Growing up reading countless spycraft and historical novels had me fascinated by clandestine activity and past significant events. The thought of visiting the country with the ‘best’ intelligence agency in the world and the birthplace of Jesus Christ was absolutely intriguing. In all my years of solo travel, I have never been both excited and nervous in equal measures.
A small but mighty nation that conquered all its enemies in conflict – from biblical times to the Six-Day War of 1967, it seemed like Israel would be quite interesting and completely different from everywhere else I had been.
Despite having major reservations about visiting the country, I was absolutely curious to see a place of such fascinating history. Being a person of color and seeing numerous online videos on the treatment minorities receive in Israel would have been enough to dissuade anyone from embarking on such a trip.
I was not to be deterred, apparently.
Neither am I normal.
My upbringing compels me to not make any judgment about a place or people without first-hand experience. Who am I to judge anyone anyway?
Back to the story! I don’t particularly remember the exact moment I decided that I was going to Israel but I knew for a fact that I would be miserable if I didn’t satisfy my urge soon enough.
I must have been 8 beers deep (possibly more), sat on my settee on a random weeknight at the end of June when I finally grew a pair and made travel arrangements. Where would I ever really be without the elixir of life? Seven days of solo travel it is!
It was probably the copious amount of beer or I’m getting a little smarter, but right there on my couch, I thought to approach this trip differently – I wanted to focus solely on meeting and getting to know the local people rather than doing just tourist stuff. I wanted to see the city through the eyes of its residents. Of course, I intended to see the sites as well, but you get my point, right?
I feel obliged to confess that this is a very long article but I promise, in the end, you will get my point. Stick with me.
Just over 8 days later, I was on a flight to Tel Aviv via Istanbul. As much as I love to travel, I genuinely do not enjoy flying! Having music always makes it a little more bearable. Unfortunately for me, my headphones snapped right when I was getting on the flight from Istanbul. I really hoped I was simply being melodramatic because that really seemed to me like a bad omen – they were in perfect condition before I left home!
Solo travel without music can be quite miserable. Especially if you hate flying.
I landed in Tel Aviv at about 19:30 local time and getting through customs was surprisingly a breeze. A few minutes past 20:00, I had my luggage and headed for the exit to find a taxi or airport shuttle.
The first things I noticed were the heat and humidity. I remember thinking to myself “Israel must be closer to the sun”. Even at that time of night, it felt like I had just run six miles on a sunny Redondo Beach afternoon.
I must have haggled with taxi drivers for more than an hour. The amount they were requesting to get me to my hotel was insane! I’ll spare you the details but in the end, I had to give in. My hotel beckoned.
Pictures can be quite deceiving you know? I was disappointed to find out that my hotel room looked nothing like what was advertised on booking. The space between the foot of the bed and the refrigerator was enough to fit a three-year-old child and the bathroom had more space than the room itself. It was the cheapest hotel I could find and the amount I paid per night could easily get me a room in a 4-star hotel in Milan or Copenhagen.
It was probably the flight or something else but I had to make a conscious effort no to lose my shit!
So, I took a shower and was ready to get my drink on, but first I had to eat . A few minutes of walking, I found a street food stand with quick Israeli meals on offer.
One Shawarma and beer later, I was heading to my first bar when I ran into two guys that had ‘tourist’ written all over them. I stopped to ask where I could go for a few drinks and chill. They were brothers who had been traveling around Israel for a few days so I decided to do an informal sort of interview. As they were people of color, I wanted to know how they had been treated so far by the locals.
Both unanimously answered, “these people are passively racist. It ain’t obvious but you can feel it”. That made me a little uncomfortable but I wanted to experience it firsthand before making any conclusions.
Half an hour of discussions later, they invited me to a Dancehall concert somewhere in the city. I missed the majority of it due to long, drunken conversations with locals outside the venue who seemed only interested in either why I was visiting Tel Aviv or practicing their English.
The drunker I got, the more I looked forward to the hair of the dog on the beach the next day. A major hangover beckoned.
I woke up feeling like I had swallowed a feral cat the night before. My throat was extremely dry and painful from all the drinking and chain-smoking. I checked my mini-bar for something to drink but lo and behold, it was empty. With the money I paid for the room, the least I could expect was a few drinks in the fridge.
Prior to getting to Isreal, I spoke to a friend who had visited a while back. I was told to brace myself for how expensive the entire country is. I came to realize that I was obviously lying to myself when I made a ‘huge’ budget of 100 EUR per day. A quick look at my bank account showed I had spent 300 EUR in less than 24 hours.
