Getting There & Around

Getting There & Around in the celtic nations

Once you know where your people came from, the next question is simple: how do you actually get there? This page is the practical backbone of every Meander — the flights, trains, buses, taxis, and car rentals that will carry you from the airport to the churchyard, the castle, the coastline your ancestors once called home.

From the big-name booking sites to the small, family-run car hire companies that feel more like a cousin than a corporation, these are the tools I’ve used myself, trip after trip, to move through the Celtic nations with a little less stress and a lot more room for the journey to unfold.

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Google Flights

Set price alerts and watch fares move before you commit. This is where every trip starts for me. Patience here saves real money later.

Booking.com

Flights and lodging, all in one place, with the flexibility to cancel or adjust as plans shift. My go-to for booking both the journey and the bed at the end of it. It’s always a good idea to check with where you would like to stay just in case they can get you a better deal.

Rakuten/WayAway

Cash back on flights, hotels, and even car rentals — booked through your usual sites, at your usual price, with a little something returned to you afterward. It won’t stack with a coupon code, and the payout lands a few months after your trip, but for a booking I was already going to make, it’s money I’d otherwise leave on the table.

Getting Around

Public transport in the UK and Ireland is brilliant once you understand it — and these apps help you do exactly that.

Citymapper — Brilliant for cities like London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Real-time transport, walking routes, and even cycle options all in one place.

Trainline — Your best friend for booking and managing rail travel across the UK and Ireland. Download your tickets offline, and you’re sorted.

Traveline Scotland / Transport for Ireland (TFI) — Essential if you’re not renting a car. These official apps map every train, ferry, and local bus route, making it surprisingly easy to get between major cities and tiny rural heritage villages without getting stranded. Don’t underestimate how far into the countryside they reach.

Google Maps — Still the workhorse. Reliable for driving directions, walking routes, and finding that elusive car park.

Offline & Navigation

Signal can disappear fast in rural areas — and rural areas are exactly where many of us are headed.

Maps.me — This one earned its place on my phone the hard way. When you’re wandering the lanes of a Scottish village or picking your way through an Irish town center with no signal, Maps.me works completely offline. Download your maps before you leave your accommodation, and you’ll never feel truly lost. I used it constantly, and it never let me down.

OS Maps (Ordnance Survey) — If you’re traveling in Great Britain and want to go beyond the roads, this is your app. While Google Maps handles highways just fine, OS Maps shows ancient footpaths, field boundaries, old ruins, and geographic details that simply don’t exist on standard mapping apps. For Meanderers who want to actually walk the lanes their ancestors walked, this is indispensable.

What3Words — This one deserves a special mention. The app divides the entire world into three-meter squares and assigns each one a unique three-word address. Why does that matter for ancestral travel? Because old family homesteads, forgotten ruins, and rural parish boundaries rarely have a modern street address. You can drop a precise three-word pin and navigate straight to an exact spot in a field. Once you start using it, you won’t travel without it.

Google Maps Offline — Worth downloading specific areas before you head out, especially in more remote destinations. Go to your area, tap download, and you have a reliable backup that works without data.

Scotland

Traveline Scotland (Free) — Your all-in-one guide to getting around Scotland by bus, rail, and ferry. Whether you’re heading into the Highlands or trying to piece together a route between heritage sites, Traveline Scotland maps every public transport option in one place. An essential first download before any Scottish meander.
ScotRail (Free) — Scotland’s national rail network at your fingertips. Book tickets, check live departures, and manage your journey between cities and towns. If your Scottish itinerary includes Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, or anywhere in between, ScotRail is non-negotiable.
CalMac — Caledonian MacBrayne (Free) — If the islands are calling you — and they will — CalMac runs the ferry services to over 20 Scottish islands including the Hebrides and Arran. Check timetables, book crossings, and plan your island hopping all in one place. Some of Scotland’s most ancestrally rich landscapes are only reachable by CalMac.
Stagecoach (Free) — The bus network that reaches into the corners of rural Scotland that the trains don’t. Particularly useful for meanderers venturing off the main routes into smaller towns and villages. Download the regional app for wherever you’re headed.

Ireland

Transport for Ireland — TFI (Free) — The Republic’s official transport app covering bus, rail, and Dublin’s Luas tram network. If you’re moving around Ireland without a car, this is your anchor app. Real time information, journey planning, and route maps all in one place.
Irish Rail — Iarnród Éireann (Free) — Book and manage train travel across the Republic of Ireland. The rail network connects the major cities and many heritage towns, and the app makes ticketing straightforward. A must if you’re traveling between Dublin, Cork, Galway, or Limerick.
Bus Éireann (Free) — Ireland’s national bus network, and the one that gets you into the rural heartland where so much of Irish ancestral history lives. Smaller towns, coastal villages, and heritage sites that aren’t on the rail line are often reachable by Bus Éireann. Worth checking routes before you assume somewhere is inaccessible.
Dublin Bus (Free) — City specific but genuinely useful if you’re spending time in Dublin before or after your wider Irish meander. Covers the greater Dublin area with real time tracking so you’re never left guessing at a bus stop.

Wales

Transport for Wales — TfW (Free) — The official rail app for Wales, covering train routes across the country and connections into England. Particularly useful for reaching North Wales, the Valleys, and the more rural Welsh heartland by rail. Book tickets and check timetables directly through the app.
Traveline Cymru (Free) — Wales’ equivalent of Traveline Scotland — a comprehensive journey planner covering bus and coach routes across the country. Essential for reaching smaller Welsh towns and villages that aren’t on the rail network. Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales, and this app knows every corner of it.
National Express (Free) — Useful for longer coach journeys into and through Wales, particularly if you’re arriving from London or other English cities. Often a more affordable option than rail for certain routes and worth comparing before you book.

Cornwall

Great Western Railway — GWR (Free) — The main train service connecting Cornwall to London Paddington and Bristol. If you’re arriving into Cornwall by rail, this is your app. Book ahead, especially in summer, as the Cornish Riviera route fills quickly.
Trainline (Free / Booking Fees Apply) — A reliable catch-all for booking GWR and other operators serving Cornwall. Particularly useful when your journey involves multiple train operators and you want everything managed in one place.

Isle of Man

Bus Vannin (Free) — The Island’s official bus service, connecting Douglas to towns and villages across the Isle of Man. Reliable, well-organized, and surprisingly far-reaching for a small island. A good companion for days when you want to explore without driving.
Isle of Man Railways (Free) — One of the genuine delights of visiting the Isle of Man. The historic steam railway and electric railways are not just transport — they’re an experience in themselves. The app covers timetables for the Steam Railway, Manx Electric Railway, and Snaefell Mountain Railway. Riding these is practically ancestral travel in its own right.
Steam Packet Company (Free) — The ferry service connecting the Isle of Man to Liverpool, Heysham, Dublin, and Belfast. If the Isle of Man is on your itinerary, your journey begins and ends here. Book crossings well in advance during peak season, particularly if you’re bringing a vehicle.

Across All Destinations

Trainline (Free / Booking Fees Apply) — The universal rail booking app that works across the UK and Ireland. When your journey crosses multiple operators or countries, Trainline pulls it all together. A reliable workhorse for the whole trip.
National Rail (Free) — Essential for any travel touching England en route to your Celtic destinations. Live departures, platform information, and journey planning across the entire UK rail network.
Rome2Rio (Free) — The unsung hero of multi-modal journey planning. When you need to piece together a ferry, a bus, and two trains to reach a remote heritage site, Rome2Rio shows you every possible combination and roughly what it will cost. A brilliant planning tool before you leave home.