How Much Time Do I Need at Different Sites in Israel?

After you’ve decided when to come to Israel and how long you’ll be staying, one of the biggest obstacles to planning a tour on your own is figuring out exactly how much time you need at the different sites you want to visit while in Israel. Sometimes you’ll find this information on the various websites of the different sites you’re going to, but for most places it’s difficult to decide how long you’ll really need there. Since I run into this issue a lot when trying to plan a trip, I thought I’d make a list of some of the more popular sites, with how long you’ll need at each site, and compare it to how much time you’d spend at each site if you were on a guided tour of Israel.

Now, clearly these times are variable. It depends not only on your interest in the site but what else you have planned for the day.

With any tour guide, you’ll see the highlights and main points of interest of the site.

On your own, you’re free to explore all the ins and outs.

This is the main reason that the timing with a guide is much shorter in most cases than if you’d go exploring on your own. The ranges are much larger in the on your own category because at the end of the day, it all boils down to your interest level and what you want to experience in each site and in each city.

Before we get to the list — A Different Way to Travel

I’m all about planning as much as possible. But there’s more than one way to travel.

So here is another suggestion:

A completely different way to travel is to make a list of the places that interest you and rank them from most interesting to least interesting. Then start with the most interesting and head down the list from there, without allocating specific amounts of time to the sites.

This frees you up to spending as much or as little time as you want in each site, knowing that the longer you spend in one site, the less sites you’ll see. But that’s okay, because you’ll see the things that are most important to you, and get the most out of each place you visit.

The List

Without further ado, 20 of the most popular sites in Israel and how long you need at each of them:

Again, what will really determine how long you’ll be at a site is how interested you are in what it has to offer. Sometimes when I plan my trip, I’ll read about a site and think I’ll spend 2 hours there, but when I arrive it’s not what I expected it to be and spend only half an hour. Luckily this balances out with the times where it goes in the opposite direction! Where I read about a site, think okay, it’s worth seeing, but I won’t be there long, and then it really surprises me and I’m there for 2+ hours.

So even with this list, I suggest you read up on each site you plan on going to and based on how interesting it sounds to you, and combine that with this table in order to determine how long you’ll need at each site.

Are there other/different sites you’re visiting in Israel and don’t know how much time you need to allocate do them? Let me know in the comments and I’ll add it!