For this blog, I want to talk about how to prepare for a trip to Israel. Everyone needs some prep tips for travel. How do we know a specific program is the right fit for us? What about the tour guide? How about the timing? How do you know when you have found the right fit?
Finding the trip, and the right guide, and the right prices, and all of those kinds of things is SO important. If the program is not the right fit for you in any way, than the program isn’t worth a thing. And when one thing isn’t right, everything else falls apart. Want an example? If the tour guide doesn’t have the right personality for you, if it isn’t the right match for you, it doesn’t matter how much information they know. It just won’t work. And then all other aspects go out the window.
But if the program fits in all the right places, it makes the trip of a lifetime. One you won’t forget. One during which you will learn, grow, and fall in love with the country. This country has so much to offer and so much to see. What a shame it would be if your trip didn’t meet your expectations and needs.
In order to make sure the ‘shoe fits’ there are several things I recommend to check and/or investigate when checking and finalizing a trip. If all of these things fall into the right place, you are more likely to have a great trip. If not, then the trip can very quickly become a bad apple. Remember, checking these things can make all the difference! So here are my prep times for coming to Israel.
#1: Know your budget.
The first in my list of prep tips is incredibly important because if your agent, guide, or even if you book hotels that you can’t afford, you will end up not having enough money to go to museums, festivals, and other events that have may have entrance fees. And that will make your trip significantly less interesting and that won’t be fun at all. Why go on vacation if you can’t do anything? But then on the other hand, if you pay for cheaper hotels, or maybe hostels, and you do have the money for something a little pricier, than you will be disappointed in the status of the hotel.
That can ruin the rest of the trip because it is what you come back to every night. The same goes for all different aspects of the trip: museums, paying the tour guide, travel insurance, etc. So how do we prevent all of this? Make a detailed and itemized budget of how much you can pay for each aspect before moving forward. Therefore when you make reservations, you can accurately suit the kind of trip you can afford.
#2: Find a program/ tour guide that suits your values, theology, and goals.
When you are looking for a program or an organized trip in Israel, make sure you know the ideology and values of the program. Each organization has a different goal, a different ideology, and it was important to know what it is. If you are an Orthodox Jew, an Evangelical Christian trip. A less extreme example is that if you are looking for a Reform Jewish program, a Conservative or Orthodox trip isn’t appropriate. You won’t be happy.
Another important aspect about group trips: many groups will enforce a set of rules. For example, they might say there is a set amount of alcohol you can drink, or if you can get a body piercing, or many different things. Make sure you know if the organizers have rules, and if they do, what their rules are. If these rules don’t suit you, DON’T go on the trip. You may think that you can just ignore the rules, or that it won’t be that bad. But then you will come, and you will not enjoy yourself.
The same goes with the tour guide. Now trained tour guides know better than to preach their personal opinions concerning politics, religions, etc. But sometimes, their personalities just don’t jive with yours. And that isn’t a pleasant situation either. You have to find a tour guide that matches your personality, and the personality of the trip you are looking for. If you are looking for a trip that is more oriented around visiting Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, etc. and the guide is more interested in showing you Israel’s beautiful outdoors, you and the guide just won’t fit. So talk to the guide well before the trip and make sure you two match.
#3: Discuss what your expectations are with the tour guide/ program.
This idea from my prep tips often goes forgotten. While you are talking with the tour guide, let him or her know what you’re expectations are for the trip. And be completely honest. Believe me, the guide wants to know what you expect. And I don’t mean if you expect to see the Dead Sea and Masada, although that is important for the guide to know. I mean, tell them what kind of trip you want: a spiritual one, a cultural one, a political one? If you are looking to understand your own personal connection to Israel, or if you just want to have a good time and drink on the beach.
If the tour guide knows, he or she can better prepare the trip, and also guide you on the level that is relevant to you. And it is important to be honest because if you just say something general, or not super important, the guide cannot guide you on the level that you need, because s/he doesn’t know. If they do know, you will get the kind of trip you’re looking for on the level that you are looking for.
