Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is an hour. The rest of the country is a day trip.
Which Masada tour starts before the light. What the Dead Sea float costs from each city. Whether the Galilee needs a night or fits inside a day. Reviews of every tour you can book in Israel.
Four days that decide how an Israeli itinerary goes.
Nearly every first trip is built from the same four days out. What each one covers, how long it takes, and what the travellers who went say about it.
01The desert dayFrom Tel Aviv: Masada & Dead Sea Full Day Tour with Pick UpMasada before the heat, then the salt shore. The single most booked day in the country, and the one that needs the early alarm.
02Inside the wallsJerusalem: Guided Walking Tour of the Old CityFour quarters in under a square kilometre, on foot with a guide who can read the stones. Half a day, and the cheapest thing here worth doing.
03North to the lakeFrom Tel Aviv: Guided Day Trip to Nazareth & Sea of GalileeNazareth, then the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Green, low and slow, and a complete change of country from the desert.
04The city dayTel Aviv Jaffa Guided Bike TourJaffa, the Bauhaus streets and the promenade by bike. Flat the whole way, and it ends where the beach does.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Israel.
Everything we have reviewed in Israel →Same country, two starting points: most of this list runs from Tel Aviv and from Jerusalem, and the price moves with the pickup.
1
From Tel Aviv: Masada & Dead Sea Full Day Tour with Pick Up
Travel from Tel Aviv to Masada and the Dead Sea by coach, with a cable-car ascent, desert views, Qumran caves, and time to float.
From · $117
Read our review →
2
From Tel Aviv: Jerusalem and Bethlehem Guided Day Trip
from $118
3
Tel Aviv: Jerusalem, Bethlehem & Dead Sea
from $109
4
From Tel Aviv: Guided Day Trip to Nazareth & Sea of Galilee
from $98
5
From Tel Aviv: Jerusalem Old & New City Bus Tour
from $95
6
From Jerusalem: Masada & Dead Sea Full Day Tour with Pick Up
from $111
7
From Tel Aviv: Caesarea, Haifa and Akko Day Trip
from $120
8
From Tel Aviv: Masada, Ein Gedi & Dead Sea Tour
from $99
Masada at dawn, Ein Gedi at noon, the salt at four.
The descent to the Dead Sea is the day everybody books, and it comes in four shapes. What each one covers, what it costs a head, and how much of it happens before breakfast.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · From Tel Aviv: Masada, Ein Gedi & Dead Sea Tour
Masada at sunriseUp the ramp in the dark, down before the heat.
The oasis stopWaterfalls and ibex in the canyon above the shore.
Float and backHalf a day at the water, mud, salt and home by dinner.
Into the craterJeep tracks and cliff edges, two hours further south.
All 71 days down to the Dead Sea →
One square kilometre, four quarters, and more walking than a day holds.
Inside the walls the day divides by gate and by quarter, and a guide is the difference between stones and a city. Outside them the new town, the ridge and the road down to Bethlehem and Jericho. These are the ways in.
Tel Aviv starts at the market and finishes long after dinner.
An hour from Jerusalem and nothing like it: Bauhaus blocks going soft at the corners, a covered market that feeds the whole city, painted walls in Florentin, and fourteen kilometres of beach with a bike lane down the middle.
- 1Tel Aviv Jaffa Guided Bike Tourfrom $62
- 2Guided Pub Crawl Night Tour at Tel Avivfrom $23
- 3Tel Aviv Street Art & Graffiti Tourfrom $78
The Israeli north is green, and nobody leaves it enough time.
A Roman theatre on the sand at Caesarea, the sea caves cut into the white cliff at Rosh Hanikra, crusader tunnels under Akko, the terraced gardens stepping down Mount Carmel, and a lake with a church on every shore.
Every day out in the north →
Four hours south of Tel Aviv the desert stops at a coral reef.
Eilat is a diving town wedged between the mountains and the Gulf of Aqaba, and the reef starts a few metres out. The crater country is on the road down, and the border to Petra is ten minutes from the seafront.
- 1Day Tour to Petra from Eilatfrom $219
- 2Eilat Mountains: Sunset Jeep Adventure to Mount Joashfrom $67
- 3From Eilat, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv: Petra & Wadi Rum 3-Day Tourfrom $399
Three brackets cover almost every day out in Israel.
What a day out here costs one person, end to end. The country is not cheap, but the walk through the Old City costs less than lunch on the beach.
Old City walks, market tastings, bike mornings and the half-day run down to the water.
The standard full day: Masada and the Dead Sea, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Nazareth and the lake.
