Spur of the moment accommodations in July?

cdragin

How important is it to book a hotel/B&B/airBnB in advance in July?

My husband and I are doing a road trip around Ireland in July (we're from the U.S.). We're booking hotels or B&Bs for the first few nights, ending up in Cork, but after that are thinking of just winging it for the next few nights, traveling a bit through Kerry, up to Galway and back across to the Dublin airport. It'll be mid-week, but the height of summer (July 3-5). In some parts of the U.S. it's nearly impossible to book a hotel room on the spur of the moment at the height of the season. We'd like to spend these few days being spontaneous but also don't want to end up sleeping in our rental car because we didn't plan ahead.

We don't need to be in particularly touristy places...this is actually a trip to check out a possible move to Ireland, so although we're happy to look at a pretty view or a castle, we're more interested in getting a feel for various cities and towns.

Atomic Pineapple

If you're staying mid week and flexible on where you stay then you should be fine. Most of our breaks in Ireland are mid week and we tend to book them quite close to travel time(although have never done so on a whim) and have never had issue getting somewhere to stay in Westport, Galway, Cork but somewhere like Killarney was difficult.

Are you planning on hiring a car and driving? If so I would be confident you would be able to find something on a whim by aiming for hotels slightly outside of the main touristy areas.

cdragin

Yes, we're renting a car. Hopefully my husband will remember to drive on the correct side of the road. ;-)

We're staying in town/city centers for the first leg of the trip (Dublin, Dundalk, Bray, Waterford, Cork) because we like to be able to just leave the car and walk around. But we're open to small town or out-of-city-center neighborhoods for the rest of the trip.

BrokenArrows

You wont have any problem finding somewhere to stay, but its likely to be a good bit more expensive than if you plan in advance and may not be the quality you want either.