The Ariel Sharon Ayalon Park, located just outside of Tel Aviv, was formerly the 2,000-acre Hiriya garbage dump and has now been transformed into a park and 24-hour recreational hotspot. Ayalon is a metropolitan park containing a vast number of trees, hiking, horseback-riding trails, tropical gardens and sweeping views of the region.

Visiting a Kibbutz is a way to see both how Israel began and where many modern eco-agriculture innovations have come to be.  See eco-friendly toys made by adults with special needs in the Galilee, learn about eco-farming in the Negev and visit a modern oasis near the Dead Sea.  A whole vacation could be spent visiting diverse Kibbutzim throughout Israel—and many visitors choose to spend theirs volunteering at a Kibbutz.

Israel’s hiking and nature trails are almost infinite.  Hikes can be easy, over kindly pastoral hillscapes, through carpets of wildflower or between clumps of palm trees. Or they can be rough and tough, over dramatic rocky terrain and, of course, into the awesome deserts. Wadis, or dry river beds, are magnets for hikers, and canyons can be cool. (Keep your camera ready for wild ibex and gazelle sightings!)

The Israel National Trail, (שביל ישראל, transliterated as “Shvil Yisrael”) is a hiking path that traverses the entire country. Its northern end is at Dan, near the Lebanese border in the far north of the country, and it extends to Eilat on the Red Sea, at the very southernmost tip of Israel. The trail is nearly 600 miles long, from beginning to end, and would take as much as a month to complete, if hiked continuously.

Presently available in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, “sight-jogging” is an attractive and fast way to get to know the city, by jogging between the cities’ major touristic sites and places of historical import.

Israel is a dream for cycling enthusiasts, with an enormously diverse countryside, short distances between towns and impressive historical sites—plus, great weather almost all year-round. Cycling through either of Israel’s dramatic deserts, the Negev or the Judean, is among the best in the country.  Try it along the Dead Sea shore, the lowest point on earth, or the Nahal Pratzim river valley trail, which provides the ultimate ride with spectacular mountain scenery and a possible stop in the thrilling, eerily white Flour Cave. Among Israel’s major cities, visitors to Tel Aviv can explore this Mediterranean hotspot’s beachfront and tree-lined boulevards by bicycle.  And Tel Aviv’s new bike-share program offers 1,500 bicycles stationed at 150 points throughout the city, and allowing travelers to pick up and drop off bicycles at dozens of locations.

Qumran, which gained fame as the 2,000-year hiding place for the Dead Sea Scrolls, is an excellent rappelling site, where four cliffs rise to increasingly loftier heights. Israel’s Grand Canyon, the gigantic Makhtesh Ramon in the Negev Desert, is one of the largest natural craters in the world with stunning, multimillion-year-old rock formations and unique vegetation.  It’s also ideal for rappelling.

Follow in the adventurous camel steps of Lawrence of Arabia on an authentic, real live “ship of the desert.”  Camp out deep in the wilderness.  Watch the red sun sink.  Sleep in a goat-hair Bedouin tent.  And continue your trek bumping along on these trusty, old four-footers.

Ride down to the Sea of Galilee with an expert trailmaster from a Kibbutz inn, spa hotel or dude ranch — or through the thickly forested Carmel Mountains overlooking the Mediterranean coastline. Half- and full-day trail rides cover plains, garden orchards, nature reserves, fields of mustard flowers and near-prehistoric caves.

The River Jordan has some class 3 to 4 rapids, with narrow passages bordered by overhanging trees where the going can get really rough.  Surf real rapids by kayak, rubber boat or inner tube.