I’ve never been to Northern Ireland but I understand that it is beautiful. I’ve been to the Republic of Ireland but it has been many years and I’m ready to go back. So I think that when I do go, I will see both. And notice that I said “when” rather than “if”.

I can be a bit cynical at times. You may have noticed that in some of my more political posts. But when it comes to things like genealogy and travel I tend to be more optimistic. So I’m already planning my trip to Ireland.

The first question for us is – “tour” or “on our own”. Each has advantages and disadvantages but we decided “on our own” and renting a car would work best for us.

So with that decided, I thought a good map was in order. I found one in our local bookstore and I thought it would do the job but wondered if there was something better.

I looked on Amazon to see if they had more choices and there was something like the map I had seen in the store. Maybe it was the same. And there were several others. But there was also a better map.

No, let’s call it a great map of Ireland. The first thing that caught my attention was that it was from the National Geographic Society. I get the magazine and so figured this must be a high quality map. Then I read the reviews and knew this was the map of Ireland for me.

The thing that leads me to call this a great map of Ireland and the one I definitely want is the material. Most road maps are made of a fairly thin paper. This map of Ireland is printed on thin plastic that resists both tearing and water. For the planning it doesn’t seem that important but for driving it is a major improvement. When driving, you are constantly folding and re-folding the large map. And that makes it easy to tear a paper map. Plastic definitely has an advantage here. The waterproof aspect is another advantage but in my case it is not a big deal.

I am definitely pleased with this purchase and highly recommend this map if you are looking for a great map of Ireland for either planning a trip or driving.

Note added:
Now that I have been looking at the maps for about a month, there is one thing I notice that is less than ideal. The map is dated 2011. in looking at a newer maps I noticed a motorway where this maps showed a national route. Apparently the road had been improved. Small differences such as this could be significant in some cases. This is the only problem I’ve found so far.