Cobh and Frugal Adventure Planning

This past Saturday I ended up in an unexpected but incredible little town on the southern coast of Ireland called Cobh. Pronounced Cove but Gaelicized to Cobh, and formerly known as Queenstown when occupied by the British, this village sits protected in Cork Harbor, making it an excellent docking point for ships. This made Cobh a valuable location for commercial shipping, defense, and personal travel. Most notably, Cobh was the last port of call for the RMS Titanic, and the immediate destination for both the dead and survivors of the RMS Lusitania at the start of the first world war. It was also the launching point for the first immigrants to come into the US via Ellis Island, including Annie Moore, a Cork, Ireland native in 1892.

Cobh was also the departure point for some 2.5 Irish emigrants that left between roughly 1850-1950 beginning with mass exodus during the Great Famine. The port was also used for an equally dark part of Ireland’s history I had never heard of. Irish convicts would often be deported to British penal colonies to serve forced labor as punishment for their crime. This punishment was essentially a period of slavery, usually 5-10 years, where those deported faced incredibly harsh conditions and discrimination both upon arrival to the colonies and during deportation. Several ships are reported to have sank during their journey to the colonies, and few arrived with more than 2/3s of their passengers still alive due to rampant disease and undernourishment aboard the vessels. These people were deported for everything from petty theft to tax evasion, but rarely for violent crimes, as these offenders would be given life sentences or executions on Irish soil. The descendants of these surviving deportees make up a small but unique demographic on former British colonies such as the “Red Legs” as they’re called in Barbados.

The heritage center in Cobh may just be my favorite museum I’ve ever been in, packed with overwhelming amounts of displays, artifacts, and exhibitions commemorating the incredible and often tragic history of this place. If you like history, you would be remiss to visit southern Ireland without making your way down to Cobh, and it was well worth the 1.5 hour drive from Limerick. Despite my sobering experience in the museum, like every town in Ireland there is an incredibly beautiful Catholic church to inspire awe, and several rowdy pubs to grab a pint and watch the rugby match.

I’ve spent a great deal of time on this blog detailing my adventures, but I want to take the rest of this blog to detail some tips I’ve learned on how to plan and execute a successful and cost effective trip. One of the major life lessons to take from studying abroad is frugality. Trying to conserve money on what can seem like a 3.5 month vacation is a challenge, especially while trying to take every opportunity available to make your international experience memorable. To the future study abroad student or college age traveler, I offer the following tips:

1. Google flights is your best friend, but not your only friend. Let’s say you have a 3 day weekend and want to spend it outside of your host country, but you’ve got an open mind as to the destination. Google flights will let you search from a set departure location and look at a map with prices for travel from there to all major airports. It also makes planning multi-city journeys nice and easy. BUT always check with a budget flight search engine such as KAYAK or Cheapoair before booking through google flights, as sometimes they offer the same flight for slightly cheaper than google flights which sends you direct to the airline.
2. Travelling with extra friends is (usually) cheaper. Most people would probably want to take their friends along with them wherever they’re going anyways, but you can save a decent chunk of money on accommodations by bringing 3 or 4 friends with you. The two cheapest ways to travel around Europe are generally staying in Airbnbs or Hostels. Airbnbs are rarely cost effective for single or double travelers, and the cheaper ones are usually just private rooms. But with 3-6 travelers splitting an Airbnb it is often cheaper than a hostel, and you can find a whole apartment affording you increased privacy.
3. Travel before and after your study abroad. I was able to buy flights from Boston to Lisbon, Malaga to Shannon, and accommodation in Lisbon, Seville, Gibraltar, and Malaga all for less than a direct flight from Boston to Shannon. This essentially let me take a 10 day trip around Portugal and Spain before studying abroad for only the price of the rental car and food. Similarly, I’m spending 4 days in Berlin with a friend before returning to Boston at the end of the semester, and both of my flights put together were only marginally more expensive than flying direct to Boston.
4. Bank wisely. Always make withdrawals and purchases in Euros when given the option, as ATM and credit card companies will charge a higher exchange rate than your bank will to convert purchases to dollars. DO NOT take cash to exchange, it will just about ALWAYS be more expensive than making an electronic transaction rate through an ATM assuming your bank does not have ATM fees. Local credit unions and small banks are best for fee free international travel. If your bank does charge a lot for ATM fees and international transactions, consider opening a bank account in your host country. The Bank of Ireland for example ran a promotion giving 100 Euros to all who opened a new account with them, and no ATM fees, and almost all basic checking accounts are free to dissolve at the end of your stay.
5. Check your airports. A lot of budget airlines will fly to an airport far away from the city you’re trying to travel to and offer a cheaper rate. For example, I could save 20 euros on a flight to Brussels by flying to Brussels (CRL) instead of Brussels (BRU). This sounds nice, but flying to CRL would add an extra 2 hour bus commute in your travel, and cost an extra 14 Euros each way for the bus ticket.