--- title: "Israel travel guide: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Negev | Wimup" description: "Israel: how Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Galilee, the Dead Sea and the Negev differ, what Shabbat closes, the ETA-IL you need before you fly, and what to eat." url: https://wimup.com/country/israel type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-30 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Israel, coast to crater A **Mediterranean beach city**, a walled Old City an hour inland, **the lowest shore on earth** and a coral reef at the bottom of the map. Israel is small enough to cross in a day and runs on a **weekly clock** most visitors underestimate. ## Quick answer Two bases cover a first trip. **Tel Aviv** is the coast: a city-length beach, the 1930s White City and the old port at Jaffa. **Jerusalem**, an hour inland, holds the walled Old City, the Israel Museum, Yad Vashem and Mahane Yehuda. Then drive north to **Caesarea**, **Akko**, **Nazareth** and **Tiberias**, or south to the **Dead Sea**, **Masada** and the crater at **Mitzpe Ramon**, with the reef at **Eilat** four hours further. A week does Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and one direction. Ten days does both. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Mar · Apr · Oct - **Ideal length:** 8–12 days - **Budget per day:** $120–220 - **Language:** Hebrew & Arabic - **Getting around:** Trains on the coast, buses inland, a car for the Galilee & Negev - **1** City guide - **10,178,000** People - **9** UNESCO sites Israel is planned around two bases and the drives between them. Tel Aviv holds the coast: a swimmable beach the length of the city, the largest concentration of 1930s International Style architecture anywhere, the old port at Jaffa on its southern edge, and the country’s food and night hours. Jerusalem sits about an hour inland and asks for the opposite pace, with the four quarters of the walled Old City, the Israel Museum and Yad Vashem on the western ridge, and the markets of Mahane Yehuda between them. North of Tel Aviv the coast road runs past the Roman harbour at Caesarea to Haifa, where the Bahá’í terraces drop down the side of Mount Carmel, and on to the Crusader tunnels and Ottoman walls of Akko. Inland from there is the Galilee: Nazareth, the synagogue-lined hill town of Safed, the Sea of Galilee with Tiberias on its western shore, and the vineyards and springs of the upper north. South and east the country dries out fast. The Dead Sea shore is the lowest dry land on the planet, with the cliff fortress of Masada above it and the oasis canyons of Ein Gedi alongside. The Negev fills the bottom half of the map, holding Be’er Sheva, the erosion crater at Mitzpe Ramon and a night sky that has almost nothing to compete with. Eilat is four hours further down at the top of the Red Sea, and the reef starts a few metres offshore. Trains are quick along the coast and to Jerusalem and Be’er Sheva; the Galilee and the Negev are car country. Almost everything Jewish-run closes from Friday afternoon to Saturday evening, and Sunday is a working day. ## 1 Israel city guide 1. [Tiberias](https://wimup.com/city/tiberias.md): Asia · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 10,178,000 - **Area:** 22,072 km² - **Density:** 461.1 / km² - **Capital:** Jerusalem - **Major cities:** Jerusalem, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Haifa, Rishon LeZion, Petah Tikva - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Entry:** ETA-IL before you fly Visa-exempt travellers need an approved ETA-IL, applied for online at least 72 hours before you fly. Without one you are turned away at the gate. It lasts two years and covers stays of up to 90 days. - **Advisories:** Read the current advice before you book Advice for this region is written area by area, and it moves. Your foreign ministry lists the zones and crossings it advises against, and insurers follow it. Check when you book and the week you fly. - **Currency:** New Israeli shekel (ILS) Cards work almost everywhere, markets and small cafés included. Keep some cash anyway: restaurant tips are expected in notes, and a shared taxi will not take plastic. - **Language:** Hebrew, with Arabic in special status The 2018 Basic Law made Hebrew the state language and gave Arabic a special status. Both appear on road signs with English, which is widely spoken in cities and thinner in small towns. - **Calling code:** +972 - **Power:** 230V, 50Hz, type H sockets Type H is used almost nowhere else on earth. The good news is that a standard European type C plug fits the same socket, so a Europe adapter usually works and a British or American one will not. - **Emergency:** Police 100 · Ambulance 101 · Fire 102 101 reaches Magen David Adom, the national ambulance service. 