Come with me into the Israel most people never see.
We're off the road most of the time, in the open jeep. You'll come back dusty, which is the point. We stop a lot: at a ruin, at a spring, sometimes just to boil water on the tailgate for coffee, or tea from sage we picked on the way.
Wherever we stop, you'll learn what happened there, on the ground where it happened, not pointed at from a car window. And I can take you further out than most tours bother to go.
Every tour is custom, from two hours to six, and it gets built around whoever is in the jeep. I've done slow rides with little kids and grandparents, and tours for people who wanted to climb everything in sight. Tell me who's coming and I'll plan for it.
Low chalk hills south of Beit Shemesh. We climb the ruins above the valley where David fought Goliath, then crawl into the caves people dug to hide from Rome.
Plan this oneForested hills just west of Jerusalem, shaded and cool even in summer. We take the dirt tracks down to a spring in the trees, past the railway line they ran up to Jerusalem a century ago.
Plan this oneCross the ridge east of Jerusalem and the green is gone in minutes: steep climbs and drops to a cliff over the Dead Sea, Jordan across the water. We stop at Azazel, the cliff where the scapegoat was sent every Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Plan this oneEvery tour is private and custom. Two hours is the minimum. Six is the maximum, because past six hours a jeep stops being fun, and I want you to leave wanting more.
Enough to get dusty and want more.
2 hours · $395
Room for the stories, the stops, and coffee on the tailgate. The one most people book.
4 hours · $650
The places nothing else reaches, with time to actually be there.
6 hours · $850
Prices per jeep, up to seven people, not per person. Every tour is built around your group.
I'm Mendel Shaffier. I grew up out here, hiking and climbing into the back corners of the country, and now I drive people into them.
I trained as a medic in the army, and I'm certified as a professional jeep tour leader through the Wingate academic center's 180-hour course: off-road driving, navigation, recovery, first aid. Most tours, all that just means the driver knows exactly what he's doing. An hour from the nearest paved road, it matters.
People ask why I don't drive something newer. This one's a Sufa, the jeep Israel built for its own army. It ran for years before I got my hands on it. Almost nothing on it to break, and narrow enough for tracks a new jeep can't fit down. I've put a lot of work into it, and I wouldn't swap it for anything straight off the lot.
I do this because I love it. I like being the one who takes people out there.
Tours run two to six hours, any day but Shabbat.
The jeep seats seven plus me, on bench seats along the sides, the way the army ran it. There's no fitting for a car seat, so plan for kids old enough to sit on a bench.
Bring water and a hat and wear good walking or hiking shoes. Keep in mind that you will get dusty.
I'm armed, and the business is licensed and insured.
Bigger group, or a part of the country I don't cover? I bring in other guides I trust.
We set the meeting point when we plan the tour; it depends on the route.
Tell me who's coming, how many hours you want, and what you're after, and I'll build it around you.