Eilat Travel Guide
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243 kilometers (151 mi.) S of Beersheva; 356 kilometers (221 mi.) SE of Tel Aviv.
This city of 36,000 at the southern tip of the Negev is the country’s leading winter tourist resort. Eilat’s chief claims to fame for the tourist are fine beaches, coral reefs filled with exotic fish, and year-round sunshine. At the moment, the once easygoing, relaxed desert and Red Sea resort town is undergoing a construction boom, with gargantuan four- and five-star hotels being erected wherever possible. The architectural style of Eilat’s hotels and shopping malls has been agreed uponnew buildings are all of white concrete with straight, crisp geometric lines; older hotels are being redesigned to conform to the light, airy look. There is a unity to the new Eilat, but from the outside, most hotels seem to vary only in size and shape. Planners have not emphasized the desert and Bedouin traditions of the regioninstead they’ve aimed for the generic look of a gleaming white international resort, like Canczn, Mexico. If you’re hoping for a touch of regional color in your hotel, you’ll have to try the Sinai or the new five-star establishments in Petra (Jordan).
Eilat is also a combination military outpost and shipping portyou’ll see ample evidence of this all along the shoreline. The city’s first-class hotel area is less than a mile from the Jordanian border and you can see the Jordanian port city of Aqaba, with a population of 20,000 across the bay, dazzling in a haze of desert sand, ringed by date palms. For almost 50 years, until Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994, Aqaba seemed as unattainable as a mirage. There is now a border crossing for tourists just north of Eilat, and you can also book excursions to Jordan’s fabulous Petra from Eilat. At present you cannot go across merely to check out Aqaba for a few hours; to enter Jordan you have to have a valid visa and stay at least overnight. For some time, Egypt, Israel, and Jordan have quietly been planning a regional coordinating committee and international park that will protect the ecosystem of this end of the Red Sea, in anticipation of the regional peace agreement. Meanwhile the area remains the most peaceful of Israel’s borders. A few years ago, before the peace agreement, when one of King Hussein’s prize racehorses bolted and swam from Aqaba to Eilat, he was returned as if such incidents were an everyday occurrence. Saudi Arabia is 20 kilometers (12 mi.) south of Aqaba; to the west are the mountains of Sinai.
It was from the port of Eilat that King Solomon sent and received his ships from the land of Ophir, laden with gold, wood, and ivory, dominating this exotic trade route with Hiram of Tyre, Solomon’s famous naval ally (Hiram was king of the Phoenician trading city of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast north of Israel). It is even thought by some that the Queen of Sheba landed at Eilat when she came to Jerusalem to see Solomon and "commune with him all that was in her heart." From 1000 to 600 B.C., Phoenician shipping from Eilat plied the shores of East Africa and at times developed trade with the coasts of India and even Southeast Asia. There is evidence that on occasion, Phoenician vessels circumnavigated the African continent. Today, the port is again bustling.
Eilat has a youthful, adventurous spirit that seems to move the entire population. Israelis who had begun to find the north too confining and cramped have moved down here for the challenge; so, too, have a few who practice yoga, pluck guitar strings, and who, in general, were displeased with "the people up north." This is an individualist’s town, and it’s also an entrepreneur’s dream.
During summer, the outdoor afternoon heat in Eilat can exceed 1100F; it’s best to stay in the shade between noon and 3pm, to avoid sun poisoning. In winter, the thick dusty heat is gone, the air is cool and dry, yet the water is warm enough for swimming.
