After we got married, we headed off to Ireland for a week and a half. We rented a car and wandered around the countryside, seeing interesting things and eating very large meals. It was everything we had hoped for and more. In hopes of helping others have a similarly enjoyable experience, we have some advice on how to have as good a time as possible:

• Don't join a tour or follow a set route. Read a guidebook or three and pick out a few places you'd like to see. Say, one or two for each day plus maybe some backup locations. Once you're in Ireland, use your pre-selected sites to give yourself some direction, but keep an eye out for anything interesting along the way And believe me, you will see something interesting along the way. The country is packed with awe-inspiring scenery, lovely towns, nice shops, fluffy sheep, and crumbling old buildings. Many historical landmarks are conveniently signposted, but some are just standing around waiting to be noticed.
• Avoid the cities. If you've got a pressing reason to go to Dublin, Galway, or what have you, do so, but if you don't, don't bother. I'm sure they're exciting, vibrant cities, but most Americans already have access to cities. You do yourself a great disservice if you don't spend the bulk of your time in the countryside.
• Stay at farmhouses and B&Bs. If you're Big Business Guy, you may need the room service, direct-dial phones, cable TVs, and central location provided by hotels, but if you're on vacation, B&Bs are just what you need. You won't get a phone and there may not be a TV (although we were surprised by the presence of TVs in every B&B where we stayed), but that's not why you came to Ireland, is it? You're going to be out and about during the day seeing as much as you can, so you need a pleasant place to sleep. The B&Bs are quite comfortable and infinitely more charming than the average chain hotel. Oh, and they're cheap. Even our most luxurious B&B, a lovely old building socked with antique furniture, cost half as much as a generic hotel. The farmhouses have the added attraction of utter peace and quiet. No jackhammers, flashing neon, car horns, or rattling trash cans at 5 AM; just the moon, the stars, and the occasional bird or sheep.
• Strongly consider the off-season. On one hand, the weather isn't as good (although Irish weather in the off-season is still a marked improvement over off-season weather in much of the US) and many attractions and B&Bs are closed or operating on a reduced scale. However, it's much less crowded and very inexpensive.