Private guides, the crossings into Jordan, and the two- and three-day runs to Petra.
- 1Day Tour to Petra from Eilatfrom $219
- 22-Day Petra Tour from Jerusalemfrom $420
- 32 Day Tour to Petra and Wadi Rum from Tel Avivfrom $399
A sea you float in, a crater nobody blasted, a fortress you climb in the dark.
Beaches and old stones run right round this sea. Water too dense to swim in, a landform named after a Hebrew word for mortar, and a Roman siege ramp still standing where it was piled do not.
Floating in the Dead Sea
The water is roughly ten times as salty as the ocean, which makes it too dense to swim in — you sit in it, and your feet come up. The shore is about 430 metres below sea level, the lowest dry land anywhere, and the light comes through thick and hazy because of it. Twenty minutes is the usual advice before the salt starts to sting, and the black mud is the other half of the visit.
- 1From Tel Aviv: Masada & Dead Sea Full Day Tour with Pick Up★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,496 reviews
- 2Tel Aviv: Jerusalem, Bethlehem & Dead Sea★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 881 reviews
- 3From Jerusalem: Masada & Dead Sea Full Day Tour with Pick Up★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 815 reviews
Makhtesh Ramon
The crater at Mitzpe Ramon is forty kilometres long and no meteor made it. Water cut down through a dome of soft rock, hollowed it out from the inside and drained away east, leaving a walled bowl with hard rims. Geologists borrowed the Hebrew word makhtesh for the landform because there was no other name for it, and nearly every one on earth is in this desert.
- 1Rappelling Down the Ramon Crater Cliff★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 47 reviews
- 2Two hour guided jeep tour in to and around the Ramon crater★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 45 reviews
- 3Ramon Crater Jeep Tour from Mitzpe Ramon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 44 reviews
Masada at sunrise
The Snake Path opens at first light and takes about forty-five minutes of switchbacks; the cable car does not start until the day is already hot, which is why the sunrise trip is a separate booking rather than an early alarm. Herod put a palace on the summit. The Romans built a ramp against the western side to reach it, and the ramp is still there.
- 1From Tel Aviv: Masada & Dead Sea Full Day Tour with Pick Up★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,496 reviews
- 2From Jerusalem: Masada & Dead Sea Full Day Tour with Pick Up★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 815 reviews
- 3From Tel Aviv: Masada, Ein Gedi & Dead Sea Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 705 reviews
Four days in Israel run on somebody else’s clock.
Most of this country can be arranged over dinner the night before. These four run on gate times, border hours, ship calls and the shape of the week, and none of them care when your flight lands.
- 01From Tel Aviv: Masada & Dead Sea Full Day Tour with Pick UpThe Snake Path opens at first light and shuts once the heat comes up; the cable car does not run until eight. A sunrise start is a different booking, not an earlier alarm.
- 02Day Tour to Petra from EilatThe crossing into Jordan keeps border hours and closes on Yom Kippur and Islamic New Year. Passport and exit fee at the gate, and there is no talking your way through after closing.
- 03Tel Aviv: Florentin Saturday Walking TourBuses and trains stop from Friday afternoon until Saturday night. Anything you do on Shabbat either walks, or brings its own driver.
- 04Ashdod Shore Excursion: Jerusalem and Bethlehem – for cruise ship guests onlyShore excursions exist only on the days a ship is alongside at Haifa or Ashdod, and they sail again whether or not you are back.
From June the Israeli desert is finished by ten in the morning.
July and August put 40°C on the Dead Sea shore and not much less on Masada. The country has three answers and they are all bookable: go north where it is green, get in the water, or start before the sun does.
Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, the Galilee: the order most first trips take.
Tel Aviv
Jerusalem
The Galilee
Caesarea & Akko
EilatBy place — coast, hills and desert
The most recent Israel tour reviews.
The rest of the new reviews →
Professional Surfing lessons in the heart of Tel Aviv
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Private Silk Wall Hanging Painting Workshop in Jerusalem
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Day Trip from Jerusalem to Sea of Galilee and Nazareth
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Mount of Temptation, Saint George Monestary, Saint Saba & Bethlehem One Day Tour
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8-Night Israel Tour from Tel Aviv: Jerusalem, Dead Sea, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Northern Israel and Petra
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Tel Aviv; Jaffa Old City, Port & Shuk Hapishpishim Walking Tour
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Tour of Masada-Dead Sea and Qumran from Jerusalem
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From Amman: Bethany Baptism Jordan River Site Visit
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