Travel,Israel,With,Tom,Thumb,T travel,insurance Travel To Israel With Tom Thumb

Torres del Paine is among the biggest of Chile’s national parks, occupying almost 600,000 acres (242,000 ha) of land in the south on the border with Argentina. It is also among the most important, receiving a significant proportion of domes Like any American, traveling occasionally is just what I love doing and I bet you share the same stuff with me. But traveling does not mean that you would be safe. Escaping from our job and other stressful activities is just something that w

Today, Norm Goldman, Editor of sketchandtravel.com and bookpleasures.com is pleased to have as our guest travel writer and author Tom Thumb. For the past ten years Tom has traveled extensively in Israel, South America, Spain and the Far East, supplying various magazines with freelance material and collecting material for his idea of a rougher type of guide to traveling the world. He is the author of the a travelogue Hand to Mouth to India.Presently, he devotes a great deal of his time to his own project-an alternative travel guide-ROAD JUNKY.COM.Tom is here to talk about one of the countries he has a great interest in, Israel, where recently he had lived for six months.Good day Tom and thanks for agreeing to participate in our interview.Norm:Tom, first please tell our readers something about ROAD JUNKY.COM.Tom:In all my years on the road I never found a guide book that ever prepared me for the experience of going to a new country. There would be the usual dry paragraphs about the history and cuisine of a place, followed by 2 kilos of restaurant and hotel listings. With Roadjunky.com I wanted to put the spirit back into travel and give a subjective introduction to the world that would really inspire people to try and understand the places they visit. The Lonely Planet and the Rough Guides started out this way but as they've become more successful they've given way to the market of consumer travel, hyping every destination to the max. Roadjunky.com is pretty much the black sheep of the online guide books, upsetting the politically correct and providing a real resource for travelers who want to go beyond the clichés. We cover individual destinations, culture and work around the world.Norm:I understand you have traveled to Israel several times. Please tell our readers why Israel attracts you?Tom:I first met Israelis when I used to live in India. As backpackers they were a breed apart, always living and traveling as a group. Many people found them to be quite obnoxious and rude but for me there was so much more than that beyond the surface.Hanging out with Israelis I learned how to really share what I had and how to communicate directly, without fear of the response. They were always a tribe but it wasn't that hard to be accepted within their ranks, just to take them for who they were. Norm:Israel is filled with some of the most fascinating venues in the world. If you had to choose 8 of the most unique and romantic ones, which ones would they be and why?Tom:Okay, so it's a small country but you find an amazing variety of places within a n hour or two in the car.Tel Aviv remains one of my favourite cities in the world. It's small enough to walk around and has a beach facing the West Coast which means that the sunset can be part of your daily routine.The population is young and vibrant and, though it can be noisy and dirty at times, there are neighborhoods full of character and markets that remind you that you're in the Middle East.Jerusalem is in a world of its own, a city made out of stone but as modern as anywhere else you might find. There are neighbourhoods of Orthodox Jews in their black suits, frowning at all the secular Israelis, and there's a real feeling of a frontier town.You head into the old city and enter through the walls and you're reminded that this part of the world belongs to the Arabs too, as you head down through the narrow stone streets to eat the best hummous in the country.It's a tense place though and though I love to visit it would be too heavy for me to ever live there.The Dead Sea is like another planet, with a fierce red desert all around and this salty lake where you can do all the postcard poses of reading your newspaper whilst in the water. There are spots where you can find fresh water streams which make the heat and salt a little more bearable but there are flies which take chunks out of you. A very intense, rewarding place.The Negev desert isn't the kind with miles of rolling dunes but it's immense and silent, a amazing place to go hiking and it's dotted with small kibbutzim where you can take shade and water. Israelis drive out here all the time, especially in the winter when they hope to see some flash floods.Up north the Sea of Galilee, known in Israel as the Kinnaret, is where you can try your hand at walking on water. The lake is enormous and up here the rolling hills start, dotted with biblical rocks.Much of Israel is all about village and kibbutz life. One of the most scenic is Rosh Pina, not far from the Kinnaret. It's set on a hill and known for it's bohemian feel. A good place to cool off and pick some olives and oranges.The Golan heights are where you're looking over the border of Lebanon and wondering if Moses didn't stop a few hundred miles too far south. This is as close as you find to a mountain in Israel and the landscape becomes much more green with sweeping views of all the valleys.Lastly, I always like walking around Jaffa, the Arabic city from which Tel Aviv sprung. It's walking distance along the beach from Tel Aviv and is famous for its flea markets where you can find more miscellaneous junk and antiques than just about anywhere in the world. Norm:How easy or difficult is it to get around Israel by bus, train and car?Tom:The soldiers depend on the bus system to get around and visit their families at the weekend so it's a very fluid, well organized network. The trains work well but don't cover all the country but the best way to get around is by car. Israel is so small that you can drive from north to south in about 7 hours and when driving through the desert you can get out and enjoy the view wherever you feel like.Norm:How safe is travel in Israel?Tom:It always makes people laugh when I tell them how safe I feel in Israel. This is one of the only countries in the world where I feel comfortable to walk out of my apartment at 3am in the morning and know that nothing will happen to me. There's no real drinking culture here and almost zero street crime.Sure, there's the risk of bomb threats but you can't live your life in fear and the odds of anything happening to you are minute. Not that that changes anything for the people who do meet with these tragedies&Norm:Do you have to know Hebrew to get along in Israel?Tom:No. Israelis are some of the most educated people in the world and are often master linguists. Many still speak the languages of their European ancestors and there's a considerable American cultural influence here that means that almost everyone under the age of 50 speaks good, if not excellent English. Learning a bit of Hebrew won't hurt but you'll almost never get stuck without it.Norm:How expensive or inexpensive is it to travel in Israel? Tom:Israel is as expensive as Southern Europe when it comes to things like accommodation and going out. For food and clothes though it's way cheaper and you can live here comfortably for around $800 a month. It's always a little more pricey for the traveler of course but still a budget of $40-80 would be reasonable depending on your level of luxury.Norm:If you had two weeks to vacation in Israel, where would you go and how long would you stay in each place?Tom:Fortunately, as the country is so small it's easy to see just about everywhere in two weeks. Many people coming here will be interested in seeing many of the biblical locations in Palestinian territory and it's certainly a worthwhile experience. To my mind it's not Israel any more but to get a better understanding of this troubled country it's as well to see both sides.I would spend some time getting lost in Tel Aviv before heading across to Jerusalem for a couple of days to explore the stunning old city. There's a beautiful drive through the desert from there to the Dead Sea and then down to the Negev desert.By then you'd probably be dying for a view of something green and you could head up north to get an idea of village life and get some perspective on your trip.Norm:When is the best time to travel to Israel?Tom:Spring and autumn are the best as there's no rain and you don't die of the humidity. Probably April and May are my favorite times to be in Israel as the trees are in blossom and there's a mood of optimism in the air as everyone comes out of their houses after the winter.Norm:Is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered?Tom:Although a hard place to live, Israel is one of the most interesting countries I have ever had the chance to see. The people are intelligent and warm and the culture represents some of the best of the East-West exchange they're as intellectual as Europeans but as warm as the Arabs. Just take a sense of humor with you for when you meet the inevitable Israeli chutzpah!Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors.For more information about travel to Israel CLICK HERE