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Suggest itinerary: travelling to Israel



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Frumwithallergies




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 01 2019, 9:53 am
Hey all you savvy Imas out there. We (especially DH) have a bucket list and have planned IYH and B'eH a 10 day trip to Israel.

I have never been on a tour, and I am afraid such a tour would be beyond us financially. We are bringing our dc. We have one friend and one family (in Tzfat) to visit, but beyond that, I'm looking for recommendations (besides the Kotel, of course ) Smile

So channel your inner travel agent and give me your best recommendations, restaurants, hotels, must-see sites! I'm feeling overwhelmed with guidebooks and websites. Sad
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butterfly2




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 01 2019, 11:00 am
Yerushalayim: Segway tours, yad vashem, kever rachel, shuk, kosel tunnels, old city-kever Duvid, kever shmuel hanavi- gorgeous views
South: masada, Dead Sea, Ein Gedi - beautiful hike with springs flowing through
Eilat: there are many great packages to fly down south including hotel stay that are very affordable. water activities, aquarium, stunning views, beaches
North: miron, tzfas, teveria and surrounding areas-tzuk manara, rosh hanikra, Akko, atv rides, horseback riding, rafting etc
Golan: wineries, farms etc
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Frumwithallergies




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 01 2019, 3:04 pm
Thanks emcee! This gives me a great starting point. I wish I had more time.... a month or more to explore and immerse. I didn't go to EY for sem. IYH the next trip will be longer, but for now I'm going to try to do it in small bites and not get overwhelmed, especially with my kids and dh.
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DrMom




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 01 2019, 3:08 pm
What time of year?
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Frumwithallergies




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 01 2019, 3:11 pm
End of February to beginning of March.
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Frumwithallergies




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 03 2019, 2:14 am
Thanks, emcee and DrMom! I'm bumping this up to see if anyone else has any suggestions.
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Teomima




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 03 2019, 4:21 am
It depends what you're interested in. History? Hiking? Culture? Adventure? Relaxation?

If it's history, I highly recommend the City of David in Jerusalem, plus the ramparts walk around the old city is fun, interesting, and beautiful. Out of Jerusalem Cesarea and Old Akko are interesting and beautiful historic sights.

If it's hiking you like, that time of year you still need to stay away from desert hikes as there's still too great of a risk for flash floods, though you can do small popular hikes like Masada or Nachal David at Ein Gedi.

For culture, there's wonderful museums in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa (and elsewhere too of course). Since you're already going to Tzfat, there's fun activities in and around that area, like cheese, wine, and chocolate tours. Also check out the local shuk in whatever town you're in, the Machane Yehuda in Jerusalem and Shuk Carmel in Tel Aviv. Also in Tel Aviv there's an awesome artist fair every Tuesday I believe.

There's plenty of adventurous activities and I suggest checking out groo.co.il, the Israeli Groupon site. There you can find out about opportunities for segway tours, skiing, ice skating, paragliding, snorkeling, escape rooms, safari tours, etc.

As for relaxation, Dead Sea spas all the way, that's my suggestion.

Enjoy your visit!
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Frumwithallergies




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 03 2019, 9:44 pm
Thanks, Teomina!

Honestly, I think that it might be best for us to spend 3-4 days in Yerushalayim, then head north. I soooooo wish we had longer! But such is life. B'H we are getting to go as it is!
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amother
Slategray


 

Post Thu, Jan 03 2019, 10:39 pm
These are all great ideas; just two things too add that we did this past summer(both are pretty new) virtual reality tour of the Bais Hamikdash, aquarium in Yerushalayim which is really gorgeous because it has many meddterinian fish that you will not see on this side of the world. I recommend you book both of these online.
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Frumwithallergies




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 03 2019, 11:56 pm
Thanks, slategray. I've been told to book as much as possible online before we go; however, travelling with kids makes it difficult to plan sometimes....
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OOT




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jan 04 2019, 1:13 am
When we went with kids, and on a budget, we found it helpful to plan one bigger, or two smaller trips per day, max. This way you get the most benefit without being pressured or spending too much.
Also important for you, especially if you don’t go frequently... set aside some time, even a little bit, to experience Israel on the adult level. What is something that you personally want to do there? Either ask your DH to watch the kids or get a babysitter, and get out on your own for a bit. I went to kever Rachel on my own and it was a great investment of time spent there.
Enjoy! Lucky you!
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amother
Crimson


 

Post Fri, Jan 04 2019, 1:37 am
Frumwithallergies wrote:
Hey all you savvy Imas out there. We (especially DH) have a bucket list and have planned IYH and B'eH a 10 day trip to Israel.

I have never been on a tour, and I am afraid such a tour would be beyond us financially. We are bringing our dc. We have one friend and one family (in Tzfat) to visit, but beyond that, I'm looking for recommendations (besides the Kotel, of course ) Smile

So channel your inner travel agent and give me your best recommendations, restaurants, hotels, must-see sites! I'm feeling overwhelmed with guidebooks and websites. Sad


It's hard for other people to understand what you're interested in, what you want to see, etc.

