Golan Heights Tour

The first stop on the Golan Heights tour is Tel Megiddo, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most significant archaeological tells in the Levant. The Book of Revelation names this place Armageddon, from the Hebrew Har Megiddo (Mount Megiddo).

You will walk through layers of civilisation stacked on top of each other: a 9th-century BCE water system descending 36 metres into the rock, an ancient Canaanite altar, and the remains of King Solomon gates. From the top of the tell, the Jezreel Valley spreads out below you, exactly the strategic vantage point that made this site contested for over 3,000 years. More background on Tel Megiddo.

From an elevated viewpoint above the Sea of Galilee, you see the entire lake spread out below: 21 kilometres long, 13 kilometres wide, sitting 213 metres below sea level. This is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth and, after the Dead Sea, the second-lowest body of water on the planet.

The town of Tiberias is visible on the western shore. Mount Arbel rises sharply on the southwest. On a clear day you can pick out the basalt cliffs of the Golan plateau on the eastern shore, where your Golan Heights tour is heading next. The Sea of Galilee region features in many Gospel accounts of Jesus ministry. See our Christian Jerusalem Tour for a deeper dive into the holy land geography.

Hamat Gader sits in a valley along the Jordan border, surrounded by Roman-era ruins and fed by five natural hot springs that have been used since antiquity. The Romans built one of the largest bathhouses in the eastern empire here, with a hypocaust system, mosaic-floored caldarium, and colonnaded approaches still walkable today. The hot springs are mineral-rich and reach 50 Celsius at the source.

This stop on the Golan Heights tour gives you time to walk through the archaeological park, see the alligator farm (one of the largest in the Middle East), and take in the dramatic valley setting with Jordan visible across the river. For a different angle on Israeli hot springs and mineral water, see our Dead Sea Relaxation Tour.

The Shalom Observatory (Mitzpe Shalom, Peace Vista) sits 480 metres above the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee. From 1948 to 1967 this exact spot served as a Syrian outpost, used to shell Israeli kibbutzim on the plains below. Today it is a peaceful viewpoint with a grove of olive trees and panoramic views toward the Kingdom of Jordan, the Yarmuk River, the Jordan Valley, and the hills of Gilead.

Your Golan Heights tour guide walks you through the strategic significance of the position and how the geography of the Golan shaped the conflicts of 1948, 1967, and 1973. On a clear day you can see all the way to Mount Tabor on one side and the basalt cliffs of Gilead on the other. More on the IDF and the Six Day War.

The reconstructed Talmudic-era village at Katzrin shows you what Jewish life in the Golan looked like during the 4th to 7th centuries. The centrepiece is an ornate basalt synagogue, one of the best-preserved ancient synagogues in Israel, with intricate carved doorways and a clear ground plan.

Around it, archaeologists have reconstructed several houses with their olive presses, wine presses, ovens, and weaving rooms, using only materials and techniques that would have been available at the time. This Golan Heights tour stop sits in the modern town of Katzrin, the regional capital of the Israeli Golan. More on Katzrin and the Talmudic period.

Mount Bental is the dramatic climax of the Golan Heights tour. This 1,165-metre dormant volcano sits directly on the Israeli-Syrian armistice line and was the site of one of the most consequential tank battles in modern military history, the 1973 Battle of the Valley of Tears. You can descend into the underground IDF bunker system and walk through the trenches that Israeli soldiers held against the Syrian advance.

Above ground, the Coffee Anan cafe (a pun on both the Hebrew word for cloud and the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan) serves coffee at altitude, and steel sculptures by a local kibbutz artist line the path to the summit. From the top, the view extends across 50 kilometres of Syrian territory, with the ghost town of Quneitra visible directly below and Damascus 60 kilometres distant. On clear winter days, the snow-capped Mount Hermon is visible to the north.

The drive south takes around two and a half hours, with a brief comfort stop along the way. Expected drop-off times: Tel Aviv 19:30 to 20:00, Jerusalem 20:00 to 20:30, Herzliya 19:30 to 20:00. You will be dropped at your hotel or at a central drop-off point depending on traffic.

Your Golan Heights tour guide will share dinner recommendations for your home city and answer any final questions about what you have seen during the day. If today has whetted your appetite for Israel and Jordan, ask our team about combining a Golan Heights tour with our Petra Day Tour from Tel Aviv on a longer trip.