Most visitors to Israel see the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria through a tour-bus window, if they see it at all. That is a pity, because the region that holds the burial places of the patriarchs, the site of the Tabernacle and the caves of the Dead Sea Scrolls is also one of the easiest parts of the country to reach by ordinary public transport. Armored buses leave Jerusalem for Hebron twice an hour; a pilgrim line runs to Rachel's Tomb; desert lines drop you a short walk from the ruins of Qumran. If you are new to the terms, our explainer on the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria sets out what the names mean and where the region lies.

This list is built around one practical test: can a traveler get there from Jerusalem Central Bus Station without hiring a guide or a car? Seven of the ten are a single bus ride away. The other three need a light rail connection or a short taxi for the last stretch, and we say so plainly. Several belong on any list of Judaism's most holy sites; others are national parks, museums and baptism steps that draw Christian pilgrims in large numbers. The list runs south to north, then east into the desert, so it can be read as three day trips.

בְּמִסְפָּרִיםJudea and Samaria at a Glance

The numbers behind the trip: who lives here, who visits, and how close it all is.

Tourism to Israel has swung harder than almost anywhere in the world this decade. Arrivals peaked at 4.55 million in 2019, collapsed during the pandemic, recovered to about 3 million in 2023, and fell again once the war began that October. The Ministry of Tourism counted roughly 1.3 million visitors in 2025, and its Ministry of Tourism arrival statistics show monthly figures climbing into 2026. For the independent traveler, that means quieter sites and shorter queues than at any time in a generation.

The resident population tells the opposite story: steady growth through every one of those shocks. The Jewish population of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley passed half a million in 2023 and stood at 541,085 on January 1, 2026, according to the annual report drawn from Interior Ministry registry data. That growth is why the bus network below exists at all; these lines were built for residents, and visitors ride on them.

מְעָרַת הַמַּכְפֵּלָה1. Cave of the Patriarchs, Hebron

Judea, about 30 km south of Jerusalem. The oldest Jewish holy site in the world.

No list of Judea and Samaria tourist spots can begin anywhere else. The Cave of Machpelah is the burial place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah, and the massive enclosure above it is the only building of Herod the Great to survive fully intact, its stones cut in the same style as the Western Wall. For roughly seven centuries, from 1267 until 1967, Jews were not allowed past the seventh step of an outer staircase. Today the building is open to visitors of every faith, divided between a Jewish and a Muslim section, with each side granted the whole building on a handful of set days a year. The Israel Foreign Ministry's Hebron background traces the city's continuous history, and our history of Abraham's Tomb covers the site from Genesis to the present.

• Genesis 23:19

  וְאַחֲרֵי־כֵן קָבַר אַבְרָהָם אֶת־שָׂרָה אִשְׁתּוֹ אֶל־מְעָרַת שְׂדֵה הַמַּכְפֵּלָה עַל־פְּנֵי מַמְרֵא הִוא חֶבְרוֹן בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן׃

  And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre, the same is Hebron, in the land of Canaan.

  Genesis 23:19. English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Summary. The verse ties a named cave to a named city and closes a chapter that records a purchase, not a gift: four hundred shekels weighed out before witnesses. Genesis is one of the Five Books, and it is where most of the Torah's references to Hebron sit; our study of how often Hebron appears in the Torah counts six verses naming the city and two naming a Levite who shares the name. Mamre here is a place; elsewhere in Genesis it is also the name of Abraham's Amorite ally.

Cave of the Patriarchs: 31.5247 N, 35.1107 E. Open in Google Maps

בֵּית הַדַּסָּה2. Beit Hadassah and the Avraham Avinu Quarter, Hebron

Judea, a short walk from the Cave. The story of Hebron's Jewish community, lost and rebuilt.

Most visitors leave Hebron after the Cave. Stay another hour. Beit Hadassah was built in 1893 as the Chesed L'Avraham clinic, which treated Jews and Arabs alike until the 1929 Hebron massacre, when 67 Jews were murdered and the community was evacuated. In 1979 a group of women and children moved back into the building, and today its lower floor holds a museum of the community's history and a memorial room for the victims, with an audio-visual visitor center added in 2015. A few minutes away stands the Avraham Avinu Synagogue, founded in 1540 by Sephardi exiles, destroyed after 1948 and rebuilt in the 1970s; the Torah scrolls rescued in 1929 are back in its ark. For current numbers, see who lives in Hebron today: several hundred Jews inside the city, with about 8,000 more next door in Kiryat Arba.

