Gift for Someone Traveling to Ireland?

Kim&Chris

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 23, 2000
So, my mother in law has EVERYTHING. My husband and I stress ourselves out every year trying to think of something to give her.

She is traveling to Ireland in April, so we thought a gift card might be nice. Does anyone know about this? Can we give her a standard Visa or MC gift card? Even though Ireland uses Euros, will an American gift card be accepted?

Any suggestions? THANK YOU
 
I would imagine as long as it’s backed by one of the major credit cards it should be fine.

A good gift for someone headed to Ireland would be a travel umbrella. ::yes::
 
I think you would have to read the terms on the particular card, but I don't think most US gift cards can be used overseas. You get into exchange rates and all that. Does she travel a lot? If not, you could get her a slash proof purse or an under-the-seat bag for the plane. I imagine someone who travels a lot would have preferences about that type of stuff. Oh - a portable charger if she will use an electronic device on the plane.
 
Not sure if she has been overseas before, but one of those voltage converters would be good since anything electric from the USA will not work overseas without the converter.
 


waving hi from Dublin Ireland

Check out if you can get a prepaid currency card in Euros. I travel to USA every year and I get a prepaid TRAVEL FX from the post office which I can load with US Dollars. It uses the Mastercard system

You could also get her a travel adaptor to charge any electrical items. If she brings a mobile phone example, she will not be able to plug it into the wall with just the American 2 prong plug. She will need a UK and Ireland 3 prong adaptor.

Depending on where she is visiting, you could pre pay her entrance tickets. Most places now have an online booking system when you pay in advance and get a confirmation email. You could give her the print out confirmation email take with here

Weather in April is windy and rainy. A light cheap handbag size umbrella would be useful. A light rainjacket with a hood and study walking shoes are other useful items. Its better to wear layers, so maybe long sleeve tshirts or vests which she can wear under sweaters might be useful.

In Ireland, shops dont give plastic carry bags for purchase, this includes grocery stores, tourist shops, convenience stores, clothes and department stores. It would be very handy for her to have a fold up shopper bag which she could keep in a pocket when out and about to put any souvenirs or snacks she buys during the day.
 
some more suggestions.

if she is over 60, tell her not to be shy about asking for senior discounts. Tell her to carry her passport with her and to produce it at time she is getting tickets. Ireland is very good about giving seniors a discount but many places dont advertise it.

Depending on where she is visiting, she may want to have an under clothes money belt to hold her money and passport. Unfortunately in Dublin and other cities we do have pick pockets, pan handlers, street beggers and homeless. Tell her NOT to give money to any one on the street.

If she has a mobile phone, I would advise you to install Whats Ap on her phone and on your or you husbands phone. This is a messaging app which is very popular in Europe. She should turn her phone to Airplane mode, switch off data roaming and turn on Wfii. Whats App will then connect to any free Wifi in range. She will then be able to call you or send SMS through Whats Ap for free. Free Wifi is available in hotels, shops, restaurants and most tourist places.
 
some more suggestions.

if she is over 60, tell her not to be shy about asking for senior discounts. Tell her to carry her passport with her and to produce it at time she is getting tickets. Ireland is very good about giving seniors a discount but many places dont advertise it.

Depending on where she is visiting, she may want to have an under clothes money belt to hold her money and passport. Unfortunately in Dublin and other cities we do have pick pockets, pan handlers, street beggers and homeless. Tell her NOT to give money to any one on the street.

If she has a mobile phone, I would advise you to install Whats Ap on her phone and on your or you husbands phone. This is a messaging app which is very popular in Europe. She should turn her phone to Airplane mode, switch off data roaming and turn on Wfii. Whats App will then connect to any free Wifi in range. She will then be able to call you or send SMS through Whats Ap for free. Free Wifi is available in hotels, shops, restaurants and most tourist places.


WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you SO much!
 


Yes, you can give her a prepaid VISA card, but be sure that it has a chip/PIN factor; that's needed for most cards in Europe. (A better bet is a "traveler's check card", which will cost you a bit more, but is more likely to work properly. You can get them at AmericanExpress and Mastercard (https://www.travelex.com/travel-money-card), as well as at AAA.com. Do note that most of these cards have withdrawal fees when used at ATM's, so if she gets cash she should get fairly large amounts at a time.) If she is planning to travel in the West, she should carry some small-denomination Euro bills, as some retailers in the West still balk at taking CC for small purchases. It will be difficult to find a Euro card in the US unless you are in a major city, but not impossible, and doing that will save her the usual 1-3% currency conversion fee. US banks will sell you Euros. but in many areas branches will not customarily stock them; you should call first, and you may be sent to the main office in your area.

