Israel National Trail: Five-Day Highlights

On the desert days — Ein Avdat, the Ramon Crater, the Eilat Mountains — there is no reliable water between marked points. Carry far more than feels necessary (in warm weather think 4–5 litres per person per day), start at first light, and be walking before the heat.

Through-hikers survive the Negev stretches by driving out ahead of time and burying water caches at the overnight points, marked and GPS-logged. If you spot buried or stashed bottles anywhere on the desert days, they are someone’s calculated survival margin, not abandoned gear. The trail’s one absolute rule: never take cached water that isn’t yours.

Autumn and spring are the trail’s seasons. The desert days are dangerous in high summer (June–September), and in winter flash floods can close the canyons — check forecasts before any wadi day, and never enter a canyon when rain is forecast upstream.

Thru-hikers starting in spring walk south-to-north — desert first, before the real heat arrives — while autumn starters go north-to-south and reach the Negev in the cool months. Your highlights trip can steal the same trick: put the Ramon and Eilat days at the cooler end of your window and the green Galilee days at the warmer end. Either way, tradition says the desert end finishes with your boots off in the Red Sea.

This is a highlights itinerary, not a continuous walk: the Galilee days run from Tzfat, the desert days from Sde Boker and Mitzpe Ramon, the finale from Eilat. A rental car is the comfortable option; intercity buses work with more planning.

No permit is needed for the trail itself, but sections pass through nature reserves and national parks — Ein Avdat among them — that charge a small entry fee and close before dusk. Time those days so you’re out of the reserve gates before closing.

The trail is marked its entire length with the INT’s white-blue-orange blaze. On the highlights days you’ll also cross other marked trails — at junctions, follow the tricolour, not the nearest paint.

Trail angels famously host through-hikers, but for a five-day highlights trip it’s simpler to book accommodation in advance in the three base towns and day-hike from them.

Crossing the makhtesh from Mitzpe Ramon is the most remote day of the five — no services, big exposure, huge reward. Keep it for a day with a good forecast, tell someone your plan, and carry your full water load from the start.

The INT’s malachei shvil (‘trail angels’) are locals who host through-hikers with a bed, a shower, sometimes dinner — a genuine institution, with current hosts listed on the trail community sites. The code: contact ahead rather than turning up, accept what’s offered without demanding more, and leave a contribution or real help behind. On a five-day highlights trip, book your own beds and leave the angels’ floor space for the through-hikers who need it.

The INT community groups and forums carry the intel no guidebook can: which springs are flowing, which reserve trails are closed, where last week’s hikers cached and camped. Post your desert-day plan a few days ahead and you’ll usually get current, specific answers from people who just walked it. In a country this small, the trail grapevine is nearly real-time.