A travel-vlog transcript of Kara and Nate Buchanan documenting a long travel day from Paris to a destination outside Galway, Ireland. They depart early (~7:00), take multiple buses, a train to Brussels airport, a flight from Brussels to Dublin, then rent a car and drive on the left to a rural Airbnb. Key moments: saving money by flying Brussels→Dublin (Brussels tickets ~$40 vs Paris-to-Dublin ~$300 more), dealing with Irish rental-car insurance proof requirements, navigating left‑side manual driving and map/ETA confusion, and a warm welcome by an Airbnb host. The video notes this is their 56th country.
Questions this video answers
August 19, 2017
56th country
About 7:00 AM
About $40
About $250
Chapters
Today is a travel day and today is going to be a very long day.
We are taking an extremely inefficient route to Dublin and it's before 7 o'. Clock. I don't know if you can see that, but I can't see my watch just fine. Early, it's before seven.
Step one, in our very long travel day, take the local bus to the bigger bus.
This feels weird. We got to the bus station in time for a croissant and coffee. That's what it feels like to be on time.
Step two, make a mess to Brussels.
Is now three and a half hours later. We just arrived in Brussels, which is an hour and a half faster than the bus ride took all the way to Paris. So that's nice.
Somehow we did not get to sit together again. And I sat next to a very large man, a very nice man. He offered me a croissant, but he was just a big guy and I had sat like my spot find I think is going to be permanently like this because I was like having to lean out of the seat.
So a bit of an uncomfortable way to start our very long travel day.
Now we are en route to the train station to go to the airport.
So step number three, train to the airport. Step number 3.5, find a waffle because we're back in Brussels.
Totally worth the bus ride back to Brussels. Actually, that's not why we came back to Brussels. The tickets from Brussels to Dublin were $300 cheaper than the plane tickets from Paris to Dublin. So we thought that was worth a few hours in the bus coming back. The bus tickets cost like $40, so we saved 250. And I got a waffle.
I have no shame. I love strawberries, coffee and the cilantro.
That lounge was so good. The WI fi was really fast. We got to go Starbucks coffee. And we facetimed Bob and Gina, One, because we missed them and two, because they're planning something really exciting.
Step five, we're flying the Dublin.
Ladies and gentlemen, you're very welcome aboard this flight 1455 with destination Barbados if you wish.
We made it to our 56th country.
Step number five is renting a car in Dublin. So the rental car situation here is a little different than most places. They require you to have car insurance. Like if you rent a car in the US you can just decline the insurance and it's no big deal. And Kara and I usually use our credit cards to cover our car insurance because we have some cards that will do that. Thankfully, on the Internet, before we got Here I learned that they do not accept credit cards as insurance unless you have proof. So Kara spent like 30 minutes on the phone with Chase the other day and they sent us this form that says, yes, you're covered in Ireland. So we're about to go rent the car and we're going to hope that we don't have to pay a lot of money for insurance and that we're covered and that this official letter that we have on our phone is what they need.
Slight problem. We were using Kara's credit card for the insurance and she's not the driver. So now I'm in Lin city hoping they're going to send me a letter. Crisis averted.
She's got the look of the Irish, I guess.
Who knows how many people she's offended since we've been here doing that accent. We're in D city is covering the car insurance. Everybody has been so nice ever since we landed. The customs lady who like stamped us into the country was super nice. The lady at the rental counter was super nice. I'm really looking forward to the next five days.
We're supposed to be over there. Where? On the other side of the hole.
Ellie.
They fit.
Yeah.
Perfect size. We are in the car. This is our last leg of today's travel day. We just have to get to our destination. Driving on the left hand side of the road in a manual car.
It's been about a year since I've done this. The driving lowest hand side of the road is not that hard. It's the depth perception of the car. But when you throw in that it's a manual, it's a lot of things to think about.
I'm hoping there's not a lot of roundabouts or traffic.
Driving the left hand side of the road. Roundabouts I'm never good at. And the manual and we use our credit card for the insurance. It's going to be great.