I looked forward to many nights of eating instant noodles and being poor after this trip.
A quick shower later, I was on my way to the beach. A beach-side restaurant called Hamburg caught my eye. Hamburg offers mainly a variety of burgers (I highly recommend their lamb burger) pizza, wings, and other grilled dishes.
While trying to cure my hangover with a beer, I had the brilliant idea of conducting a very short interview with one of the restaurant’s employees. Surely, there must be a ‘smartness’ potion in beer nowadays.
Check out why he thinks every solo traveler should consider Tel Aviv as a destination:
I spent the rest of the day on the beach trying to ease the hangover. As usual, I ended up as drunk as the night before. Later that evening, my beer-infused escapade led me to a beach club along the boardwalk. Like Modest Mouse said, enough hair of the dog to make myself an entire rug.
Afterward, my next stop was the Rothschild District of Tel Aviv, the party district. I was declined entry into a couple of the nightclubs I really wanted to get into. I heard about the clubs from locals I had spoken to and online reviews as well. Being a party monster, I was absolutely devastated. Somehow a guest list appeared whenever it was my turn to get into the clubs. I remembered the subtle racism the boys I met the day before had mentioned.
Dismayed and disheartened, I headed to a random bar along the strip, the name I most probably would never remember.
I called it a relatively early night because of a pre-planned trip to Jerusalem the next day.
At approximately 07:45 the next morning, I was on my way to Jerusalem via an organized excursion that cost an arm and leg. Even at that hour, the sun was fully up and doing major damage. Thankfully the bus had air conditioning, albeit a somewhat annoying tour guide with control issues that we could only tolerate so much of.
As we got closer to Jerusalem, there were various small settlements on either side of the road which the tour guide identified as Palestinian nomads. I very much wanted to speak with these nomads but since it was a group tour, I couldn’t make any personal demands. I’m pretty sure I would have needed a translator anyway. Apparently, there was only a small mountain between us and the much-disputed Palestinian territories. We were just a few miles from the biblical city of Jericho.
Our first stop in Jerusalem was the Armenian Quarter, one of the four quarters of the walled Old City of Jerusalem. This is where I learned about the Armenian Holocaust for the first time – the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks between 1914 and 1923. I could not help but muse over how man could possibly be capable of such spectacular evil.
Our annoying tour guide was actually quite knowledgeable, to be honest, but I will forever be haunted by the knowledge of something I was ignorant about my entire life – The Armenian Holocaust.
Our next stop was the Western Wall of Jerusalem, AKA the Wailing Wall. I was extremely excited to see this place of prayer and pilgrimage, regarded as one of the two holiest places on the planet. Just some days earlier, I watched the movie Murder On The Orient Express for the second time and it featured the Wailing Wall. I can’t describe how cool I was feeling despite sweating bullets in the heat.
It was Saturday and Sabbath in Israel, no photos around the Wailing Wall were permitted, unfortunately. As I got closer to the wall, I was offered a piece of paper by a Rabbi to write my prayer request and then shove it into a hole in the wall. In case you’re curious about my prayer point, here it is:
“Dear God, please help me get my shit together”
There was no room at the wall to stick my piece of paper into due to the sheer amount of worshippers praying by it. I figured I could find a hole in the synagogue wall.
Synagogues in Jerusalem require the use of a Yarmulke, a religious headgear worn on the head by men. Having a massive head, you can only imagine the struggle to keep it on. I left the moment I started to get annoyed stares from the religious people around.
Not before sending my prayer request to God though.
Research suggests that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the site of the crucifixion and tomb of Jesus Christ. This was our next stop on the tour.
I felt like a badass knowing I was going to tell all my friends how I had been inside the tomb of Jesus. Unfortunately for me, the line to get in the tomb itself was somewhat insurmountable.
To make matters worse, the super controlling tour guide allowed us just 15 minutes in the church so I never got into the tomb. Plus having to fight your way through a crowd of enthusiastic tourists in a small space makes it somewhat impossible to take any decent photos.
A half-hour lunch break afterward, we were headed to the Dead Sea. We drove past what the tour guide identified as the border of Israel and the disputed Palestinian territories. I served in the military but still found the level of border security quite frightening – guards armed to the teeth like an invasion was imminent.
I was suddenly overwhelmed by being in a place of violent history; an area of endless conflict…from time immemorial.
