Category Archives: Family

Israel with kids

Israel is a great place to visit with kids. The country is small but varied. One day you can be bumping along in a jeep on the Golan Heights with a view into Syria and hear the stories of Israel’s capture of the area during the Six Day War in 1967. The next day you can be riding on a camel across the sands in the Negev, sleeping in a Beduin tent or under the stars. On the Mediterranean coast, in Akko there is a Crusader fortress that was buried in sand by Al Jazar in order to build his citadel that we can explore. At Masada there is a Herodian fortress in the desert later used by Zealots in the Great Revolt against the Romans. There is an opportunity to climb through caves more than two thousand years old, an experience out of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. In Jerusalem you can walk around the Old City on the ramparts from the time of Suleiman the Magnificent, walk on paving stones that go back to Roman times and even the Second Temple period or walk underground along the length of the Western Wall.

Check out this article by Nancy Better in the May 17th edition of the New York Times, Taking the Kids – In Israel, With a Whiff of Adventure.

All the sites mentioned in the NY Times article can be incorporated into your personalized tour. There are less expensive accommodations for those on a tighter budget.

Family Trip (7-day tour)

I’d like to share a 7-day tour that I created for a family’s first trip to Israel. They had 2 days in Jerusalem before I met them. Here is the itinerary I worked out with them:

Day 1

  • pickup 8am at hotel in Jerusalem, day trip
  • 9am Dig for a Day, archeological excavations at Tel Maresha
  • drive down to the Negev via Beersheva, picnic lunch at Park Golda
  • 2pm Sfinat Hamidbar for 1 hour camel ride
  • drive through Large Makhtesh, petrified trees and colored sand
  • back to Jerusalem, dinner recommendations: Fish & Olive, Ima, Darna, Eucalyptus

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Day 2

  • drive from Jerusalem to Masada
  • Ein Gedi nature reserve
  • Rachel, Charlotte and Celia enjoyed a winter float in the Dead Sea

Day 3

  • City of David tour, including walking through Hezekiah’s Tunnel where the water reached Celia’s (who is 6 years old) waist
  • braid challah & meet Sumsum, our golden retriever
  • Friday night dinner with family

Day 4, Shabbat

  • afternoon, walk to Israel museum to see Second Temple model and Shrine of the Book

Day 5

  • drive up the Jordan Rift valley
  • Old Gesher: Rutenberg hydroelectric project, kibbutz life in 1948
  • Bet Shean, Roman/Byzantine city and the tel, where Charlotte figured out that the clay brick buildings could be Egyptian and Michael asked how we knew it was a tel and not just a hill
  • Dinner at Decks in Tiberias – the sweet potatoes baked in a wood-fired oven were a hit, on to our B&B at Had Ness in the Golan

Day 6

  • tour the Golan Heights
  • Banias archaeological site, quiz on archaeology and layers at the entrance overlooking the excavations of Byzantine church; cave of Pan, temples, Herod’s temple, opus reticulatum, 7 species of Eretz Yisrael and what kind of tree is this? Linda figured out that it was a walnut and we tasted a nut
  • Banias nature reserve (w. waterfall) and then it started raining
  • planned to have lunch at Witch and the Milkman at Nimrod but instead drove to Druze village of Ma’asade for humus, salads, etc.
  • got some water from Kinneret/Sea of Galilee for our Yam l’yam/Sea to sea journey
  • dinner at Shiri in Rosh Pina

Day 7

  • Akko: underground Crusader Halls – for some reason there was a piano so Charlotte played a piece from her recital, Okashi museum, Turkish Bath-house, Templar tunnel
  • Haifa: Bahai gardens, German Colony
  • drive down the coast
  • stop at aquaduct at Caesarea, poured our water from the Sea of Galilee into the Mediterranean Sea, completing our Yam l’yam journey
  • drop off at airport