Israel trip under 15k- possible?

amother

↑ Nemesia ↓

Yesterday at 11:31 pm

amother Firethorn wrote:

Its so hard to make pessach at home with all your things and your year to year routine. I cant imagine doing it buy myself in a new country. Would you travel with a food processor and all your things? Buy everything new to use it once and take it back home?

My family has been doing this for a bunch of years instead of high season of sukkos and summer to spend time with us and its really the cheapest time.

They do things very very simply, and usually part of the agreement allows them to use some of the kitchen stuff. Something like a food processor is totally skipped, instead of kugels there are lots of basic potatoe dishes. They come early, they rent places already pesachdig, and eat out or in parks in the weeks prior. Usually they do one meal in a legit restaurant, and the other two are more like the bakery for breakfast and deli sandwiches in the park or on whatever trip they took.

They go to Osher ad and shaari revacha and stock up on pesach food, and like I said the food is usually very delicious and festive but simple food.
The menu could be something like:
Fresh fruit cut fruit appetizer
2 fresh salads
lam chops
hasselback potatoes
roasted brocolli
sorbet ( bought)

Nothing that needs specail equipment. And they usually rent or swap something that someone else turns over. Recent years they house swap and car swap but pay someone to kasher and turn over. They dont turn over at home.

My mother finds it easier then pesach at home to because when they do an activity that she isnt interested in (shooting range last year, or atv's) she stays home to cook without anyone in her way.

↑ Bnei Berak 10 ↓

Today at 12:56 am

amother Valerian wrote:

If you go for more than 2 weeks it pays to get a monthly ravkav. This allows you to travel daily all over Israel on trains and buses and light rails for a daily fee.
It’s about 100$ per person. Children less.
There are buses and train stations everywhere. I have one with my picture and id. So if I lose it I don’t lose the money I put on it. Every time I visit, I charge a “chofshi chodshi” on it. The only place I take a taxi is to kever rochel.
Also if you eat out in small falafel places, it’s not really more expensive than cooking at home, when you compare the exchange rate.

ITA
There is no need to use a taxi anywhere.

ora_43 ↓

Today at 1:44 am

I think it would really be a shame to come all the way over here and not eat out or go to attractions. If it were me I'd rather cut pretty much any other part of the budget - stay for fewer days, or in a cheaper location, etc - rather than get here and have the trip itself be meh.

Don't get me wrong there's a lot of nice things that can be done for free or for cheap. Nature hikes. Walking around old city, the shuk, seeing the Kotel (Jerusalem). Some national and historic sites (eg the Knesset and Supreme Court have free tours). IIRC the Israel Museum has a few hours a week where kids get in for free.

But it would be really nice to have about $1.5k for eating and activities. There's so much kosher food here that doesn't exist in most places, when else are you going to eat kosher Ethiopian food or Kurdish food? Or kosher 'cheeseburgers'? And Jerusalem is more fun if you can go places like the Israel Museum, the aquarium, or the Kotel Tunnels tour (none of which are super expensive).

↑ ora_43

Today at 1:46 am

I think your budget is doable if you:

- come during the off season
- stay somewhere cheapish (downtown Jerusalem actually has some fairly cheap places, mostly near the Shlomtzion Hamalka area)
- get an apartment where you can cook about half the food yourself
- mostly use public transportation

and of course

- adjust the length of your visit to your budget

↑ Bnei Berak 10 ↓

Today at 1:54 am

ora_43 wrote:

If one is coming from the US at doesn't pay off to go on a very short trip. Two weeks is really not a lot.
OP you need to take your time to do research. With good planning it seems it can be done.