Our last and final installment of our Israel travel guides is in the desert areas of Israel. (For those visiting the country, you can find our other guides here: Travel Guide to Tel Aviv, Where to Eat in Tel Aviv and Travel Guide to Jerusalem’s Old City)
Israel is such a diverse country for being as small as it is (The entire country is the size of New Jersey!). And one of our favorite days there was our excursion into the desert to cross some bucket list items off of our list. For those wanting to do the Dead Sea and Masada, they are easiest done from Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv. Using our guide from Jerusalem, we set off early in the morning to check out the sights. Here were the highlights of the desert area.
Dead Sea: The Dead Sea was one of the sights I was most excited to visit when we first bought airfare to Israel. I’d grown up hearing about it and seeing posts from my friends who did it while on Birthright, so it was near the tippy top of our list.
Our drive to the Dead Sea was beautiful. Alone the side of the road at the bottom of a cliff were the bright blue and turquoise waters interrupted by palm tree fields and other sights. When we arrived the the resort we swam in — their are a number of different private and public beaches where you can get the experience — we changed into our bathing suits and water shoes and headed into the water, which is the lowest place in the world.
I was a little apprehensive as I stepped into the water but literally laid down in it while it was up to my shins and floated along. I then built up the courage to swim a little further out and take in the experience. We brought our waterproof GoPro along and got some amazing footage of the experience, which I highly recommend. All in all, you need about an hour to do the Dead Sea. Just be careful not to get any of the water in your eyes or mouth, because it is harmful.
Camel Riding: My boyfriend makes fun of me for this, but as soon as we booked the trip my reaction was along the lines of “Yay! Can we go camel riding?!” So, I asked our tour guide if we could find camels at some point during the day to ride. Well, we hit total paydirt on this one. There are some touristy stops at gas stations where a farmer will have a camel or two for tour buses full of people leaving the Dead Sea. That’s fine, but I wanted something more authentic. While we were driving along a desert road, I spotted a lone bedouin farmer (a type of nomad in Israel) with his camel and we stopped him to see if he would give us a ride. Ten American dollars later, my boyfriend and I were on top of a giant camel running down the side of some sand dunes. This experience was beyond surreal and so memorable. Our tour guide got some great photos and videos of it as well.
We had another great camel sighting toward the end of our day on our drive back to Tel Aviv. While driving on a curvy desert road, we came across a herd of camels grazing alone on the side of the road. We pulled over and observed them. There were a number of camels including a mother camel with some babies. It was really a cool experience to take in and a lucky sighting for our only day in the desert.
Masada: A few friends suggested visiting Masada on our trip, and funnily enough a few days before we went there, Elon Musk posted a selfie from the top of Masada. Not growing up Jewish, I didn’t know of Masada until we got there, but the history is so fascinating.
Masada is a massive structure built in the middle of the desert originally as a palace and panic room of sorts for King Herod if he got into a disagreement with the Romans. It was never used in that function, but after Herod died, a community of Jews took over the sight and created homes and a thriving community. In 66 A.D., the Romans decided to destroy the Jewish community, and for six months, built artillery to get to the top of Masada, destroy it and take the Jews as slaves. The night before the Romans reached the top to slaughter the Jews, the Jews had a town meeting and decided to kill themselves so that no Jew could be captured or forced to convert, essentially dying on their own terms.
The history is absolutely fascinating, as is the architecture. You can hike up to the top of Masada two ways. The front hike is more rigorous and the back hike is easy. There is also a gondala/ski lift to take you up and down if you aren’t in the mood to hike. I would highly recommend this experience as the history, views and architecture are so memorable and give you a good insight into the Jewish culture.
Sand Dune Off Roading: We were lucky enough to have a tour guide with a really sturdy Jeep and we used that to our advantage. At a few different points we took the Jeep offroading into bumpy desert terrain. One of the most rewarding stops of the tour, only reachable by offroading, was visiting these massive sand dunes in the middle of the desert. This was in the middle of a sandstorm, so we climbed up some of them and took some really cute photos despite the wind and sand whipping in our eyes. We also off roaded to visit the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, which was also really interesting.
Israel Travel Guides:
Travel Guide: Old City Jerusalem, Israel
Travel Guide: Tel Aviv, Israel
Travel Guide: Where to Eat in Tel Aviv
Travel Guide: Masada, The Dead Sea & The Desert