It works.
Now we have a two to three hour drive to Galway. Actually, like right outside of Galway. Galway.
No, I just. A lady asked me where we were going and I said the G word town and she had no idea what I was talking about.
So we're going. Staying inside of Galway was super expensive. So we've rented a place right outside. Since we have a car, we can just drive in somehow. The camera's way more.
Oh, parking brake. Off to a good start. Do we have Google maps going?
Nope.
Is it in there? Trying to left hand side. Left to inside.
Oh, geez. 3G is struggling. Yay. We are two hours and six minutes away.
I've got it down pat. I mean, an apple.
We're on the interstate. We did.
Wasn't easy.
Always a bit stressful getting out of the city.
Especially when I'm doing the maps.
Especially when K's doing the maps.
Even the top of the lady was pretty nice.
So a little update. The road that we were supposed to take was closed, so we had to reroute. And I was trying to figure out what time our new ETA was, and then I realized we have no clue what time it is right now.
Now.
So I think there was a time change. My watch says it's 10 o'. Clock. The phone says it's 9 o'. Clock. And this clock here in the car says it's 11 o'.
Clock.
And it could be any of them. I'm pretty sure it's not 11. I think it's either 9 or 10, but it's still light outside, which is crazy. Yeah, we. We really have no other. I think Kara's computer says 10, so two votes for 10. That's where we are right now. We still have, like, an hour until we get to our destination. Whether it's nine or neither one of us is eating dinner. I have a really good feeling that we're gonna be in a small town and everything's gonna be closed and we're gonna go hungry at night.
I don't know.
Besides that, I would say everything has gone extremely smoothly today for as many, like, moving parts as there were in the day. So far, everything's gone great. So we're pretty sure it's 9 o'. Clock. I don't know what time it is, but it looks like Aldi's still open, so we're in luck. Picking up some snacks for dinner and breakfast for the next few days.
I love Aldi.
Aldi, Aldi, Aldi, Aldi. You think we're crazy? We are.
Bet. Got dinner and breakfast. Back on the road.
It's dark, it's raining, and it feels like we're in the middle of nowhere. We're almost there.
So we're in a random person's driveway. Maybe we might be in the right place.
And I'm trying to message our Airbnb host to see if we're in the right place. We're in the middle of nowhere.
Cause it's 10:30 and we're not about to go knock on the door.
Everything is dark. I don't feel like that little thing is big enough to be our place.
I think that's. That's gonna Be our Airbnb.
Somebody's at the front door. Hello.
Hello.
Hello. How are you?
You got here good. Yes, good, good. Are we tired?
A little bit.
Oh, long journey. Sorry we're late. Oh, you're grand. Oh, great. No problem whatsoever. I have it nice and warm for you. And the bed. Nice and warm.
And.
Oh my gosh, our Airbnb host is the cutest, sweetest lady ever. She calls us darling and she has an Irish accent. I love her. And she bought us strawberries.
She's crazy nice. Just like everybody else we've met in Ireland. I've never like, felt so welcomed in the country so quickly. So after 15 and a half hours of.
Has it been that long?
Yeah, I think so. Let's see what that was.
We left our apartment this morning at 7. What time is it?
It is. I still don't know. I think it's 10:45.
So what time is it?
So almost. I don't know. I don't know. What's your wife say? So somewhere around 15 or 16 hours ago we left Paris and now we just got to our final destination, which is somewhere outside of Galway. Lots of modes of transportation. Just to recap, this morning we got on a bus that took us to a train station, bigger bus station. Then we rode a four hour bus. Then we rode a train to the airport in Brussels. Then we flew, flew from Brussels to Dublin. Then we rented a car and we drove here. But like, even though it was a really long travel day, everything went smoothly. It was all relaxed, it was a great day.
I've got it in a really good spot though, so let's just do it.
Well, if it's not recording, then it's not going to matter, is it?
I'm pretty sure it is.
Well, I have to do that because you forget that many times.
