Travel Israel – How much to Budget for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

travel Israel budget

Whilst there are many free things to do including beaches and exploring the Old Towns of Jaffa and Jerusalem, Israel is not cheap by UK standards. Today’s blog is all about how much you should budget for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Flights from Manchester to Tel Aviv with Easyjet

What I was most proud of was the cost of my Flights from Manchester to Tel Aviv. I used Easyjet and picked up flights for £173.98 return.

However, I actually used my Nectar points from Sainsbury’s shopping to get £70 off, and paid just £109.98!

easyJet booking reference ERGJ33Q
Number of Nectar points spent 15500
 
Balance paid £109.98
easyJet booking reference ERGJ33QNumber of Nectar points spent 15500 Balance paid £109.98easyJet booking reference ERGJ33QNumber of Nectar points spent 15500 Balance paid £109.98
easyJet booking reference ERGJ33Q
Number of Nectar points spent 15500
 
Balance paid £109.98
easyJet booking reference ERGJ33Q
Number of Nectar points spent 15500
 
Balance paid £109.98

My costs for 2 weeks in Israel: Budget for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

We were lucky enough to get an air BnB for around £25 per night, and that was sharing a twin room. Hotels can be anything from £40 a night right up to a few hundred.
Get £30 off your first Air BnB here!
Food is quite expensive in Israel. We found that going out for a meal was around UK prices, and a lot of that could be to do with the drop in value of the pound since Brexit, our host tells us.
We spent 80 NIS each on Pizza and wine, which works out at around £20. Desserts can be very expensive in Tel Aviv – around 40 NIS, which works out at £10 for a piece of cake!
I took £400 in Israeli cash with me on the trip, which was mainly used for food and travel tickets. I also put most of our accommodation on my American Express credit card, which was another few hundred pounds. Bare in mind that, although we did tours, we got 2 for free through TBEX and two for 50% discount through travel Israel as bloggers. This obviously helped a lot with our budgeting.

Tel Aviv from Jaffa
Tel Aviv bay viewed from Jaffa

Mid-Range Budget for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – £100 per day

What I would recommend for a mid-range budget in Israel is…

  • At least £25-30 per night for a cheap Air BnB (shared) or a hostel or cheap hotel.
  • At least £30-£40 per day food budget – this would cover cereals from a supermarket for breakfast, a light lunch (pastries or falafel and main course meal out in a basic restaurant).
  • An orange juice on the sea front is usually 12 NIS – about £3.
  • You will need approximately £30-£40 per day to travel or pay for attractions (e.g. train tickets, museum entrance, site seeing)
  • That’s an overall budget of around £100 per day.

Cheap Budget for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – Hostels and Supermarkets £50 a day!

If you really want to cut the budget cheaply, you can skip paid for attractions and tours for the free stuff, trade meals out for supermarket shopping and cut that in half to around £50 a day. Free things to do in Israel…

  • Tel Aviv Beach
  • Tel Aviv Street Art and Carmel Market
  • Tel Aviv promenade walk to Jaffa, Old Town
  • Explore Jaffa and Jerusalem’s old towns
  • Dead sea (if you have transport)
  • Religious sites – Mosques and Churches

St Peter’s Church Jaffa – you don’t need money to explore this cool stuff!
For accommodation, you can go for a dorm room somewhere like Overstay – TLV Backpackers hostel, where you can get a dorm bed in a shared room for around £14-£16 a night.
I highly recommend Israeli street food, which is cheap and delicious, particularly the Falafel. You can pick some up for around 17 NIS, which is around £4.

Tours of Jerusalem Old City

Booking tours in Jerusalem can be pricey. You can save money on tours by doing a self guided tour of Jerusalem’s Old City.  There are also free guided walking tours with Sandeman’s.
Scrimping and saving in these ways will reduce your budget to around £50 a day or even less.

Further Reading on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

You might also like to read about the Street Art of Tel Aviv. If you’d like to know more about the city’s history, check out this fantastic post on Jerusalem Must See Historical Sites.

If you are looking at blogs on solo travel in Israel then check out these blog posts:

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