Tel Aviv in late November: travel advice

October 2, 2023 3:49 PM

I will be travelling to Israel for the last two weeks of November to attend a wedding. The days immediately around the wedding are sorted already, but I have a week up my sleeve beforehand where I can do what I want. I was thinking to stay in Tel Aviv and decompress for that first week (I'm coming from many time-zones away and will be heavily jet-lagged). What low key things could the middle-aged budget traveller do? And what are accommodation options like?

I'm fit and active and happy to do a lot of walking, and I enjoy just hanging out and people-watching in cities, but am not feeling rich at this time and would prefer cheap eats and sightseeing to shopping and expensive venues. At the end of my free week I'll be heading to Jerusalem for Shabbat with the wedding party and then to Afula for the wedding, then back to Tel Aviv to fly home.

posted by i_am_joe's_spleen to Travel & Transportation (3 answers total)

TA is a great walking town, a great people watching town, and a great cheap eats town inasfar that there are excellent falafel/shawarma spots all around where you can get a delicious, enormous serving for cheap (although real restaurants are NOT cheap.) Walk down the TA beach promenade to old Jaffa, very pleasant and picturesque; walk through the Carmel market. Tuesdays and Fridays there is a wonderful art market on Nachalat Binyamin, the street running parallel to the Carmel market (you will want to buy some things, but there is a nice range of prices, no need to splurge.) Sheinkin is especially good for people watching; the whole area around there has interesting shops to window-shop. There are some inexpensive and very interesting historical museums if you want to Learn Stuff.

There are plenty of walking tours available if you want to spend a little more - I haven't used them but they seem well reviewed - look at Tripadvisor. Private guides are excellent but expensive.

If you do want to get out of the city, there are group tours easily available also on Tripadvisor, Israel is so tiny that you can see a lot on a day trip.

You might get a little rain in Nov but probably not enough to be a problem.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:10 PM on October 2, 2023

something a budget traveler should know is that the large hotels, like the ones on the beach (Dan, David, Hilton etc) may not look cheap room-rate-wise, but the breakfast they give you is going to be the biggest, tastiest buffet you've ever seen -- enough so that if you wanted, you could easily make it your only meal of the day. It definitely will make it so you want to skip lunch. So if you compare rates to a boutique place that doesn't serve a big breakfast, take that into account.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:21 PM on October 2, 2023

If you are at all into urbanism, I highly highly highly recommend a tour of the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station.

Also recommend checking out Art Space Tel Aviv
posted by brookeb at 6:00 PM on October 2, 2023