• 2 Samuel 2:11

  וַיְהִי מִסְפַּר הַיָּמִים אֲשֶׁר הָיָה דָוִד מֶלֶךְ בְּחֶבְרוֹן עַל־בֵּית יְהוּדָה שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים וְשִׁשָּׁה חֳדָשִׁים׃

  And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.

  2 Samuel 2:11. English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Summary. Samuel belongs to the Prophets, not the Torah, which is a useful reminder that Hebron's biblical record runs well beyond Genesis. The city was David's first capital before Jerusalem, and that royal history is part of why the community that returned to Beit Hadassah never regarded Hebron as a frontier town. It regarded it as the place where the kingdom began.

Avraham Avinu Synagogue, beside Beit Hadassah: 31.5240 N, 35.1077 E. Open in Google Maps

קֶבֶר רָחֵל3. Rachel's Tomb, Bethlehem

Judea, on the old Jerusalem to Hebron road. The shortest ride on this list.

Rachel is the one matriarch not buried in Hebron. She died in childbirth on the road, and Jacob buried her where she fell. Jewish tradition has marked this small domed building as her grave for more than seventeen centuries, and it now sits inside a walled corridor at the northern edge of Bethlehem. Women in particular come to pray here, and the crowd swells on 11 Cheshvan, the traditional anniversary of her death, which falls in October or November. The site is open around the clock from Sunday to Thursday and closes for Shabbat. Our full guide to Kever Rachel covers the history, the layout and the etiquette inside.

• Genesis 35:19 to 20

  וַתָּמָת רָחֵל וַתִּקָּבֵר בְּדֶרֶךְ אֶפְרָתָה הִוא בֵּית לָחֶם׃ וַיַּצֵּב יַעֲקֹב מַצֵּבָה עַל־קְבֻרָתָהּ הִוא מַצֶּבֶת קְבֻרַת־רָחֵל עַד־הַיּוֹם׃

  And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, the same is Beth-lehem. And Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave; the same is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day.

  Genesis 35:19 to 20. English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Summary. The Torah records a burial by the roadside and a marker "unto this day," and pilgrims have read that phrase as a promise that the grave would stay known. Ephrath is given here as an older name for Bethlehem. Centuries later the prophet Jeremiah, in the Prophets rather than the Torah, pictured Rachel weeping for her exiled children, which is why the tomb became the place Jews come to pray for return and for family.

Rachel's Tomb: 31.7194 N, 35.2022 E. Open in Google Maps

גּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן4. Gush Etzion Heritage Center, Kfar Etzion

Judea, on the ridge south of Jerusalem. The modern chapter of an ancient story.

Jews first tried to settle this ridge in the 1920s and, after two false starts, rebuilt Kfar Etzion in 1943; by the eve of the 1948 war four villages stood here, home to about 450 people. The bloc was cut off, besieged, and fell on May 13, 1948, the day before Israel declared independence; most of Kfar Etzion's defenders were killed after surrendering. The children of those families returned in September 1967 and rebuilt Kfar Etzion on the same hill. The Heritage Center, inside the kibbutz, tells that story with a sound and light presentation and a memorial, and David Ben-Gurion himself credited the bloc's stand with saving Jewish Jerusalem. Visits must be booked in advance; individual tickets were listed at 39 NIS. Nearby, the lone oak tree that the exiled children watched from across the lines for nineteen years still stands.

• Jeremiah 32:44

  שָׂדוֹת בַּכֶּסֶף יִקְנוּ וְכָתוֹב בַּסֵּפֶר וְחָתוֹם וְהָעֵד עֵדִים בְּאֶרֶץ בִּנְיָמִן וּבִסְבִיבֵי יְרוּשָׁלִַם וּבְעָרֵי יְהוּדָה וּבְעָרֵי הָהָר וּבְעָרֵי הַשְּׁפֵלָה וּבְעָרֵי הַנֶּגֶב כִּי־אָשִׁיב אֶת־שְׁבוּתָם נְאֻם־יְהוָה׃

  Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe the deeds, and seal them, and call witnesses, in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the hill-country, and in the cities of the Lowland, and in the cities of the South; for I will cause their captivity to return, saith the LORD.

