Israel Discovery Guide

Israel compresses an improbable amount into a country the size of Wales: the Old City of Jerusalem in the morning, the Mediterranean off Tel Aviv in the afternoon, the Dead Sea at the lowest point on earth's surface the same evening. Jerusalem holds sites central to three faiths inside one walled square kilometre; Tel Aviv is a Bauhaus beach city an hour away; and Caesarea, Akko, the Galilee, Masada and the Negev craters fill the gaps.

The main travel issue

It starts with the security situation, which bears directly on travel and has to be checked against current advice before anything is planned. Beyond it, June to August is hot everywhere and brutal at the Dead Sea and Eilat, where 40°C is routine, and airport screening is thorough enough that departures need three hours.

The solution

Come in March-May or September-November, base on the coastal rail line, and use a Rav-Kav card rather than hiring a car.

• Jerusalem

If you have a week

Three nights in Jerusalem, three in Tel Aviv, and a day trip to Masada and the Dead Sea from one of them. The two cities are fifty minutes apart by fast train and could not be less alike, which is much of the point.

If you want the archaeology

Caesarea for the Roman port and theatre, Beit She’an for the most complete Roman streets in the country, Megiddo for twenty-six layers of settlement, and Masada for Herod’s cliff-top palace and the siege ramp the Romans built against it.

If you want the north

The Galilee, the Sea of Galilee and the Golan: Nazareth, Safed with its kabbalistic history and artists, Akko’s Crusader tunnels and Ottoman walls, and the Baha’i terraces at Haifa, all within short drives of each other.

If you want the desert

The Negev is more than half the country and almost empty. Makhtesh Ramon is an erosion crater forty kilometres long with a town on its rim; Ein Avdat is a spring-fed canyon; and Bedouin hospitality and dark-sky camping are the experiences worth arranging.

Israel is a society built from immigration in a very short time, and the friction and energy that comes with that is the first thing visitors notice.

Directness

Conversation is blunt to a degree that surprises people from more indirect cultures — questions that seem personal, opinions offered unasked, arguments that look like fights and are not. It is not rudeness, and the local word for it, dugri, is used approvingly.

Seventy countries in one

Jews arrived from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union, and the differences between those communities — in food, liturgy, music and politics — remain significant. Around a fifth of citizens are Arab, mostly Muslim with Christian and Druze minorities.

Shabbat

From Friday afternoon to Saturday nightfall the country changes gear. Buses and trains stop, shops and most restaurants close, and Jerusalem goes quiet. Tel Aviv stays open. Understanding this is the single most practical piece of cultural knowledge for a visitor.

Military service

Conscription for most Jewish citizens means young people in uniform are a normal sight, including with weapons, and the army is a shared reference point in a way that has no equivalent in most Western countries.

Religion and its absence

The country runs from ultra-Orthodox neighbourhoods where life is entirely observant to a large secular majority that is not, and the relationship between them is one of the central domestic arguments.

Travel here is politically charged in a way that few destinations are, and the most responsible thing a visitor can do is see more than one perspective. Israeli and Palestinian tour operators both run serious, non-sensational tours; dual-narrative programmes exist and are worth the time.

Spend across communities. Arab-owned businesses in Jaffa, Akko, Nazareth and the Galilee, Bedouin hospitality in the Negev and Druze villages on Carmel all receive far less visitor money than the main circuit.

Holy sites are working places of worship before they are attractions. Dress modestly, follow the rules on photography and behaviour, and do not treat prayer as a backdrop.

Water. Israel is arid and a world leader in desalination and recycling out of necessity. Short showers and refilling bottles are the obvious courtesies. The Dead Sea is dropping by more than a metre a year, mainly through upstream extraction, and the sinkholes along its shore are the visible consequence.

March to May and September to November are the best windows: warm rather than hot, dry, and with the spring wildflowers in the north in March and April.

June to August is hot everywhere and brutal at the Dead Sea and Eilat, where 40°C is routine. Tel Aviv is humid; Jerusalem, higher and drier, is more bearable. This is peak season for domestic travel and prices rise.

December to February is mild on the coast and genuinely cold in Jerusalem and the Galilee, with rain and the occasional snowfall in the hills. Eilat and the Dead Sea are pleasant then, which is why they fill.

Plan around the holidays. Passover in spring and the High Holidays in autumn close businesses and fill hotels. Shabbat — Friday afternoon to Saturday evening — shuts most public transport, many restaurants and nearly everything in Jerusalem every single week, and is the most important thing to understand about scheduling here.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the country

Israel is expensive — comparable to western Europe, and Tel Aviv is among the pricier cities in the world for accommodation and eating out. The national parks pass is worth buying if you plan to see more than three or four sites.