Approximately 25 minutes later, we reached the Dead Sea. Fun fact; on average, seawater around the world have salinity levels of approximately 3.5 percent. The Dead Sea, however, has an extraordinary 33.7 percent!
In all my wisdom, I somehow forgot to bring swimming trunks or any towels along. I was also informed about the necessity of having flipflops due to the unbelievably high temperature of the sand. Thankfully, there were shops with these items on offer albeit at exorbitant costs.
I got off the bus feeling like I was at the hottest place on the planet. Temperatures were close to about 118 degrees Fahrenheit. It took about 30 seconds to walk from the bus to the shops, enough time for me to be covered in sweat. The tour guide asked me why I took a shower before going into the sea, LOL!
Of course, the first thing I looked for was the closest bar on the walk down to the beach. I ended up at a place called The Lowest Bar in the World.
A brief conversation with the manager and I got schooled on how the Dead Sea is 423 meters below sea level, hence the name of the bar. I was literally at the lowest bar in the world!
A beer or two later (maybe five), I realized I was in no mood to get in the water but who the hell flies all the way to Israel, gets to the Dead Sea and doesn’t get a feel of the water? Well, I must confess, I can’t swim anyway. It took a sacrifice to the gods to get me away from the bar and walking through the blistering sand and heat. Five minutes in the water was more than enough for me. I headed back to the group. It was time to head back to Tel Aviv.
The ride back was quite straightforward. Now that the ‘tourist’ part of my trip was over, I was ready to meet people and actually get a feel of the place. Two hours of relaxation and a shower later, it was Beer O’Clock for me.
My intention was to explore the city’s various options for nightlife but didn’t quite make it more than a few steps from my hotel because I stumbled on a bar that seemed to be full of life and good vibes. Why not give it a shot, I said to myself.
The extremely welcoming reception I got the moment I walked into Yeoshua Bar blew me away. Remember the conversation I had with the tourists two days earlier?
Countless beers and a few shots on the house later, I decided to surreptitiously broach the sensitive subject of racism in Israel with the very friendly Israeli and Ukrainian bartenders, Heim & Mikkel.
To my surprise, they gave some candid albeit debatable answers. To summarize both opinions, there’s an element of racism everywhere you go because people fear what they do not understand. He further added that Isreal, a country that has been involved in countless attacks on its sovereignty was naturally suspicious of outsiders.
Obviously, that wasn’t a sufficient answer as to why I was getting profiled at restaurants and bars before I got served, though.
I decided to mingle with other locals at the bar. Genuinely, I feel that one major perk of solo travel is being left with no choice but to meet new people. Extrovert or not.
This is how I met Leo, a funny, kind, feisty and intelligent young lady from Tel Aviv. We became instant best friends. Almost like we had known each other from a previous life.
I could tell our friendship would last a lifetime right there and then.
I got a call at about 01:30 from the two guys I met on my first day, inviting me to the beach bar I was at the night before.
Who am I to say no to more alcohol?
Right when I walked into the bar, I came across a man of seemingly African origin, doing some chores. Always the one to follow my gut, I invited him for a drink when he got off work. I wanted to get his point of view, albeit surreptitiously.
I definitely feel embarrassed and ashamed that I don’t remember his name but a few hours later, he joined us at the beach for a nightcap.
All I had to do was ask, “what is it like to be black in Israel?”
With what I can only describe as a woeful shake of his head, preceded by a subtle glance around, he replied, “it’s equivalent to living in hell”
According to him, systemic segregation and racism are a norm in Israel, evident by the separate living areas in the city. People of color and different ethnicities are allegedly restricted to residing on a much less affluent side of the city. Both skilled and unskilled workers of color (especially black people) are subjected to menial jobs to include dishwasher, toilet/bathroom cleaner and other jobs most educated and qualified people would find demeaning.
I asked if there was any visible evidence of this. “Have you come across any black waiters or waitresses in all the restaurants you’ve been so far?”, he asked. He implored me to look around the beach bar, La Mer, and the surrounding establishments. To be honest, his point was quite evident. I definitely couldn’t begrudge him that.
He concluded by mentioning the unfair treatment by the judicial system, police brutality and random attacks on black people by Israeli citizens.
I went to bed pondering the contradiction of everything I had learned from all three days in Tel Aviv so far.
Oh, I was really looking forward to this one! It was such a beautiful day to ride in a hot air balloon. My destination was the famous Hayarkon Park located in the northern part of Tel Aviv.
