Israel National Trail - Hiking The Desert Route

The Israeli National Trail (INT) is divided into two sections:

• From the north end till the city of Arad - near the Dead Sea .

• From Arad to the southern end in Eilat - Taba Border Crossing.

Author: Tomer Ben Rachel

When hiking an area such as the desert of Israel, the Negev, there are a number of things you have to pay attention to:

1. Walking hours:
   You won't be walking in the same hours you walked in the north. In the desert , from around 10 AM it is seriously advised to find some shade, or to make one. That way, you can pass the hottest hours, rather cool.
   From around 4 PM you can start walking again till it gets dark. A normal hiking day in the desert would begin at 5/6 AM(depends on the season and when it gets clear), walking till 10/11 AM and resting until 3/4 PM, and continuing to walk until nightfall.
2. Israel Trail marks:
   Some trails are less maintained or more prone to wear and tear. While hiking in the desert you may notice that you haven't seen a trail marking in a while. In these cases, it is best to rely on the general direction in which you are supposed to travel and look around you for the trail markings. Some rocks  are moved either by people or by SUV's that drive in the desert and knock them away.
   Another method is to trace your steps back to the last place you've seen a trail mark and continue from there. A trail mark is supposed to exist every 200 meters.
3. Camping, hosteling:
   While backpacking in natural reserves, you can only sleep in defined and declared spots in the wild. These are called night lots and can be identified in the maps by 5 purple spots with the writing night lot (Hebrew:"חניון לילה") above them.
   When you're hiking israeli natural reserves it is mandatory to sleep in one of these every night, or at a near israeli town, if there's one nearby. A more detailed explanation of night lots: Night Lots Israel.
4. Hiking near Israel army training zones:
   Read about Permits for hiking Israel.
   Most of the IDF traning zones are located in the south of Israel. While the Israel Trail doesn’t walk through them, it passes very close to them and you might need to contact the IDF to see if you are allowed to hike a certain section of the trail. 
5. Wildlife:
   Be very careful when moving rocks. You never know what's underneath them and there is an abundance of animals that sleep under rocks in the desert. Logically, you will kick the rock away from you before picking it up to make sure there's nothing underneath.
6. Water in the Israel desert:
   The desert part of the Israel National Trail takes between 3-4 weeks  for an average hiker to hike across, and it spans the distance of about 300 km from one end at Arad to the other in Eilat. Apart from the unique life and nature that exist in the desert there are an abundance of places to see. Whether it be the famous Kibbutz Yotveta or the serenity and peacefulness of Shaharoot Guesthouse. Aside from this, lies the real problem of hiking the desert, the clear lack of water.

Since water sources in the Negev desert are limited, you will find that you won't have a reliable water source every day. There are two ways to combat this and to get you across this harsh land of The Israel National Trail:

You will either have to carry water for more than 1 day or you will simply bury them ahead yourself. Since you're already carrying around 15-18 kg on your back, adding more weight in the form of water for 2 days can be a pain and is not recommended.

Planning ahead means that before you start traveling in the desert, you look at where the trail passes and how many kilometers there are between water sources/night lots. This is unlike the north of Israel where you could get up every morning and decide until where you will travel.