The Dead Sea
Things to do in The Dead Sea
Every site here that is worth building time around, each one with a page of its own covering what it is, what survives, when it opens and what it costs.
Sites covered
10
each with its own page
Ticketed
10
0 free to walk into
Sourced figures
81
each with its year and source
Citations
120
opened and checked
The Dead Sea is not one attraction. It is 10 of them, and they do not reward the same amount of time or the same time of day. This page is the index: what each one is in a sentence, how long it takes, and what it costs, so that the choosing happens here and the reading happens on the page for whichever you pick.
Every site below has been checked against its operator's own published information. Where a site charges admission, the price on its page is the operator's published price with the year it was taken. Where it sits inside a larger park, its page says which ticket covers it.
2 sites
The ruins and excavations
ישראל פרקר Israel Preker / CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons
Archaeological site
Ein Gedi Ancient Synagogue
The mosaic floor of this village synagogue carries a Judeo-Aramaic curse on anyone who reveals the secret of the town, and the parks authority's own brochure suggests the secret was how to grow and process balsam.
- Time:
- about an hour, and an hour and a half to two hours longer if the parks authority's escape game is added
- Entry:
- ₪16
4.5 on Google, 714 ratings
MotherForker / CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Archaeological site
Qumran National Park
Eleven caves here gave up the Dead Sea Scrolls between 1947 and 1956, five of them found by Bedouin and six by archaeologists, and what the settlement beside them actually was is still argued over.
- Time:
- about 90 minutes, of which ten are the film and roughly an hour the walking circuit
- Entry:
- ₪31
1 site
Churches, synagogues and holy places
שלמה רודד / CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons
Religious site
Qasr al-Yahud Baptismal Site
The traditional site of Jesus's baptism stands inside a closed military zone: more than 6,500 landmines were lifted from the monasteries around it between 2018 and 2020, and the riverbank itself reopened in February 2026 after NIS 25 million of building work.
- Time:
- about 60 to 90 minutes for a look at the river and the terrace, and closer to two hours with an immersion, a change of clothes and a shower
- Entry:
- no charge. The operator publishes no fee on the site's own page, and the site does not appear in the Judea and Samaria section of its 2025 entrance-fee table, which lists Qumran, Einot Tzukim, Ein Prat, Herodion, Har Gerizim and the monasteries of Euthymius and Martyrius
1 site
Museums and collections
israel zeller ישראל זלר / CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons
Museum
Moshe Novomeisky Visitor Center
The restored workers' camp of Palestine Potash at Sdom, lived in from 1934 until the early 1950s, open only on a guided tour of about ninety minutes.
- Time:
- about 90 minutes, which the operator's booking page states as 1 hour 40
- Entry:
- ₪30
1 site
Landmarks
Hoshvilim / CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Landmark
Mount Sodom and Lot's Wife
A wall of rock salt that radar measurements show is still rising by up to 8.3 millimetres a year, with the longest salt cave in the world running through the inside of it.
- Time:
- about 2 to 3 hours on the mountain for the parks authority's 3 km Fish Trail, plus the drive in on dirt roads
- Entry:
- The parks authority publishes no admission charge for this reserve, and there is no ticket office at Mount Sodom
3 sites
Parks, reserves and the landscape
ישראל פרקר Israel Preker / CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons
Nature reserve
Ein Gedi Botanical Garden
About 80 date palms went into a bare plateau south of Nahal Arugot in April 1959, and the collection that grew out of them was catalogued in the 1980s at more than 900 species, with a kibbutz of some 700 people living inside it.
- Time:
- About 90 minutes, or half a day with the museum, the cafe and a guided tour
- Entry:
- ₪20
4.6 on Google, 1,162 ratings
In-bar / CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Nature reserve
Ein Gedi Nature Reserve
Four springs push about three million cubic metres of fresh water a year through two desert canyons here, and the parks authority has been rebuilding the trails between them since a flood tore through the reserve in May 2025.
- Time:
- about an hour for lower Nahal David as the parks authority times it, and three to five hours for Nahal Arugot to the Hidden Waterfall and back
- Entry:
- ₪31
4.7 on Google, 2,433 ratings
DinaKuzia / CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Nature reserve
Einot Tzukim (Ein Feshkha) Nature Reserve
Brackish springs surface at the foot of the escarpment here and run into pools you can get into, and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority puts the point where they emerge at 390 metres below sea level.