#4: Know what season you are going to be in Israel, and know how to pack accordingly.
This may seem obvious, but many people mistake the kinds of clothes they should bring. Granted that Israel has similar kinds of stores that are found in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, and all around the world, so if you need to buy a bottle of shampoo, or jacket, it is possible. But you didn’t fly all the way to Israel just to buy a jacket.
So let’s put it this way. The fall and spring seasons are pretty short. Winter seasons are chilly and rainy, while the summers are scorching hot. Winter temperatures go as low as 40 degrees Fahrenheit and the summers can get has hot as 100 and some degrees Fahrenheit. Check weather.com as time gets closer to the trip, so get an idea of what the weather will look like.
#5: Decide what you are interested in seeing and make that very clear to the agent/ guide/ program.
This is a really important one from prep tips to do beforehand for two reasons. If any of the places you want to go to require reservations beforehand, you can be ready for that. And also, you will not end up coming to Israel and just meandering around Tel Aviv without knowing about all the wonderful things Tel Aviv has to offer. There will be purpose in coming to Israel. Your interests can be history, conflict resolution, politics, music, dance, art, whatever! There are no rules. This will also help your guide set up your trip. If you know you want to see historical sites, the guide won’t take you to nature sites. If you aren’t interested in going to religious sites, you will know not to go to such sites. And this way, your trip will be relevant for you.
#6: Read up on all the different places you will be going to get a baseline.
Once you decide on the interests you have and the sites you want to see, read up on the sites you want to see. Whether it’s on Forbes, Lonely Planet, or a deeper level book on a site, read up on it. When you come with a baseline, you’ll be able to understand the site better when you’re there. When you are at the site, you will be able to fully appreciate the magnitude of the site. Furthermore, your private guide or the local guide will be able to go much more in- depth with you. You’ll be able to get more from the places you visit with a stronger baseline. So get out there and read!
#7: Do your homework.
Ugh… of all the prep tips I can give you, I give you this one?! This is similar to reading up on your sites. But it’s also more than that. Check the weather, check what’s going on in Israeli news, make sure you know all of the details you can get your hands on. Sometimes guides can hear things like ‘I didn’t know this was included. I didn’t know that’s what that meant.’
Groups aren’t ready for different aspects of a trip because they didn’t do their homework. They didn’t know that the roads in the Negev are winding, and they don’t like winding roads. They didn’t know that in Rosh Pina there is a cable car to get to the bottom and they are afraid of heights. So it is incredibly important to make sure you do your homework and you are 100%, even 200%, prepared for your trip here.
#8: Get to know who you’re going with.
Oh, of all my prep tips, this is a good one. If you are coming to Israel with your family, than there is no trouble, you know who you’re coming with. But if you are coming on a group trip, create an email list, a Facebook group, a What’sApp group, anything to get to know the people you’re coming with. Break the ice before you come. Trips in Israel aren’t always incredibly long, and the people you come with can end up being really good friends. It’s happened to me several times. I have come on various trips and made very good friends with some of the people I came with. I am still in touch with them today.
But again with such short trips, it is a shame to spend time breaking the ice while on the trip, when there are so many social media forums you can use beforehand. And then once you get to Israel you can spend the time really getting to know one another, develop friendships, and ‘get your hands dirty’ with exploring Israel. You can also begin to discuss issues and sites you will be seeing while here. It turns it more into a journey that doesn’t just begin and end with the trip itself. What does that mean? It means that when you go back, you can also continue the group discussions and develop a wider community in your hometowns.
