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I find credit unions have good rates or Charles Schwab has a great option with unlimited ATM withdrawals and no foreign transaction fees or currency hikes (they even reimburse you for any ATM fees you might be charged by other banks anywhere in the world). Second, your home bank (or wherever you get your euros) will charge you a higher exchange rate to cover their costs (usually about 6-10%) than what the actual exchange rate is. At the time of posting AAA’s “exchange rate” is $1.22 for every euro, but the actual exchange rate is $1.1216 (meaning you’ll pay almost 10 cents more per euro through AAA). The airport currency exchange offices usually charge even higher exchange rates than home banks and you can no longer exchange US dollars inside Irish banks unless you are customer of that bank.

But I’m not clear as to whether they cover *just* the mandatory CDW coverage, or if they also cover the optional Excess Protection (reduces Damage Waiver Excess charges) and Roadside Assistance (tires/glass) coverages. If you use Chase’s insurance, you are essentially getting Super Collision Damage Waiver or Excess insurance (even though they don’t exactly call it that). I’m very tempted to simply spend the extra money to rent an Automatic transmission and simply pay for ALL of the coverages offered by the rental agency (CDW, Excess Protection (or Super-CDW) and Roadside Assistance (tires/glass). If I were planning to buy the Super Collision Damage Insurance when looking at a rental car quote in Ireland, I’d keep Dan Dooley in the running.

If you absolutely want to be in town, within walking distance to all the pubs, you may not want to wing it in Ireland. Rule #7: Know how to book when you arrive When you finally get to Ireland and are on the ground deciding where to be each night, there are some great tricks to know if you want to wing it easily. You should know that most B&B’s do check-in between 3 and 6 PM, so if you plan on knocking on doors, shoot for this time frame to ensure the hosts will be home (and that you’re not encroaching on other work or family time). This option is great for winging it in Ireland if you have a rough itinerary outline, but you don’t want to commit to a particular number of nights in each town.

I was a guest on This week in Travel, a podcast hosted by Gary Arndt (Everything-Everywhere blog), Chris Christensen (The Amateur Traveler) and Jen Leo (former LA Times Web Buzz Travel Columnist & KidsNTrips). I have known about Gary and Chris ever since I started following travel blogs and being generally obsessed with all things travel after our honeymoon in 2006. We not only talk about Ireland travel, of course, but I also share a bit about how I got started with the blog and travel coaching, which I don’t know if I have ever shared before. Like why it really pays to read the fine print of your travel insurance policy or a little about the new quasi-visa for travelers to Europe (but not Ireland! ) in 2021.