112 also connects. - **Shabbat:** Friday afternoon to Saturday nightfall Trains and most buses stop from Friday sundown to Saturday evening. Jerusalem shuts almost entirely, Tel Aviv keeps its restaurants and beaches, and Nazareth, Akko and Jaffa run normally. - **Yom Kippur:** The one day the country stops For about 25 hours in September or October, Ben Gurion airport closes, broadcasting and public transport stop, and the roads empty. Nothing opens. Be somewhere you are happy to stay on foot. - **Getting around:** Rav-Kav card, trains and buses One Rav-Kav card covers trains, intercity buses and the light rail in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Rail is fast along the coast and up to Jerusalem. The Galilee and the Negev need a car. - **National parks:** One pass covers the big sites Masada, Caesarea, Ein Gedi, Beit She’an and most ruins belong to the Nature and Parks Authority, which sells two-week multi-site tickets. Two or three sites make one worth buying. - **Tipping:** 10 to 12 percent, in cash Service is rarely on the bill, and terminals often cannot pass a tip to staff, so leave notes on the table. Round up taxi fares. - **Water:** Tap water is safe to drink Heavily desalinated and treated to a published health-ministry standard. Carry more than you think between May and September, and far more in the Negev and at the Dead Sea. - **Consular help:** Most embassies are in Tel Aviv Jerusalem is the seat of government, but most embassies, and their consular help, are in Tel Aviv. Find yours before you travel. - **Costs:** Among the most expensive countries in the OECD OECD comparisons put prices roughly a third above the member average, food higher still. Street food and national parks are good value. Hotels, restaurants and car hire are not. - **Time zone:** UTC+2, and UTC+3 on daylight time The clocks change in spring and autumn on dates set locally, so for a few weeks a year the gap to Europe is not what you expect. ## When to visit - **Jan**: Cool and wet on the coast, cold in Jerusalem with occasional snow, and reliably warm at Eilat and the Dead Sea - **Feb** (good): Almond blossom and wildflowers across the north, still wet, and the cheapest month to be here - **Mar** (best): The country turns green, the desert is perfect, and Purim fills the streets for a night - **Apr** (best): The best weather of the year, and usually the month Passover books the whole country out - **May** (best): Warm and dry, the sea is swimmable again, and the desert is still bearable early - **Jun** (good): Hot, dry and beach season proper, with the Negev and the Dead Sea getting serious about it - **Jul**: Humid on the coast, brutal in the south, and the nights are when the cities come out - **Aug** (peak): The hottest month, school holidays, and prices to match at the coast - **Sep** (peak): The heat eases and the high holidays start, so hotels fill and the calendar has days that stop entirely - **Oct** (best): Sukkot crowds the first half; after it the weather is the best of the autumn and the country is quiet - **Nov** (good): The first rain, mild days, empty sites and the last comfortable month for the desert - **Dec**: Wet and cool in the north, sunny at Eilat, and Christmas fills Nazareth and the Galilee ## Fun fact A makhtesh is a landform found only in the Negev and the Sinai, and Makhtesh Ramon is the largest: roughly 40 kilometres long and about 500 metres deep. It is neither an impact crater nor a volcano. Water hollowed out a hill over some 200 million years, then breached one end. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** It is a small country, so a few days covers it. **Reality:** The distances are short and the switching is not. Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is under an hour, from a beach city to a walled Old City with a different rhythm and dress code. South, the ground drops below sea level, climbs into hyper-arid desert and ends at a coral reef. A week covers two properly. - **Myth:** Everything shuts on Saturday, so the weekend is a write-off. **Reality:** Half of it shuts. Trains and most buses stop from Friday afternoon to Saturday nightfall, and Jerusalem goes quiet. Tel Aviv keeps its beaches and restaurants, Haifa runs some buses, and Nazareth, Akko and Jaffa keep ordinary hours, so spend Saturday there. Sunday is a working day. - **Myth:** It is a religious-sites trip. **Reality:** The pilgrimage route is one layer of several. The same country holds the