Remember above all that Ireland is DAMP. As a add'l Xmas gift, I'd suggest a gift card from WinterSilks.com. (I don't work for them, LOL.) They have a very nice selection of comfortable silk long underwear that takes up very little space in baggage; worth its weight in gold when traveling, because it is warm when outdoors but not too hot indoors, and washes out easily in a hotel sink. I would also suggest a rain cape if she's willing to wear one; this one is affordable and quite nice, https://www.amazon.com/LINENLUX-Pon...utdoor/dp/B079JBWM3Q?tag=topluggagereviews-20 (capes are great because wind doesn't flip them, and if you want to sit down on a stone wall while touring some castle ruin, your tush will stay dry.)

PS: my favorite travel laundry/shopping bags are from IKEA, if you have access to one. Best laundry bag ever is an IKEA Knalla zipper bag; folds easily, weighs nothing, stands up square, dampproof, and even has a vent, all for $3. For groceries, the thin nylon Knalla shopping bags are excellent, too, $2/ea. (These are not the large blue Frakta bags; these are smaller and come in red or black checked pattern.)
 
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I woud not count on a prepaid Visa working----the ones bought in the US do not work in Germany in our experience (some relatives have sent them to the kids a few times).

Bad Pink Tink gives lt of good advice :)
 
In Ireland, shops dont give plastic carry bags for purchase, this includes grocery stores, tourist shops, convenience stores, clothes and department stores. It would be very handy for her to have a fold up shopper bag which she could keep in a pocket when out and about to put any souvenirs or snacks she buys during the day.

This gets my vote...having been to Ireland and trying to carry groceries back to our hotel without a bag and two kids in tow, it is a must have. There are so many different types of cloth bags available that just fold up and fit in your pocket. I learned my lesson, so that later, when my daughter was heading over to London for seven weeks doing a college practicum, I made sure that one of the things she took along was a shopping bag. The people she was with were very impressed when she pulled out her bag at the grocery store, when no one else had one.
 
This thread has been so helpful!! DD and her fiance are traveling to Ireland for their honeymoon in June. As we are having a wedding this spring, Christmas presents are being scaled back or have to be USEFUL, so I have been trying to figure out what to give them for Christmas. An Ireland Honeymoon Travel Package is just the thing, with items from this thread! I think I'll also include a travel book in the box. Thanks for the ideas!
 
If you want to give her money, which is always a safe bet!, you can get a pack of Euros from AAA. It's always a good idea to have some cash-on-hand in the local currency when you land, so this will save her the hassle of that initial money issue, plus you know for sure she'll be able to spend it.
And the colorful money is just fun :-)
 
I thought of one other thing that would have been useful from our trip to Ireland, keeping in mind that when we went, we were a family of four and were there for three weeks, so laundry was an issue. We had originally thought that we would just do our laundry at laundromats along the way; however, what we learned was that unlike in the U.S. and Canada, where you can just drag your own laundry to the laundromat to wash, the places we were close to in Ireland didn't allow you to run your own laundry--they did it for you. We generated a lot of laundry with two adults and two kids and our dollar store laundry bag wasn't up to the task. (Plus, one of the laundromats washed it along with our laundry and it shrunk by about half!!!) Having a good stuff sack to carry laundry to a laundromat, or even a method of separating dirty clothes from clean if you won't be doing laundry (like packing cubes) is extremely helpful.

This might also seem like sort of a crazy thing to mention, since it could be entirely just my experience, but I caught a cold while in Ireland and finding good Kleenex was a challenge. I'm sure they sell it in stores everywhere, but when you are stopping at mostly tourist destinations, the most I could purchase (for a hefty cost), was the small pocket packs, if the stores even carried them. It also wasn't easy to break away and find an "apothecary" for medical items we needed. At least one pack of tissues per person and an emergency kit with nail clippers, bandages, and cold, pain and allergy meds is helpful if you think any of those things may be an issue. When we go to a new location, we always seem to have at least one person who isn't allergic to anything at home, but different plants set them off, or someone gets a hang nail, but we can't access clippers, or whatever.
 
[snip] ...
This might also seem like sort of a crazy thing to mention, since it could be entirely just my experience, but I caught a cold while in Ireland and finding good Kleenex was a challenge. I'm sure they sell it in stores everywhere, but when you are stopping at mostly tourist destinations, the most I could purchase (for a hefty cost), was the small pocket packs, if the stores even carried them. It also wasn't easy to break away and find an "apothecary" for medical items we needed. At least one pack of tissues per person and an emergency kit with nail clippers, bandages, and cold, pain and allergy meds is helpful if you think any of those things may be an issue. When we go to a new location, we always seem to have at least one person who isn't allergic to anything at home, but different plants set them off, or someone gets a hang nail, but we can't access clippers, or whatever.

