Travel Math: How New Olim in Israel Approach Family Travel

When I first made aliyah with my family, as a teenager,  'travel' meant one thing: going home, reuniting with Bubby, Zayde, and my bff’s, indulging in the familiar comfort of Mexican food, giant bags of candy, fitting in, and feeling normal for a welcome change.

Every flight out of Ben Gurion was a flight toward what felt in the first years after making aliyah like normalcy, back to the version of home that I only wished I could return to. My mother, being my mother, was not going to let us fly transatlantic without wringing every last drop of value out of the ticket. She'd find deals on European airlines with stopovers, and suddenly we were spending two or three days in Amsterdam, or Paris, on the way to or from JFK. Europe wasn't a destination, but a nice, long, usually freezing, layover.

That was the shape of our travels for years. America was the point. Eventually, in my 20s, I was accepted into art school in the US, and I ended up returning to the US to complete my BFA. Now I was the one planning those trips, the other way around. Missing my friends back in Israel, visiting on breaks, while looking for fun layovers to break up the long flight, to scour museums, art galleries, and vintage markets for art school inspiration.

Eventually, when I started having kids, the math flipped again. Five tickets, transatlantic, plus the fourteen hour travel day with small humans attached to me, was mostly out of our reach. We've done it exactly twice as a family. Twice, in all these years. Not because we don't want to see family more often, but everyone understands that the cost of getting everyone there, in both money and functioning nervous systems, is huge.

Europe, meanwhile, quietly became the default. A few hours in the air is all it takes to land in a fabulous city, with barely any time change at all. Traveling, especially with kids, will always be pricey, but we can get actually get the whole family to Europe for about half of what one transatlantic ticket costs (pre 10/7 low cost airfare).

Because of the cost and travel time, US travel is mostly summer travel or Pesach travel, when the kids have longer breaks from school. Since we are always generously hosted, we can easily stay for longer periods. In Europe, we try to take a week, but four full days is also a perfect time to get to know a new city, try new things, and relax from the pressure cooker that is Israel.

None of this cheap-flight math existed by accident. A little over a decade ago, Israel signed an Open Skies agreement with the EU, phased in gradually over the years that followed, that opened the country up to easyJet, Ryanair, Wizz Air, and other low-cost carriers that had barely any access to the market before. Until then, El Al and a small handful of legacy airlines controlled the routes with far less competition pushing prices down. Open Skies is the actual reason a family of five can treat Athens or Budapest as a real weekend option instead of a splurge.

Since October 7, that math has gotten harder again. A long list of foreign carriers have pulled out of Israel entirely or suspended service for extended stretches, and the pattern tightened further with the renewed fighting with Iran in 2026. Most US carriers, United, Delta, and American among them, still haven't fully resumed regular service, and low-cost European staples like Ryanair and easyJet have been some of the slowest to return as well. When foreign airlines sit out, Israeli carriers end up carrying more of the load with far less competition. Israeli families in desperate need of a breather outside of the war zone are paying the price. Many families feel blessed if their flights take off at all, let alone, count the cost of the tickets. Our family had 3 separate vacations canceled due to sudden outbreaks of war over the past 3 years. Hopefully 4th time’s a charm? For our fourth try at leaving the country, we opted to splurge on El Al, who has been the most reliable carrier through this difficult season in Israel.

Planning a Bar or Bat Mitzvah Trip from Israel

Since I was 12 when I first made aliyah, the bat mitzvah year, I had a party and even read some torah portions in an elegant ceremony at the Hurva Synagogue in the Old City, not like my friends back home who were having more elaborate productions, with the girls reading a full parsha at shul. In Israel, girls aren't invited to read from the torah, and that was one of the first of many shocks to my 12 year old former JAP system. The Israeli friends we made in our first few months explained that bat mitzvah girls have a big birthday party when they are 12, not 13 like the boys. If the parents want to splurge, our new friends explained,  they can take their daughter on a nice trip to Paris, Rome, or London. This was our first year in the country, and we were still figuring things out. Coming from the US in the 1980s, a trip to Europe seemed extravagant and unnecessary. I don't think my parents realized how attainable that actually was compared to what they gifted me instead: a ticket on El Al to be with my BFF on her bat mitzvah weekend, which was truly priceless.

Fast forward a couple of decades, as parents, we have fully embraced the Israeli bar/bat mitzvah trip concept. We celebrated each of our kid's graduation from 6th grade and bar/bat mitzvah with a huge family celebration in London. We have discovered London as the city every young person can find themself in: concerts, shopping, ice skating, fabulous free museums, movies in castles, vintage markets and secondhand shopping, cozy Airbnb flats, plays, all in English. We even participated in a bake-off with my youngest daughter who loves to bake and watch bake-offs on TV, not to mention The Hard Rock Cafe, tea parties, and the Tube. The list of things to do with kids of any age in London is never ending.

