Negev

This historic desert environment is home to age-old copper mines that saw ancient camel caravans traverse its sprawling lands. Today, travelers can enjoy an enormous menu of outdoor recreation options, from four-wheel-drive Jeep desert tours, to ATV and dirt bike rentals. Or, for a change of pace, tell clients to sample a little of yesterday and today with a mountain bike tour, contrasted by a camel ride hosted by real Bedouins. For clients up for the challenge, there’s also desert hiking and rock climbing.

The Dead Sea

While your clients might not be aware, the Dead Sea area is home to a variety of nature preserves and parks, lush with vegetation, waterfalls, pools and wildlife—the perfect place for an active vacationer to enjoy everything from a placid and serene walk through the Ein Gedi Botanical Gardens, to more extreme pursuits such as rappelling and serious rock climbing.

Visitors enjoy this nature reserve as it provides a variety of active experiences, from viewing bird sanctuaries and desert wildlife such as the nubian ibex, to hiking trails that take visitors past waterfalls, springs, caves, canyons, and even an early Bronze Age temple. There are basically two walking tours:

• The David Spring nature reserve walking tour is about a 2-mile walk that includes a short trek to two waterfalls and can take between one-and-a-half to three hours.
  
  
• The Arugut reserve is adjacent to the David reserve and includes a series of shallow pools perfect for bathing. The approximately 2.5-mile circular hike can take up to four hours, with a marked path leading to a beautiful waterfall.

Other active vacation features include:

• Mount Sodom, a 7-mile-long geological ridge of pure salt reputed to be the infamous Biblical city that perished with Gomorrah. It also features unique salt pillars,dubbed Lot’s Wife, whom, Biblical legend says, became a pillar of salt when she looked back on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
  
  
• The Flour Cave, a 98-ft.-long underground passage created by water erosion of the softlimestone located west of Mount Sodom.
  
  
• Masada National Park, with its famous mountaintop fortress that looms as an eternal symbol of Jewish history and heritage, is also a place with fabulous views of the Dead Sea and Judean Desert, particularly as you’re hiking up the serpentine path to the top.
  
  
• Explore Qumran National Park and its ancient caves and settlement on the northern shores of the Dead Sea.