Guide your home turf.
The best guides are local residents. I live on a farm in the Lower Galil, and guide exclusively in northern Israel. This area is my home, where we’ve chosen to raise our kids…these are my country roads, taking me home to the place I belong and want to share with you.
Don’t waste travel time.
My tours are designed to keep us out of the bus and car as much as possible. Concentrate your day in one area (my expertise is the Lower Galil), and don’t try to see sites that require long drives between them. The north is quite vast; divide up your trip by region.
Spend at least one night in the north.
Most tourists are coming from the center of the country, traveling around two hours to reach the Galil. Make the most of your trip by staying up north for the night. Some ideas for a successful vacation: (1) a two-day intensive educational tour of the Amakim and Lower Galil; (2) One day on an educational tour, and the second visiting attractions; (3) one day Lower Galil, second day Upper Galil or Golan.
Don’t use a guide if you don’t have to.
There are plenty of attractions to do in the north that absolutely don’t require a guide. If you have your own vehicle, paying for a guide on top of workshops or activities is an unnecessary expense. Here’s my list of attractions/sites in the north that you can book yourself and easily enjoy on your own.
Choose your guide carefully.
A tour guide is a teacher, a shadchanit between you and the landscape, a companion for the day — you’ll want to find someone who suits. My role these last two decades — whether in the Bet Midrash, b’shetach (in the field) or through my writing — has been to nurture encounters with text and land. If you are looking to deepen your knowledge of the biblical landscape, if you are a history or archaeology buff who stays curious, if you have studied Talmud your whole life and wish to see the stomping grounds of the Tannaim and Amoraim, if the story of modern Zionism (in all its complexity) excites, if Tiveria has always puzzled and intrigued you (yet you aren’t quite sure why), then let’s work together at designing an itinerary that will enrich and inspire.