- Time:
- about two hours: half an hour to an hour and a half on the marked circuit, plus about half an hour in the visitor centre, and longer again if the deep pool is open or you take the Hidden Reserve tour
- Entry:
- ₪40
2 sites
The water
ליזי שאנן / CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons
Beach
Ein Bokek Beach
The free, lifeguarded public beach in front of the southern hotel strip, where the water is not the open Dead Sea but Pond 5, an evaporation pond of the mineral works, and the beach itself was raised two metres and rebuilt between 2012 and 2016.
- Time:
- about 90 minutes, of which no more than 20 should be spent in the water
- Entry:
- Free
4.6 on Google, 14,805 ratings
Bahnfrend / CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Beach
Kalia Beach
The northernmost managed beach on the Dead Sea, run by Kibbutz Kalia on the site of the potash works the Arab Legion destroyed in May 1948, with a paid gate and two quite different tickets.
- Time:
- about two hours, or half a day with lunch and the gallery
- Entry:
- ₪45, covering parking, chairs, umbrella and unlimited shuttles
Planning the rest of it
Seeing the sites is one part of a day here. These cover the others.
Sources and further reading
Every link below was opened and checked when this page was written. Official statements are marked as such: they are the subject's own account, not an independent one.
- OfficialDead Sea Land, the regional tourism authority, for the Tamar Regional Councildeadsea.co.ilEin Bokek Central Beach
Summer hours 07:00 to 18:00 and winter hours 07:00 to 16:00, free entry, the operator and its phone number, showers, changing rooms, toilets, drinking fountain, free chairs and umbrellas, shade sheets and sunbeds, the wheelchair loan at the lifeguard's booth and the path into the water, the Pango blue-and-white parking and the upper Palms and upper Conference overflow lots, the promenade fountains, ping pong tables and solar charging points
- OfficialDead Sea Land, the regional tourism authoritydeadsea.co.ilחוף מרכזי עין בוקק (Ein Bokek central beach, Hebrew page)
The same summer and winter hours in Hebrew, free entry, the lawns, shade structures, fitness and play equipment, the lockers and showers, the accessibility provision and wheelchair loan, the Pango parking and the alternative lots, and the adjacent mall
- OfficialICL Groupicl-group-sustainability.comSalt Harvesting
Pond 5 at about 80 square kilometres as the first and largest pond and the shoreline of the hotels, about 20 million tonnes of salt precipitating a year and a 20 centimetre layer, the risk to hotel foundations if the level rises, the October 2017 agreement and the roughly $280 million budget at 80 per cent ICL to 20 per cent government over twelve years, and the dredger of 141 by 24 metres at 10 MW working since November 2020 and lifting about 8 million tonnes a year
- OfficialShlomo Aronson Architectss-aronson.co.ilDead Sea Promenade, Ein Bokek
The designers' own account: the client as the Dead Sea Preservation Government Company Ltd, the team of Barbara Aronson, Ittai Aronson, Elia Shoshani, Svetlana Sirota, Daniel Shorer, Ayelet Ben David and Maayan Turgeman, the brief as a response to rising water caused by the mining, and the built elements of accessible decks into the water, shade structures, the date palm beach park and irrigation from the hotels' treated wastewater
- OfficialShlomo Aronson Architectss-aronson.co.ilLandscape Architecture Award 2018
First prize for the Dead Sea Promenade at Ein Bokek from the Israeli Association of Landscape Architects in 2018, in the category of landscape restoration and infrastructure projects
- OfficialKibbutz Ein Gedi Hotelngedi.co.ilThe Ein Gedi Botanical Garden
The operator's English page: admission of ₪20 and ₪15, free entry for hotel guests, the tractor tour at ₪35 and ₪25 with prior registration, opening hours of 08:30 to 16:00 with an early Friday close, and the description of the planting.
- OfficialKibbutz Ein Gedi Hotelngedi.co.ilגן בוטני עין גדי (Ein Gedi botanical garden, general information)
The Hebrew page, last updated in March 2026, which gives every day 08:00 to 17:00 in summer and 08:00 to 16:00 in winter, the garden office telephone number, and free guided tours for hotel guests.
- OfficialKibbutz Ein Gedi Hotelngedi.co.ilמה בגן הבוטני (What is in the botanical garden)
The garden's sections: the aroma garden of biblical medicinal and fragrance plants, the rock display, the bird feeding area, the baobabs and the cafe named for them, and the Ein Gedi Museum with its daily 08:30 to 16:00 hours.