The equally famous Yarkon River flows through the sizeable park, all the way down to the Mediterranean Sea.
As I ventured into the park, I heard a tiny but firm voice call out questioningly in my direction, “I speak English?”.
This strange question came from a boy that I guessed must have been seven years old. It took a few seconds and a repeat of the question for me to finally understand. He wanted to know if I spoke English!
The boy, named Ahmed, invited me to join his family for coffee. Out of curiosity and the randomness of it, I obliged albeit after my ride in the balloon. With broken English and hand gestures, he described where I’d find them.
The balloon ride lasted all of 15 minutes. It was bitterly disappointing. Not only was it so short, but I also had to put my camera lens through a hole in the safety apparatus (it spanned the entire passenger area) to get an unobstructed photo. Getting the right angle was pretty much impossible. $23 down the drain.
Balloon ride over, I set out to find my little friend, Ahmed.
As I approached the group, he came running towards me with another little boy (whom I later found out was his cousin.)
In my entire life, I had never met strangers so welcoming.
It felt like I had known them forever. I was showered with food and snacks and also got to learn a lot about the large family that consisted of parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Ahmed’s father was a doctor with multiple PHDs who was very comfortable speaking English.
He inadvertently became the translator.
They were a Palestinian family and required special permission to enter Israel due to obvious reasons.
In the end, I felt absolutely privileged to have met this family, as unexpected as it was. Ahmed’s father informed me that his son had called out to me simply because he wanted to practice his English.
How cute!
I spent the rest of the day in my tiny hotel room. Later that night, I met up with my new best friend, Leo at Yeoshua Bar. I am ashamed to admit that she drank me under the table because that hurts my reputation!
With no plans for the entire day whatsoever, I thought to go with the flow and follow my feet.
A quick look around the entrance to the hotel and there it was. A Lime Scooter for rent! I swiftly logged on to the Lime app on my phone, activated the scooter and was on my way! This is simply the best and most affordable way to explore Tel Aviv.
From the city center to the ancient port city of Jaffa, through Nevez Zedek and stopping for a quick beer every now and then, I explored the majority of Tel Aviv in a few hours.
As I approached my hotel, I decided to have ‘one last’ beer at a cafe/hotel (unfortunately I don’t remember the name).
Three beers or so later, I struck up a conversation with a very beautiful woman of Arab origin.
One thing led to another and we got to the topic of racism, both being people of color and all. In her opinion, racism is quite evident in Israel but more towards people of certain ethnicities – Arabs and Ethiopians. A series of violent protests had occurred the week before, as a matter of fact. Apparently, an Ethiopian man was ‘accidentally’ executed by an Israeli police officer during a confrontation of some sort. Tensions were seemingly very high.
I figured I might as well do another video interview as to why Tel Aviv should be considered a great destination for solo travel. Dikla, one of the senior employees at the hotel excitedly obliged my request. Check out what she has to say below
At sundown, I headed back to my hotel to relax and prepare to hang out with Leo, Heim, and Mikkel till the early hours of the morning.
My last day in the city literally went by like a blur. Waking up starving but with no desire to eat the hotel’s “intercontinental” breakfast that consisted of bread, milk, and cereal meant I was going to have to wait till around lunch hour to find a restaurant.
I tend to always find great oriental restaurants everywhere I go. Honestly, I am convinced I was Asian in my previous life. Chooka Sushi & Wok was by far the best Asian restaurant I ate at in Tel Aviv and I highly recommend you check it out if you’re ever in the city.
I spent the rest of the day watching the world go by and simply relaxing. Yet, the thought of everything I had learned firsthand about Israel was bouncing around in my head.
The highlight of my last day was witnessing one of the most beautiful sunsets I had ever seen.
I knew this moment was coming and lord knows I dreaded it. There’s always a probability of never seeing these new friends again.
Saying goodbye to Leo was the hardest because she had become such a good friend and drinking partner. You can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when she and Heim presented me with goodbye gifts.
I left Yeoshua Bar in the early hours of the morning, four hours before my flight home.
My trip to Israel reaffirmed my belief in reserving judgment until actual firsthand experience. Racism clearly exists in Israel, as in many countries around the world. In my opinion, it is more systemic than general. This is evident in the friends that I made and the absolute curiosity from the locals about a foreigner like me.
The benefits of visiting Israel definitely outweigh whatever reservations you may have.
Just be openminded, albeit cautious, and put in some effort to make a local connection. After all, it’s the reason why we wander.
Cheers!