Here's what I did. I wrote a calendar of the days we would be there. Like this:
Monday Tuesday Wednesday. etc etc

Then, underneath the days I KNEW we would be somewhere, I would pencil in the various things we had to see. And then I would kind of search for things in the area to fill up the day so we had a variety of activities that day. One thing I DON'T advise you really to do is pencil in restaurants. There's a billion that are just awesome. Most of the time, when we were ready to eat, we kind of googled "kosher mehadrin restaurants in ____", and we picked the one with the best yelp review, and done. Or one day we just wandered in the shuk, took a gander at all the restaurants, and picked the one that seemed most appealing.

There were only two websites I really checked out. One is "funinjerusalem.com". Another is the peasloveandcarrots blogpost, entitled "what to do with kids in Jerusalem", or thereabouts.
https://www.funinjerusalem.com/
https://peaslovencarrots.com/f.....alem/

The problem with your open ended request on this site is that we know nothing about you and your family. Do you like hiking? Hiking is free. Do you like water? Are you going in the summer? Winter? Do you like museums? What's your budget? Are you very spiritual and cemeteries are your thing? See, there are endless facets to planning your own trip. Some people are tour guide kind of people, we weren't. We nixed all the tour buses going to chevron, for example, and used buses to see it on our own time.

Also, ask literally everyone what they loved best about their trip to Israel. Everyone's been. And work backwards from there.
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FranticFrummie




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jan 04 2019, 5:12 am
Which Dead Sea spa has the best rates for a day visit and kosher lunch?

I have company coming from the US in about 2 weeks.
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amother
Wheat


 

Post Fri, Jan 04 2019, 8:24 am
We just went with kids who have limited interests. I did not overbook each day with trips, and we had a great relaxing time. We stayed in Jerusalem and only did day trips so that we wouldn’t have to drag our luggage along, which would have been a nightmare. Aside from a few days visiting relatives, here’s what we did -
Jeeping, Kever Rachel, eretz bereshit, Dead Sea, light show, biblical museum of natural history, tunnel tours, Tel Aviv port.
We also spent a lot of time just walking around the old city, Ben Yehuda, etc.
Favorites were jeeping, museum and port.
Even though I don’t know when we will return to Israel, I really mostly focused on areas near Jerusalem for this trip. Otherwise we would have spent so much time running around and not having the chance to enjoy ourselves. Just my opinion. Had we gone without kids, my itinerary would look very different.
I looked into many other trips that my kids didn’t want to do but that sounded like a lot of fun - shooting range, winery, vr at the kotel, horseback riding in netanya, choc factory, candy factory. I don’t recall what else.
I did not book online before. I had many ideas of what I wanted to do and only made reservations the day before each trip. That left me a lot of flexibility. One of the best pieces of advice I received from many was to make sure to leave lots of time to just spend with the family and relax. We had a wonderful time and were really able to bond as a family. Try not to get too overwhelmed with all there is to do. You will have a great time iyh! Good luck!
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amother
Wheat


 

Post Fri, Jan 04 2019, 8:34 am
Also check out Facebook group “loveloveisrael - tried & tested”. I got the recommendation from imamother and found it very helpful.
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amother
Azure


 

Post Fri, Jan 04 2019, 8:47 am
Try not to cram your time too full of activitites. If youre spending a few days in yerushalayim - leave some time for exploring - geula, meah shearim, old city. If this is your firstt visit there, or if it is for your children - do the basics of yerushalayim - the above plus kosel, choma, kosel tunnels. Ir david was great fun - they have these dark tunnels with a few inches of water that you have to walk through...
someone mentioned tzuk manara in the north. That's a good place to go with children - if I remember correctly, they have a chairlift all the way up the mountain for incredible views, also bungee jumping and some sort of roller coaster...
south - we had done ein gedi, masada and dead sea in a day - with older children - it was really enjoyable.
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allergymom




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jan 04 2019, 11:51 am
Teomima, How do I translate groo.co.il, the Israeli Groupon site to English?

What a great idea!

Also, does anyone have any ideas where I can learn for a few classes when I go to Israel this month IYH?
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Teomima




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 08 2019, 3:38 pm
allergymom wrote:
Teomima, How do I translate groo.co.il, the Israeli Groupon site to English?

What a great idea!

Also, does anyone have any ideas where I can learn for a few classes when I go to Israel this month IYH?

You can open the website through Google's translate tool, which will translate whatever site you enter, or try the app, perhaps that offers other languages, though I have no idea. The website itself, however, is in Hebrew only.
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amother
Taupe


 

Post Tue, Jan 08 2019, 4:04 pm
Just went to jerusalem with a 4 year old and a toddler.
We went to the Biblical zoo, which they enjoyed immensely.
We shopped in Ben Yehuda (food and souvenirs)- kept the kids happy.
There are lots of nice parks in jerusalem.
(We also spent a lot of time at the Kotel/old city.)
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