  Jeremiah 32:44. English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Summary. Jeremiah bought a field while Babylon besieged Jerusalem, as a legal act of faith that the land would be farmed again. The founders of Gush Etzion saw their own purchases the same way: deeds signed in a dangerous place for a future they could not guarantee. The hill country of Judah named in the verse is exactly the ridge the bus climbs to reach Kfar Etzion.

Kfar Etzion: 31.6508 N, 35.1131 E. Open in Google Maps

הֶרוֹדְיוֹן5. Herodium National Park

Judea, at the edge of the desert above Tekoa. A king's fortress and tomb inside a man-made mountain.

Herod the Great heaped earth around a hilltop palace to create the cone that still dominates the skyline southeast of Bethlehem, and he chose it as his burial place. Archaeologist Ehud Netzer found the remains of Herod's tomb on the slope in 2007 after decades of searching. A century after Herod, rebels in the Bar Kokhba revolt used the fortress as a command base and cut tunnels and cisterns through the hill, which visitors now walk through on the way down. From the summit you can see the Dead Sea on a clear day. It is an Israel Nature and Parks Authority site with an entrance fee.

• Jeremiah 6:1

  הָעִזוּ בְּנֵי בִנְיָמִן מִקֶּרֶב יְרוּשָׁלִַם וּבִתְקוֹעַ תִּקְעוּ שׁוֹפָר וְעַל־בֵּית הַכֶּרֶם שְׂאוּ מַשְׂאֵת כִּי רָעָה נִשְׁקְפָה מִצָּפוֹן וְשֶׁבֶר גָּדוֹל׃

  Put yourselves under covert, ye children of Benjamin, away from the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the horn in Tekoa, and set up a signal on Beth-cherem; for evil looketh forth from the north, and a great destruction.

  Jeremiah 6:1. English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Summary. Herodium itself is not named in the Hebrew Bible; it was built some six centuries after Jeremiah. The verse earns its place because Tekoa, the prophet Amos's hometown, lies a few kilometers to the south and gives the bus line its destination, and because some older scholars identified Beth-cherem with this very hill, although most now place it at Ramat Rachel in Jerusalem. One more trap for the careful reader: the "Herodion" greeted in Romans 16:11 is a person, not the fortress.

Herodium: 31.6658 N, 35.2414 E. Open in Google Maps

שִׁילֹה6. Tel Shiloh (Ancient Shiloh)

Samaria, in the Binyamin hills north of Jerusalem. Israel's first religious capital.

Before there was a Temple in Jerusalem, there was a Tabernacle at Shiloh. Rabbinic tradition counts 369 years that it stood here, and the site's story runs through the opening chapters of Samuel: Hannah praying for a child, the priest Eli, and the boy Samuel serving at the sanctuary. Excavations on the tel have exposed Canaanite walls, Israelite storerooms and Byzantine churches, and a visitor center with a film and an observation tower helps make sense of the ruins. It is the one stop on this list in Samaria proper, on the southern edge of the old hill country of Ephraim.

• Joshua 18:1

  וַיִּקָּהֲלוּ כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל שִׁלֹה וַיַּשְׁכִּינוּ שָׁם אֶת־אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד וְהָאָרֶץ נִכְבְּשָׁה לִפְנֵיהֶם׃

  And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there; and the land was subdued before them.

  Joshua 18:1. English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Summary. The verse marks the moment the wandering sanctuary came to rest in the land, and the chapter goes on to describe the tribal allotments being drawn at Shiloh. Joshua is in the Prophets, the second division of the Tanakh. Standing on the tel, you are on the ground where Israel's national worship was centered for generations before David took Jerusalem.

Tel Shiloh: 32.0556 N, 35.2894 E. Open in Google Maps

קֶבֶר שְׁמוּאֵל7. Nebi Samuel, Tomb of the Prophet Samuel

Binyamin, just north of Jerusalem. The best view of Jerusalem that most visitors never see.

At 908 meters, Nebi Samuel is one of the highest points around Jerusalem, and the Crusaders who reached it in 1099 named it Mount Joy because it gave them their first view of the city. The building combines a synagogue in the crypt, where tradition places the prophet's tomb, with a mosque above it, raised on the remains of a Crusader church and fortress. Around it, a national park preserves Second Temple period houses and quarries. Climb the stairs to the roof for a panorama from the coastal plain to the Judean Desert. Samuel's traditional anniversary falls on 28 Iyar, the same date as Jerusalem Day. Entry has been free.