I'd say that these are something you definitely would want to bring if you are doing a bus tour, but that it isn't necessary if you are doing a self-drive vacation. Chemists (drugstores) are in every town with a real high street, so it really isn't difficult to buy these things as long as you have the time/ability to stop for them.

What I would caution, however, is that the brands you are familiar with may not be available, so it is very important to know the chemical names of the OTC meds that you prefer. Tylenol, in particular, is an odd one; the European chemical name of it is different than that used in the US. Americans know it as acetaminophen, Europeans call it paracetamol.
 
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Instead of a gift card order Euros from your local bank and give them Euros. If they will be visiting Northern Ireland perhaps a few Pounds as well.
 
What I would caution, however, is that the brands you are familiar with may not be available, so it is very important to know the chemical names of the OTC meds that you prefer. Tylenol, in particular, is an odd one; the European chemical name of it is different than that used in the US. Americans know it as acetaminophen, Europeans call it paracetamol.

Agreed. This is very important. I ended up in the hospital in Dublin for a day and they asked me what I was allergic to. I told them sulfa drugs, and then a group of doctors had to discuss exactly what that was. One of the doctors on staff had worked a bit in Canada and was able to explain it to the others, but yeah...I'm glad he was there. (This was before Google was the super information highway that it currently is.) Similarly, even things like motion-sickness medicines go by different names (Dramamine in US, Gravol in Canada, and Bonine in the UK, I think).
 
defiantly agree with the travel over the counter first aid kit. I bring one with me to California every year, for the same reason, the over the counter drugs I am used to have different names.

This is what I usually bring

over the counter pain killer of choice
plasters / band aids
nail scissors
mini travel sewing kit
over the counter re-hydration sachets (powder which you add to water)

some other useful information

Drugstores in America are chemists / pharmacies in Ireland. The big chain one is called BOOTS and we also have many smaller independent ones, depending on where you are.

The main grocery store chains in Ireland are Dunnes Stores, Tesco and Supervalu. Convenience store chains are Spar, Centra and Londis.

It is standard for houses, apartments, condos etc to have full clothes washing facilities, so laundromats are not common. If you do find a laundromat, they are not self service and their regular customers would be commercial not domestic.

Most taxis do not take cards, they are cash only.
 
A sim card so she can use her phone overseas without paying an arm and a leg for every call. And show her the WhatsApp so she can text you without any extra charges.

Plus maybe a good guide to Ireland with lots of photos.
 
I might also mention water heaters, which need to be understood if you are letting a self-catering cottage or flat.

In the US, water heaters normally have large tanks and run on a continuous cycle via a thermostat; the heating element fires up whenever the temperature of the water in the tank falls below the set temperature. They work differently in Ireland, where they have small tanks that are normally set on a timer, which usually also has a manual switch (most often labeled "immersion.") In most private homes, B&B's and self-catering accomodations, the water heater will be set to automatically have water hot during the mid-morning hours and the early evening, when people are most likely to need a large amount of hot water. The small amount of water that otherwise stays hot in the tank is only about enough to wash your hands or face, so if you want to bathe at other times, you need to flip the on-demand switch about 15-20 minutes before you bathe. (My DH forgets this every time we visit, and invariably ends up taking a cold shower the first day of the trip.) Full-service hotels usually have hot water all the time just as they do in the US, but in small places you need to pay attention to how the hot water works.

Washing machines have their own heating elements to heat the wash water, which is part of why they tend to run quite a bit slower than American washers. Also, be aware that Laundry detergent is going to be labeled "biological" and "non-biological", which isn't a term used in the US. "Biological" laundry detergent contains enzymes to get out organic stains such as sweat or blood or grass, but it also tends to be rather harsh on colors and sometimes, skin. Non-biological detergent, which is milder, works better for colors. Many homeowners will stock both and use the best one for the load being washed, but that's a bit much for a tourist who only needs to do one or two loads. For that reason I actually usually bring a couple of detergent tabs from the US for the laundry; they work just fine in the HE front-load washers to be found in Ireland and the UK, and it eliminates the dilemma of having to buy a large package that I really don't need.
 
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One other thing about more independent trips that include rented cars: with the exception of the main motorways ("M" roads) that run between the largest cities, Irish roads are quite slow in comparison to American ones. So, go ahead and look at road maps and plot your drive, but double the time you estimate it will take to get from point A to point B, because it WILL take longer than you think it will (sometimes MUCH longer, such as the time I got stuck behind a peat cutter on a trailer from just outside Dundalk all the way to Letterkenny.)
 

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