booked me and Joanne but it was so cheap I decided to add Elly and Bonnie later! And just to be different I decided to pick somewhere a bit odd to stay while there. How about a boat […]

Vienna was a surprise trip for Xmas from Joanne! It was one of my bucket list places. I always thought of it as a fancy, cultural must visit place so was delighted we were going. We stayed in a suitably grand and oldy worldy hotel a short walk from the main train line in and […]

If my trip to Liverpool was personal and emotional, this trip was that x10. I was born in Bournemouth in 1975 and had never been back. I was only there a few months from birth before moving back to Dublin to live with my mother and grandparents so had no recollection but I knew a […]

This was a deeply personal and long overdue return to Liverpool for me. I’d been there as a kid with my mother in the mid 80s and stayed with my grand aunt Nelly who had just passed away a year or 2 before this trip. I decided to relive that trip and meet up with […]

Our third blended family trip abroad and done in honour of a K-Pop, Stray Kids gig at Hyde Park. We flew into Stanstead and got a bus to London town. We booked a family flat over a shop in Hackney that slept 7. Slightly rough area and the entrance to the flat was a bit […]

Another work trip and my first time in Slovakia. Nitra is a one of the oldest cities in Slovakia and is about 90km from the capital Bratislava where I flew into. Bus transfer was about 90mins. I stayed in a hotel right on the river Nitra, a short walk from work HQ in the University […]

Not long after my first awesome trip to Scandanavia, I was eager to go back on a personal trip and bring my partner Joanne this time so we booked Helsinki for March and Paddy’s day. It turned out to be a bit colder than we’d expected, no snow to begin with but it snowed mid […]

This was a last min work trip to fill in for a colleague so not something I planned personally, although I’d always wanted to visit as much of Scandanavia as possible. I’ll just say straight away that it was one of those trips of a lifetime for me. Absolutely magical! It was mid December for […]

A rare trip outside of Europe for me and first to Africa. I chose Marrakesh as my birthday trip but I’d originally gone onto the Ryanair deals website to book a trip to Edinburgh! Marrakesh turned out to be cheaper and for a longer stay which included breakfast AND dinner! How!? But there was a […]

My second work trip and a definite bucket list destination for quite a while, ever since I heard rave reviews for it after Ireland secured qualification for Italia 90 there in1989. I believe it’s been a very popular holiday spot with the Irish ever since. Better late than never for me! I even passed the […]

I’d been in Madrid briefly once before on an ill fated European trip in 2001, but only in the airport for most of a whole night for a flight connection and considering I believe you need to get out and walk the streets of a city to get a proper feel for it, I was […]

We chose Cologne mostly because it’s just one of the destinations Knock fly to that we hadn’t been! I’d never been to Germany either and always wanted to go as my mother used to live and work there. Transfers from the airport to main station were simple and affordable then we had about a 30min […]

Our second Eurocamp trip, this time to Camping Fabulous Village just outside Rome. Probably more suited to smaller kids as there aren’t really any big slides but there’s 2 nice sized pools and a very large knee deep only pool with climbing hill. There’s a cool water zone too with drop bucket to cool down. […]

This was a Christmas present from Joanne’s son Sean and it turned out to be Joanne’s fav place! We went in March so weren’t expecting decent weather but they had a mini heatwave for the first couple of days we were there which made it so much nicer. I’d known Prague was a very popular […]

My kids first trip abroad and first time on a plane! Kaelan needed some convincing as he got himself worked up beforehand about plane crashes and separation anxiety from his mother but we managed to drag him along and he loved the plane! He was giggling as it took off. I wasn’t! I had to […]

I think this was my first trip abroad for about 8 years and I hadn’t a clue how to even make it happen initially. Obviously I went on the Ryanair website to try book flights but I found the process bewildering, all the different baggage options, extra fees, airport parking etc.. And I flew from […]

A very rare trip abroad for us at this time (first in about 7 years) as we’d just had 2 kids, the recession was in full bloom and business wasn’t great but it was also a very rare family wedding and get together! I could only afford it because I’d just sold my house in […]

My first time out of Europe and first time in the the old US of A. It still wasn’t very long after 9/11 so security was still a bit tight and there was a lot of focus on illegal immigrants in America. We’d heard some horror stories on the news about people being kicked out, […]

Note. This blog post is being written retrospectively roughly 25 years after the fact so bare with me! It’s half my lifetime ago and I was stoned for a lot of it but it left marks. Background: 2001 wasn’t a great year for me. I spent several months of it in bed, pretty much constantly, […]