largest collection of 1930s International Style buildings anywhere, a Red Sea reef off the beach, an erosion crater with very dark skies, Galilee wine country and a flyway for migrating birds. - **Myth:** The Middle East is cheap, so this will be too. **Reality:** It is one of the most expensive countries in the OECD, roughly a third above the member average and food higher still. Hotels, restaurants and car hire price close to Western Europe. The good value is street food, which is excellent, the national parks pass and cheap public transport. - The week runs Sunday to Thursday. Friday is a half day, Saturday is the day off, and offices, banks and government services follow that calendar. - Bag checks at the entrance to malls, stations and bus terminals are routine. Open the bag, say hello, keep moving. - Cover shoulders and knees at the Western Wall, in churches and in mosques. Men are handed a paper kippah at the Wall; women should have a scarf in the bag for the churches. - Ask before photographing people at prayer. In the Old City quarters and in the ultra-Orthodox neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, photography on Shabbat is unwelcome and taking it anyway will be said out loud. - On Holocaust Remembrance Day and on the memorial day for fallen soldiers, a siren stops the country for two minutes. People get out of their cars and stand still. Do the same. - Directness is not rudeness. Conversation here is blunt by design, questions are personal early, and a flat no is simply a normal answer. - Learn toda and shukran. Which one lands depends on which town you are in, and using the right one is noticed. ## Famous Israeli faces - **Natalie Portman**: Jerusalem-born Oscar winner for Black Swan, who directed A Tale of Love and Darkness. - **Gal Gadot**: From Petah Tikva via Miss Israel to Wonder Woman, the best-known Israeli actor working. - **Shmuel Yosef Agnon**: The only Hebrew-language Nobel laureate in Literature, in 1966. His house is a museum. - **Amos Oz**: Among Israel’s most translated writers, author of the memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness. - **David Grossman**: Novelist, the first Israeli to win the International Booker Prize, in 2017. - **Ada Yonath**: Weizmann crystallographer who mapped the ribosome, the first Israeli woman Nobel laureate. - **Daniel Kahneman**: Tel Aviv-born psychologist, 2002 Nobel in economics for founding behavioural economics. - **Aaron Ciechanover**: Technion biologist, 2004 Nobel in Chemistry for how cells tag and destroy proteins. - **Ofra Haza**: Carried Yemenite-Jewish song into pop. Im Nin’alu was a European hit in the late 1980s. - **Idan Raichel**: Pianist whose Project put Ethiopian, Arabic and Hebrew singers on the same records. - **Netta Barzilai**: Won Eurovision in 2018 with Toy, bringing the contest to Tel Aviv the next year. - **Shira Haas**: Star of Unorthodox, the first Israeli actor Emmy-nominated in a lead category. - **Lior Raz**: Co-creator and star of Fauda, which turned Israeli television into an export business. - **Linoy Ashram**: Rhythmic gymnastics all-around gold at Tokyo in 2021, ending two decades of Russian wins. - **Artem Dolgopyat**: Floor gold at Tokyo, Israel’s first Olympic gold in artistic gymnastics. - **Golda Meir**: Born in Kyiv, raised in Milwaukee, prime minister from 1969 to 1974, still the only woman. - **Shimon Peres**: Twice prime minister, president from 2007 to 2014, and 1994 Nobel Peace laureate. ## Must-try Israeli food - **Hummus**: Eaten warm as a meal, topped with chickpeas, ful or lamb. Hummusias sell out by afternoon. - **Meorav Yerushalmi**: Jerusalem mixed grill of chicken hearts, livers and lamb, from Agrippas Street. - **St Peter’s fish**: Sea of Galilee tilapia, split and grilled whole, eaten by the lake at Tiberias. - **Falafel**: Chickpea balls fried to order, in pita with salad, pickles, tahini and chilli. - **Sabich**: Iraqi-Jewish pita of fried aubergine, egg, potato, tahini and amba, made famous in Jaffa. - **Bourekas**: Flaky pastry of cheese, potato or spinach, sold by the tray. The shape tells the filling. - **Shakshuka**: Eggs poached in spiced tomato and pepper, served in the pan. A North African import. - **Israeli breakfast**: The kibbutz spread: eggs, chopped salads, cheeses, olives, herring, bread and coffee. - **Jachnun**: Yemenite-Jewish dough baked overnight, eaten on Saturday with grated tomato and skhug. - **Knafeh**: Shredded pastry on stretchy cheese, soaked in syrup. Best hot in Akko, Jaffa and Nazareth. - **Malabi**: Soft milk pudding with rose syrup, coconut and crushed peanuts, sold in a plastic cup. - **Halva**: Tahini