Karen Brown's Ireland: Exceptional Places to Stay & Itineraries

We found this to be a very helpful book to use in combination with others while on our trip. You need several different guide books because no one book will give you all of the information that you will want about any given area of the country.

You won't go wrong with any of the lodging choices here. They are all wonderful and described quite well. The itineraries are fine; but you may want another book as well to help in that area.

We used the book to pick B & Bs for our first trip to Ireland. Each accomodation was exactly as described and delightful. The directions were accurate and very helpful for first time visitors. I would not hesitate to use another Karen Brown guide and have recommended it to several friends.

This book was excellent -- I used this as my primary guide for my husband/my 1st 10 day trip to Ireland -- provided itineraries that weren't tourist traps and good quality inns that had service and atmosphere -- also, the website was great and the authors responded to emails with a day -- very informative -- just use a good travel map rather than the book for specific directions, especially on the Youghall to Kinsale -- will use her guide when we go to Italy next year.

We stayed in 5 of the B & B's recommended in this book. We found Karen Brown's descriptions to be right on the money. We didn't stick to her itineraries but found them useful in planning our own itinerary. She only lists a few places for the towns she recommends staying in, so if you aren't booking ahead you might want to bring a more comprehensive B & B book with you. We were traveling in September when the tourist business is slowing down so we were usually able to get a reservation in the morning for that night. During June, July, or August you'd probably have to book several days or longer in advance.