Additional Information

1. General Weather Description: Spring (mid-March until mid-May) is the nicest season of the year, with very comfortable weather. Temperature in Tel Aviv is usually between 61 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are approximately 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit colder, and Eilat is usually 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer. On some of the days you may need a light jacket, while on other days a short sleeve t-shirt will do. Lord willing, our 2013 tour will depart Wednesday, April 24, and return Monday, May 6. Those dates will result in the best weather. If we departed two weeks earlier, we would not enjoy the wonderful Israeli rock melons we all love and the strawberries might not be in. If we left three weeks later, we would be more likely to experience some hot weather and we would begin to be impacted by the summer crowds.

2. These trips are only for those who would benefit spiritually. I do not want to take anyone who simply enjoys travel. These trips are for the purpose of increasing faith and gaining new insights into God’s Word. I took two groups in 2011 because so many wanted to go. However, I do not want to do two back-to-back groups again and, thus, must insist that only those who are serious about their faith ask to join us.

3. All travelers should recognize that there are two types of tours. The most common type uses 55-passenger buses. They have breakfast at 7 a.m. and depart their 3- or 4-star hotel at 8 a.m. They do not visit sites where those who are elderly or very overweight cannot easily go. They move at a relatively slow pace. This is the kind of tour most people would prefer. It is relaxed and comfortable. My philosophy is that a trip to the Middle East is a once-in-a-lifetime event for most people, so moving fast and going hard from morning until evening makes sense. An hour-long breakfast or lunch would rob us of valuable touring time. Sometimes I pick up hot bread for breakfast, and we eat as we walk. At the same time, our day ends early enough for everyone to have a big dinner, enjoy a time of sharing and then get eight hours of sleep each day. I want my travelers to stay healthy.

4. We interview various people as we tour, including an orthodox Jewish rabbi, a Muslim Palestinian, a Coptic Christian, a Greek Orthodox Christian, and sometimes a Jesuit priest, and others. If you teach Bible classes, you will finish the trip with a treasure trove of insights and stories to share arising from these interviews. You should consider taking a small notebook to write down comments, insights, experiences, and potential illustrations.

5. This is experiential travel. No 55-passenger bus groups walk up the Mt. of Olives, though some do walk down. (They must plan their tour based on the most unfit person in any group.) We will walk up the Mt. of Olives. I will let you try to roll a tomb stone. You can explore a tomb complex near Jerusalem that large groups do not include on their itineraries. You can float on the Dead Sea and sit in the cool waters of Ein Gedi. (I’ll take your photos since I never go in myself anymore.) Our men will enter the oldest, continually inhabited monastery in Israel and interview the Greek Orthodox monk. (Sorry, women, but no woman has been allowed to enter for over 1,500 years, and you won’t be the first, but you can explore the monk’s caves.) I want these trips to bring insights that just cannot be obtained from a textbook. We will try to see some of the same sights that Jesus saw, walk the same steps and hear the same arguments made by the Jewish rulers whom Jesus condemned.

6. We do “open-jaw” travel. That means we reduce travel miles by flying into one city (Tel Aviv) and flying out of another (Amman, Jordan). This allows us to see much more than we could see if we just flew in and out of Israel, yet still do very little ground traveling. Also, we can avoid the backtracking which is inevitable if one flies into and out of Tel Aviv.

7. On those years when we go to Egypt (we will not include Egypt in 2013), we get three nights of good sleep before we cross into Israel. I do this to help insure that nearly every traveler will be over any jetlag before the most important part of the trip (Israel) arrives. Two of our first three nights are at a 4-star resort on the Red Sea. Wonderful buffet meals are provided for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and a great half-day trip to Mt. Sinai and St. Catherine’s monastery are part of that itinerary. (We would never do a 4-star resort in Israel or Jordan as it would cost $400-$500—similar to the USA. We can do it for less than $100 in extremely inexpensive Egypt.) On those years where we skip Egypt (such as 2013), we have a short first day, get to bed early, and then walk the next day. There are lessons taught as we go, but there will be no long lectures, no bus rides, and essentially, no sitting. I find that this plan works well and everyone adjusts very quickly so that jetlag complaints are minimal or non-existent.

8. Our itinerary avoids city traffic. It is easy to get caught in traffic in Tel Aviv or Haifa. Traffic congestion robs us of time, so we try to plan carefully our travel route to miss heavy traffic.

9. Is travel to the Middle East safe? Two responses: (1) The most dangerous part of the trip is the drive to Houston, and the driving we will do in the Middle East (really); and, (2) It is safer to spend the day anywhere we travel than to spend the day in downtown San Antonio or Houston. Our groups in 2011 bought airline tickets for Egypt before the Egyptian revolution had begun. Once the protests began, four travelers considered not going, although all did go in the end. Osama Bin Laden was then killed the day before the first group departed. One of the women shared that she cried for some time due to her fear. However, once they entered Cairo and found everyone so friendly (and were even applauded at one point because the Egyptians were delighted to see tourists—a disappearing but much needed source of national income), the fear was essentially gone. Nevertheless, if I were to believe there to be any danger in Egypt, for example, we would simply skip the trip to the pyramids, the Egyptian Museum, the papyrus factory, etc., and go straight from the airport (east of Cairo) to the Red Sea resort. Yet, perceptions do matter, and I believe the perception among Americans is that Egypt is just too dangerous to visit at this time. So we will skip Egypt until we have seen a year or two of stability and perceptions change. Israel will always have some “incidents,” but tourist areas are especially safe. I cannot remember a terrorist act ever having been directed at tourists in Israel. They are aimed at Israeli citizens, and those are now occurring only rarely. I never feel any threat while there. Jordan is even better. It is commonly noted in guidebooks that it is the safest of all Middle East countries. You will generally find Jordanians more polite and courteous than Israelis and a pleasure to get to know.