Shaar Hagolan: Kibbutz Life, Botany and Agriculture

Explore Shaar Hagolan through tours with different focuses: kibbutz life, botany and agriculture. If you’re looking for a hotel in Shaar Hagolan, these themes offer a concrete guide to which side of the place you’d like to experience during your stay. Each tour has its own focus, and they also differ in how they unfold.

Kibbutz life and botanical tours

The kibbutz tour includes the communal clothing store, the dining hall, the central noticeboard and the children’s house area. The tour also explains the kibbutz’s organizational structure and the advantages and disadvantages of kibbutz life. If you’re interested in communal organization and the different aspects of this way of life, this tour brings those themes together at specific stops.

The botanical tour includes a garden with dozens of tree species from around the world. The botanical walk takes you through the kibbutz on an easy stroll among the trees, accompanied by stories. This sets it apart in both subject and format from the kibbutz life tour: here, the focus is on trees and the stories told along the way. The walk is described as easy and stays within the kibbutz.

Agriculture: video, plantations and dairy farm

The agricultural tour begins with a humorous video. It compares modern agriculture with farming in the 1940s and explains the kibbutz’s agricultural branches, crops, harvest volumes and cultivation methods. Then you travel by vehicle east, out of the kibbutz, to banana, avocado and date plantations. The tour ends with a visit to the kibbutz’s dairy farm.

The itinerary highlights how this tour differs from the others: after the video, you travel to plantations outside the kibbutz and to the dairy farm. The botanical tour, by contrast, is an easy walk within the kibbutz, while the kibbutz tour explains its organizational structure and way of life through its stops. Your choice therefore depends on both the subject and the format of the tour. The agricultural tour is paid. The operator provides ways to get in touch and register for the kibbutz and botanical tours; confirm the specific arrangements directly with the operator in advance. You should also coordinate arrangements for the agricultural tour with the operator.

Historic sites in the wider Northern District destination

The wider Northern District destination also features Tel Hazor and Tel Megiddo, offering further historical points of interest. This adds regional context; each of the two archaeological sites has its own focus. At Tel Hazor, the visit centers on the upper city. Key sites there include Solomon’s Gate, with six chambers and two towers dating to the 10th century BCE, and the Canaanite palace. The kings of Hazor used the palace during the 14th and 13th centuries BCE. The Late Bronze Age palace is described as the most elaborate in Israel and one of the most important in the Levant.

Tel Hazor’s water system also demonstrates sophisticated engineering adapted to the geography for storing water. Steps three meters wide are carved into the walls of the vertical shaft, which was excavated to a depth of 45 meters. Tel Hazor’s fortifications are considered the finest example of their kind in the area stretching from southern Turkey to the northern Negev.

Tel Megiddo is a biblical tell with significant remains of a city associated with biblical narratives. Its Early Bronze Age temple complex is exceptional for the number of its temples, the continuity of cultic activity and the documented ritual practices. The orthogonal city plan dates to the Iron Age and has few parallels in the Levant. Tel Hazor and Tel Megiddo thus offer different historical points of interest within the wider Northern District destination.

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