itineraries

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Review: The Written Exam (Dec. 2011)

Monday, December 12th, 2011

Title Page of the Israel Ministry of Tourism licensing exam for potential tour guides

The cover page of the written licensing exam

As most of you know, I took the written portion of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism licensing exam for tour guides this past Sunday, December 4. (For my posts on preparing for the exam see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.) Since one of the focuses of this blog is to provide information to others who are interested in taking the tourguide course in Israel, I wanted to fill you all in a bit on this past administration of the exam.

For starters, I will say that I feel really good about my performance on the exam, and am fairly certain that I will pass. Obviously, there is no way of knowing for sure until I hear back from them (probably in another 2-3 weeks), but I’ll say that I’ll be relatively surprised if I don’t pass. Mainly this is because, while I would not say this exam was easy, I don’t think it was particularly tough, nor did I think there was any part of it that was “out there” or designed to screw with us. It was fairly straightforward, and I feel like I was about as prepared as I could be. I can’t really imagine getting a test that would be preferable to this one, which is why I would be disappointed if I failed this one.

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Posted in Tour Guide Course | 1 Response »
Tags: exam, itineraries, license, Ministry of Tourism, Negev

Sample 1-Day Jerusalem Itinerary

Monday, November 1st, 2010

The Catholicon (Greek Orthodox sanctuary) of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

One of the fun things that I do as I prepare to become a tour guide in Israel is practice! It helps me learn to plan a tour, make it flow seamlessly and learn such things as timing, reading the audience, use of visual aids and organization of material. So it is really a very necessary aspect that, while not an official part of my tour guide studies, I still take quite seriously.

A few weeks ago, I took two women around for a day-long walking tour of the Old City of Jerusalem (mostly). They were two friends, one of whom was Jewish and one of whom was Christian, though neither was particularly religious. The Christian was here on her first trip to Israel, while the Jewish woman lives here, though not in Jerusalem. My goal for the day was to expose them to the sheer wealth of history that fills Jerusalem, as well as show them the diverse cultures and religions that are found here. Ultimately, I wanted them to see what a beautiful, complex and historic city I live in. I thought it might be interesting and useful to describe the itinerary we had for the day.

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Posted in Israeli Tourism, Tour Diary | 2 Responses »
Tags: archaeology, architecture, Hezekiah's Tunnel, history, Holy Sepulchre, Ir David, itineraries, Jerusalem, Kotel, Mamluks, Stations of the Cross, Tayelet, Temple Mount

The Final Itinerary

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Inside one of the natural grottoes at Rosh Hanikra

In my last post of a few weeks ago, I asked for some advice in helping my friend Lara to plan a great itinerary for her first trip to Israel. Many of you here, and on my Facebook, made wonderful suggestions of things to do, places to go, and even food to eat. In total, Lara was here for 16 days, and I spent a large portion of that time with her. Your collective assistance was a great help, and I wanted to share with you the bulk of her trip, so you can see the kind of balance we included.

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Posted in Israeli Tourism | 2 Responses »
Tags: Akko, Ein Gedi, felafel, food, Hezekiah's Tunnel, Ir David, itineraries, Jerusalem, Rosh Hanikra, shakshuka, shwarma, Tel Aviv, tourism, wine, Yaffo

What is the Israel Dream Itinerary?

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Lake Kinneret / Sea of Galilee behind the palms

A good old friend of mine is finally making her first trip to Israel next week. She’ll be here for 2-3 weeks, and I am excited to be showing her around a lot, and helping her plan her time here. Someone else (a friend of a friend) contacted me to suggest places for her to visit when she comes here in the Fall. And many other times people ask me similar questions when they hear I am studying to become a tour guide.

Itinerary planning is a job and skill in itself. And it is a major task in the tour guiding profession. But it is not yet something which I have studied or have a lot of experience with. And yet, I am going to have to get started on it now to help Lara have an awesome fun time here! So while I’ve started to think about it, I’d love to hear from you guys as well.

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Posted in Israeli Tourism | 11 Responses »
Tags: Ein Gedi, history, itineraries, Jerusalem, religion, tourism