- OfficialKibbutz Ein Gedi Hotelngedi.co.ilסיפורו של גן (The story of a garden)
The kibbutz's own account of how the garden was made: the aim of shade and lawn, the saline rocky ground, the Delonix that had to be reduced, the shift to drought-tolerant species, the tropical understorey planting, the self-seeded papayas and the division of the garden into maintenance zones.
- OfficialKibbutz Ein Gedi Hotelngedi.co.ilסיורים וסדנאות (Tours and workshops)
Self-guided maps in Hebrew, English and Russian at reception, guided tours in Hebrew and English, the perfume garden tour built around the biblical perfume plant, the shibori dyeing workshop and the Pilates class under the large ficus.
- ReportingThe Times of Israeltimesofisrael.comTo shore up the Dead Sea, a NIS 200 million promenade
Work from late 2012 to the end of 2016, the beach raised two metres, the buried clay barriers along the hotel district, the 200 million shekel cost split 60.5 per cent government to 39.5 per cent Dead Sea Works, the first five kilometres dedicated by Tourism Minister Yariv Levin on 3 April 2017 and about 12 kilometres planned, the previously divided hotel frontages on public land, Barbara Aronson's quotation about leaving the beach unlit, and the roughly 4,000 rooms then on the strip
- ReportingSmithsonian Magazine, Joshua Hammersmithsonianmag.comThe Dying of the Dead Sea
The statement, published in October 2005, that the shallow water in front of the Ein Bokek hotels is not the Dead Sea, which dried up there in the 1980s, but a reservoir maintained by Dead Sea Works, which pumps water from the northern to the southern part of the lake to evaporate it for potash and bromide
- ReportingIsrael National Newsisraelnationalnews.comFor the first time in decades: New hotels at the Dead Sea
The tourism ministry's inauguration in 2017 of 16 new free and accessible beaches between Ein Bokek and Hamei Zohar, the Dead Sea Preservation Government Company's four-kilometre promenade and 500 million shekels of infrastructure and development work, and quotations from Yariv Levin, Eran Reuveni of the Israel Land Authority and the company's chief executive Shimon Daniel
- ReportingThe Jerusalem Postjpost.comIsraeli riviera: Hundreds of new hotel rooms planned at Dead Sea
The March 2025 Israel Land Authority and tourism ministry tender, the existing stock given as 3,865 rooms in 33 hotels with fifteen operating, the allowance for some 9,047 further rooms, and the ministry's claim of the highest occupancy rates in Israel
- ReportingDead Sea Land, Tamar Regional Councildeadsealand.org.ilBotany is blooming in Kibbutz Ein Gedi
The regional tourism body's account of the garden, including the claim that it is the only botanical garden of its kind that is inhabited. Its dates for the founding of the kibbutz do not match the scholarly record and are not used here.
- DataBotanic Gardens Conservation Internationaltools.bgci.orgDead Sea Ein Gedi Botanic Garden, GardenSearch entry 2258
The garden's register entry, supplied by the institution: year of establishment given as 1994, more than 900 species, about 30 palm varieties, an adjacent cactus park with over 1,000 cacti and desert plants, and the claim that residents live within the grounds.