#9: Communication, communication, communication
Why is communication so important? First of all, like we said with the tour guides. It is important to communicate with what you expect, what you want. But during the trip is also important to communicate; to communicate honestly, kindly, but honestly. You must communicate how you feel, if everything is going ok with the trip. For example, if you don’t feel well and you don’t really tell the guide exactly how you’re feeling, s/he won’t be able to really help you. If you are having a group discussion, be honest with what you think and discuss what you truly believe. It is really the only way you truly learn. If you think your expectations aren’t being met, communicate that. Don’t swallow it, thinking it will go away. Communication is key.
#10: Make sure once you’re here, you come on time to all the events and meetings.
The tenth of my many prep tips is hard while on vacation. Once your itinerary is set and you get here, it is important that things run on time. So make sure that you come on time. If one reservation starts late, the whole day is offset, and nothing else will start on time. In addition, the people who are working at these museums and other place that have reservations work hard to make sure your time there is well spent, so it’s a basic gesture to come on time and let them do a good job. I know it can be hard because we are on vacation, and we want to relax and enjoy ourselves. But we can’t let mean we are late to things we commit to by making a reservation.
In addition, when we are on time the visit or tour can start on time, and then we can move onto our next activity and not have to wait because we came late again to the second activity. And then we go to the next stop we will also be late, and so the whole day is messed up. So come on time.
#11: Challenge yourself to try new things.
Not many people know this one from my prep tips. Remember you are in a different country. Things will different. But I challenge you all to challenge yourselves…in all different ways. On one of my trips I challenged my group members to eat a different Israeli food for lunch everyday-schnitzel, shakshuka, falafel, shwarma. Another way is to listen to a different Israeli song everyday. Or to talk to as many different kinds of Israelis as possible. Challenge yourselves to take in as much of that difference as possible. It really makes the trip interesting and unique. These challenges will make your trip memorable.
They make it fun and unique, and they almost always lead to a good story. Want an example? Remember that group I challenged to eat something different everyday? One day a group member wanted to try a lafa, or a big, thick tortilla, with half falafel and half shwarma. But the waiter didn’t understand what she wanted and ended up cutting the lafa in half and giving one half to her and the second half her friend, another member of the group. Trust me this isn’t a story either of them will forget.
#12: Keep an open mind, and stay easy going.
I mentioned just now, Israel is a very different place. It is important to keep an open mind in order to try that new food, to learn that different perspective… to see a new country! Some of the topics might be new and hard to hear, but keeping an open mind and to go with the flow is the only way to go! If you really want to have a good time, you can’t come with a set perspective of how things go here. Let all the stereotypes go. Don’t come with any perceptions. One exercise you can do if it is too hard to let the images go, try a kind of meditation where you image those stereotypes you have and with each breath you breathe out, imagine the image going further and further away. Of all my prep tips, this can be the hardest one.
#13: Remember to have fun!
The last of all my prep tips is SUPER important. At the end of the day, you are on vacation; you are in a beautiful, warm country with lots of palm trees and great food. While we have to be organized, and open minded, and on time, and everything else, we also have to have fun! We have to learn new things, and smile, and laugh, and take good pictures. There are so many exciting things to do from hiking in the Golan and in the Negev to go scuba diving in Eilat, and sightseeing in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. There is no way not to have fun. Israel has so much to offer and so much fun little corners to explore.
Let yourself enjoy all those corners and all they have to offer. With all of the preparation you have done, and you’ve worked so hard to get a vacation. You deserve to have some fun. People are so busy working and trying to earning enough money to pay the mortgage and bills, and school supplies for the kids, they forget that they deserve to have a good time every once in awhile. In short, have fun. As Nike says ‘Just do it.’ Just have fun!
Conclusion
Now remember, these are just prep tips. You don’t have to follow them. But I strongly recommend you do follow these prep tips. I think that there are certain things you must expect from yourself in order to expect a good, smooth running trip. And that way you can expect things from the people you hire. And most importantly, you’ll have fun here. Israel is such an amazing country. There is so much to see, and your vacation here can truly be an unforgettable one. Just don’t forget to do the things that have to get done beforehand. Now go have a good trip!!