The Cultural Gap: Why Israeli Families Travel Abroad

An American family who visits Israel regularly once commented that they'd never seen so many people travel abroad as frequently as Israelis do. That one comment clashes with so many paradigms at once. It's true that international travel isn't common in the US, and certainly not taking time off of work. In Israel, we have several days off for the many Jewish holidays throughout the year. Shockingly, we do work through the winter. Although kids have the week of Hanukkah off of school, workplaces are open, and the workday is regular throughout December, differing from Europe and North America where December is the main holiday month.

You will discover that August is a month that although doesn't coincide with Jewish holidays, many Israelis will take a family vacation this month. Taking days off of work in August isn't frowned upon. In terms of work, this is the best month to take off. It's the month when the workforce slows down, and many businesses all but close for parts of August, and don't return to full force until after the Chagim, that is, Sukkot, which can be several to seven weeks later.

Americans can't fathom the pressure cooker of this small country. The close-knit families, the close-knit neighbors, miluim, the inevitable mourning of loss, coupled with the anxiety most of us drink from the collective tap, makes these frequent trips abroad part of our coping mechanism. Yes, frequent trips are costly for young families, but there is a reason so many Israelis travel. It is part of our survival and resilience routine.

When you choose to vacation in Israel, you will soon find out that the cost is much higher and the value is not the same.

Best Family Vacation Destinations from Israel: A Realistic Guide

Here's the part that surprises people who haven't run the numbers yet. If I had to rank the close-Europe options for a family, this is how I'd stack them.

Quick Reference: Best Destinations for Israeli Families

London. Top notch destination, and the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Trip is exactly why. It's the city where every stage of a family actually fits, tea parties, museums and shopping, plays, concerts and vintage markets, all without a language barrier to manage. The flight runs around five hours, and summer is genuinely the most expensive time to fly this route, with fares climbing well above what you'd pay to Rome or Athens in the same season. It rewards booking early and flying outside the peak weeks of July and August when possible. Even at summer prices, it's nowhere near transatlantic cost or transatlantic exhaustion, and the sheer range of what the city offers a family across every age makes it worth the premium.

Rome, and Italy generally. This is the destination Israelis keep coming back to, not just Rome but the rest of Italy too, Sicily, the Amalfi coast, Puglia, Tuscany, Florence, and Venice. The flight to Rome runs close to four hours, still a manageable day with kids, and fares can be surprisingly reasonable outside of peak weeks. Summer pushes prices up since it's peak season for everyone, not just us, but it's still a fraction of what a US ticket costs. Rome has the advantage of feeling like a real trip, ruins, food, the elegant Jewish ghetto, without the travel day eating your vacation, and once you're in Italy the pull toward the southern towns and beaches is strong.

Greece. This is the closest of the four, just over two hours in the air, roughly the length of a domestic US flight, with multiple carriers flying it daily. Greece used to be genuinely cheap before the euro, and while prices have climbed since, it's still one of the most affordable destinations out there for what you get, beach days, island hopping, mountain villages, real city life in Athens, and food that's hard to beat. Any budget can have a great time here. Two hours is short enough that you can leave in the morning and be on a beach by early afternoon, no lost day, no real jet lag, since there's no time difference to speak of.

Austria, the Black Forest, and that whole region. Vienna runs about three and a half to four hours in the air, with fares that are often gentler than the bigger-name cities, especially outside of summer. Munich is a similar flight time and opens up the Black Forest and the Alps for families who want mountains, lakes, and storybook towns instead of another big capital. It's the pick for a family that's already done London, Rome, and Greece and wants something quieter.

All four of these, together, cost less in flight time and often in dollars than what we'd spend getting the family to one city in the US. That's the whole point. Europe became the option once the family got bigger and the American tickets got more expensive.

Worth a mention alongside Austria and the Black Forest: Budapest and Prague, two of the most reliably affordable trips Israelis take. Budapest is a similar flight to Vienna, around three and a half hours, and often turns up some of the cheapest fares in Europe if you're flexible with dates. Prague runs closer to four hours and carries a bit more of a premium, but both cities deliver thermal baths, castles, and old-world streets for a fraction of what London or Rome will cost you.

Looking back, I don’t think my mother ever imagined that one day I’d be debating whether to spend a long weekend in Copenhagen, Florence, or the Greek islands. She was simply trying to make a twelve-hour flight a little easier. But that’s the funny thing about Aliyah. We often spend so much time thinking about what we’re leaving behind that it’s easy to miss what we’re moving toward. Years later, you may find yourself planning museum trips in Italy, a family adventure in Denmark, or a beach holiday in Greece, wondering how those places became so close. One of the quieter gifts of living in Israel is that the world doesn’t get smaller, it simply gets rearranged.

Safe travels.