Judean Desert Jeep Tour

On this jeep tour, we drive out in Jeeps towards the Dead Sea, leaving the city traffic behind in minutes and entering the vast expanses of the Judean Desert.

The Judean Desert provides a fascinating and rare view of our ancestors’ way of life. We will enter off-road territory inhabited mainly by Bedouin tribes, where we will see their shacks and animals.

We will visit ancient water cisterns, so important for desert farmers and still in use today. We’ll talk about how the Bedouin shepherds’ way of life has remained untouched for generations.
A challenging ride will take us up to Mount Azazel. On this sacred hilltop, in the ancient Jewish tradition, a scapegoat carrying the people’s sins was cast off a cliff every year on Yom Kippur.

We’ll continue to the Mar Saba monastery, almost a secret for travelers in Israel because of the relative difficulty in arriving at the site. The huge monastery, founded over 1500 years ago, is one of the oldest inhabited monasteries in the world, with many surrounding ancient solitude rock caves. The awe-inspiring structure is inhabited by Greek Orthodox monks.

We’ll drive back off-road through the meandering Kidron valley with its shepherds’ caves and layers of ancient agriculture.