- ReferenceWikipediaen.wikipedia.orgEin Bokek
The first hotel in 1960 and fourteen hotels by 2000, the ruins of Metzad Bokek as a small Roman-era fortress commanding the main road, the partly reconstructed ancient perfume and medicine factory, and Nahal Bokek as a canyon-like gorge with springs and its own flora and fauna
- ReferenceRoman Roads and Milestones in Judaea/Palaestina, Kinneret Academic Collegemilestones.kinneret.ac.ilMordechai Gichon
Gichon's Tel Aviv University affiliation, the En Boqeq excavations of 1968 to 1970 as teaching and research seasons that trained a generation of scholars, the 1993 publication of En Boqeq I on the oasis and the late Roman and Byzantine castellum, and En Boqeq II on the early Roman period
- ReferenceAndrea Berlin, Journal of Roman Archaeology, volume 15 (2002), Cambridge University Presscambridge.orgBusiness at the bottom of the world: review of 'En Boqeq II, The Officina
The scholarly record of Fischer, Gichon and Tal, 'En Boqeq. Excavations in an Oasis on the Dead Sea, volume II, The Officina: An Early Roman Building on the Dead Sea Shore (Mainz, 2000). The review text itself is behind a paywall; the bibliographic detail and the description of the building as an early Roman structure on the Dead Sea shore are visible
- ReferenceDavida Eisenberg-Degen and Neer Lect Ben Ami, Hadashot Arkheologiyot 138, Israel Antiquities Authoritypublications.iaa.org.ilMeẓad Tamar (A-9674)
The division of the Dead Sea forts into those built in the Roman period, at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century CE, and those such as Rosh Zohar and 'En Boqeq built during the Byzantine period, which is the dating that conflicts with Gichon's reading of Metzad Bokek
- ReferenceBibleWalksbiblewalks.comBokek
An independent site-documentation page used here only for the physical description of Metzad Bokek and the oasis: the square plan with corner towers, the surviving wall heights, the further excavation seasons to 1976, the spring flowing at 40 to 50 cubic metres an hour, the aqueduct, the Byzantine reservoir beside Route 90 and the footpath to the ruins from the northern hotels
- ReferenceNir Arielli, Journal of Israeli Historyeprints.whiterose.ac.ukLand, water and the changing Dead Sea environment: a microhistory of Kibbutz Ein Gedi
The scholarly account: the NAHAL outpost of 1953, the July 1959 move to the barren plateau, the 80 date palms of April 1959, the desert trees from the Institute for the Study of the Negev in December 1960, the 1985 cataloguing with Dr Michael Avishai of the Hebrew University, the figure of 110 dunams, the entrance fee introduced in the early 1990s, the spa's closure in spring 2020 and the 2021 Haaretz interview with the hotel manager Tom Geva.
- ReferenceWikipediaen.wikipedia.orgEin Gedi (kibbutz)
The kibbutz founded in 1953, a population of 718 in 2024, the 100 dunam garden with over 900 species registered with Botanic Gardens Conservation International in 1994, the sinkhole damage that closed the campsite and the spa, the 1997 bottling plant, the AHAVA factory of April 2022 and the hot desert climate with about 50 millimetres of rain a year.
- ReferenceHebrew Wikipediahe.wikipedia.orgהגן הבוטני בעין גדי (The botanical garden at Ein Gedi)
About 900 species suited to the hot dry climate, the first plan credited to Dov Bnayahu whose son Dan Bnayahu was a founder of the kibbutz, the working problems of summer water shortage and sun damage, and the collections: cacti and succulents, rainforest floor planting, giant Bombacaceae including the African baobab, and perfume and incense plants recalling the local agriculture of two thousand years ago.
Things to do in The Dead Sea: common questions
How many days do you need in The Dead Sea?+
There are 10 sites here with a page of their own, and giving each the time its own page suggests comes to more than one day. Most visitors pick three or four and treat the rest as a return trip. The per-site pages each carry a "how long to give it" figure, which is the number to add up.
What does it cost to see The Dead Sea?+
10 of the 10 sites listed here charge admission and 0 do not. Every ticketed one has its published price on its own page, with the operator's page linked beside it. Israel's national parks also sell a multi-site pass, which pays for itself at roughly the third park.
Are these sites open on Shabbat and holidays?+
Most national parks and museums keep shortened Friday hours and either close on Saturday or open late. Each page carries the hours as the operator publishes them, and the operator's own page is linked, which is the only version that will be current on the day you go.
Where do the opening hours and prices on these pages come from?+
From the operator: the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, the museum, the municipality or the site's own management, whichever publishes them. Each figure links the page it was taken from. Ratings and review counts, where a page shows them, come from a dated snapshot of Google Maps and are labelled as such rather than presented as current.
Which one is worth it if you only see one thing in The Dead Sea?+
Ein Bokek Beach is the one this guide would keep. The free, lifeguarded public beach in front of the southern hotel strip, where the water is not the open Dead Sea but Pond 5, an evaporation pond of the mineral works, and the beach itself was raised two metres and rebuilt between 2012 and 2016.
Is there anything worth seeing that is not on this list?+
Plenty, and that is deliberate. A site earns a page here when a visitor could reasonably spend half an hour there, when there is enough documented substance to write a real page about it, and when the operator publishes something a visitor can plan against. Things that fail those tests are covered on the The Dead Sea overview instead of padded out into pages of their own.