and sugar in a dense slab, cut by the kilo at the Mahane Yehuda and Carmel markets. - **Arak**: Aniseed spirit drunk long with water and ice, when it turns cloudy white. - **Israeli wine**: Mostly from the upper Galilee and Judean Hills, with tastings an hour from the big cities. - **Limonana**: Lemonade blended with mint and ice into a slush. On every menu from June. ## FAQs ### Do you need a visa for Israel? Most short-stay visitors from Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia do not need a visa, but they do need an ETA-IL. It has been mandatory since 1 January 2025 for every traveller from a visa-exempt country, it is applied for online through the Population and Immigration Authority for a small fee, and the authority asks for it at least 72 hours before you fly. An approval lasts two years or until your passport expires and covers stays of up to 90 days. Airlines check it at the gate, and it is permission to reach the border, not to cross it: an officer still decides on arrival. ### Is it safe to travel, and what should you check? Advice for this region is written area by area and it changes, so no travel guide can hold it. Read your own foreign ministry's current page before you book and again in the week you fly, note which border zones and crossings it advises against, and confirm that your insurance covers what you have planned. Beyond that, ordinary travel sense applies: bags are checked at the entrance to malls, stations and bus terminals as routine, and the Home Front Command app carries the official alerts in English. ### What actually closes for Shabbat? Trains and most buses stop on Friday afternoon and restart after nightfall on Saturday, and most Jewish-run shops and offices go with them. Jerusalem is the strictest and the quietest. Tel Aviv keeps its beaches, restaurants and bars going. Haifa is the one Jewish-majority city that has always run buses through Shabbat, and Arab-majority towns such as Nazareth, Akko and Jaffa keep normal hours, so Saturday is a good day to visit them. Shared taxis, called sherut, run when the buses do not, and hire cars are unaffected. Remember that Sunday is a working day here, so the week ends and starts a day earlier than you expect. ### When is the best time to visit Israel? March to May and October, in that order. The country is green in spring, the desert is comfortable, and the nights are cool without being cold. July and August are humid on the coast and punishing in the Negev and at the Dead Sea, and August is also school holidays, so prices climb. Winter is mild at Eilat and the Dead Sea and wet in the north, with snow in Jerusalem some years. Check the Jewish calendar before you fix dates: Passover in spring and the September and October high holidays fill hotels and close things, and Yom Kippur shuts the country and the airport for a day. ### How long do you need, and what is a sensible first trip? A week is enough for Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and one direction out of them. Ten days to a fortnight covers both directions properly. The route that works for most first trips is three or four nights in Tel Aviv with a day at Caesarea and Akko, three or four in Jerusalem, then either north to the Galilee around Tiberias and Nazareth, or south to the Dead Sea, Masada and the crater at Mitzpe Ramon. Eilat is worth adding only if you want the reef, since it is four hours beyond the crater. ### Do you need Hebrew, and how do you pay? No. Hebrew is the state language and Arabic carries a special status, both appear on road signs alongside English, and English is widely spoken in the cities and in anything tourist-facing. Payment is by card almost everywhere, including markets and buses, but carry cash for restaurant tips, which are expected at 10 to 12 percent in notes. Public transport runs on the Rav-Kav smart card, sold at stations, and it covers trains, intercity buses and the light rail in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. ## Related countries - [Japan](https://wimup.com/country/japan.md) - [India](https://wimup.com/country/india.md) - [All of Asia](https://wimup.com/asia) Part of [Asia](https://wimup.com/asia.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.gov.il/en/departments/general/visit-israel-info?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Entry](https://israel-entry.piba.gov.il/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Advisories](https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/israel?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [National parks](https://en.parks.org.il/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.