• 1 Samuel 25:1 (opening words)

  וַיָּמָת שְׁמוּאֵל וַיִּקָּבְצוּ כָל־יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּסְפְּדוּ־לוֹ וַיִּקְבְּרֻהוּ בְּבֵיתוֹ בָּרָמָה

  And Samuel died; and all Israel gathered themselves together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah.

  1 Samuel 25:1. English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Summary. Precision matters here. The Bible places Samuel's burial at Ramah, his hometown, which most scholars locate at er-Ram, a few kilometers east of this hill. The identification of Nebi Samuel as his tomb is a later tradition from the Byzantine and Crusader periods, and many researchers identify the hill instead with biblical Mizpah, where Samuel gathered Israel. Ramah is a place name; Samuel is the man; the hill is named for him either way.

Nebi Samuel: 31.8330 N, 35.1816 E. Open in Google Maps

קוּמְרָאן8. Qumran National Park

The Judean Desert, above the Dead Sea. Where the oldest biblical manuscripts were found.

In 1947 Bedouin shepherds entered a cave in the cliffs above the Dead Sea and brought out clay jars holding scrolls. Over the following decade, eleven caves yielded the remains of hundreds of manuscripts, among them a complete scroll of Isaiah roughly a thousand years older than any copy known before it. The ruins below the caves, with their cisterns, ritual baths and a room often called the scriptorium, are presented through a short film and marked trails, and you can see Cave 4 from the lookout. Hours are shorter in winter and on Fridays, and the heat is serious from May to October, so go early and carry water.

• Isaiah 40:3

  קוֹל קוֹרֵא בַּמִּדְבָּר פַּנּוּ דֶּרֶךְ יְהוָה יַשְּׁרוּ בָּעֲרָבָה מְסִלָּה לֵאלֹהֵינוּ׃

  Hark! one calleth: 'Clear ye in the wilderness the way of the LORD, make plain in the desert a highway for our God.'

  Isaiah 40:3. English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Summary. The community that lived here quoted this verse in its own rule book to explain why it withdrew to the desert: it saw itself as preparing the way in the wilderness. The Great Isaiah Scroll from Cave 1 contains this chapter, and its text agrees closely with the Masoretic Hebrew printed above, which remains some of the strongest evidence that the biblical text was copied faithfully across a millennium.

Qumran: 31.7408 N, 35.4586 E. Open in Google Maps

מַעֲבַר הַיַּרְדֵּן9. Qasr al-Yahud Baptism Site, Jordan River

The Jordan Valley, east of Jericho. Where Israel crossed into the land.

The Arabic name means "Castle of the Jews," and it preserves the memory of the Israelites crossing the Jordan under Joshua. Tradition also places the ascent of Elijah nearby and, for Christians, the baptism of Jesus by John. The site reopened to the public in 2011 after decades as a closed military zone, and today it has shaded pavilions, wooden steps into the water and robes for sale for those who wish to immerse. The river is only a few meters wide here; across it stands the Jordanian site of Bethany Beyond the Jordan. Entry is free. It is a natural stop on any list of places for Christians to visit, and it is just as meaningful for Jewish visitors who come to stand where the nation first entered the land.

• Joshua 3:17

  וַיַּעַמְדוּ הַכֹּהֲנִים נֹשְׂאֵי הָאָרוֹן בְּרִית־יְהוָה בֶּחָרָבָה בְּתוֹךְ הַיַּרְדֵּן הָכֵן וְכָל־יִשְׂרָאֵל עֹבְרִים בֶּחָרָבָה עַד אֲשֶׁר־תַּמּוּ כָּל־הַגּוֹי לַעֲבֹר אֶת־הַיַּרְדֵּן׃

  And the priests that bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all Israel passed over on dry ground, until all the nation were passed clean over the Jordan.

  Joshua 3:17. English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Summary. The crossing opposite Jericho closes forty years of wandering, and the text stresses that the ground was dry and that every last person crossed. Whether the exact spot was here or a little upstream cannot be proven, but the tradition attached to this bend of the river is ancient, and the Jordan crossing is a hinge in the whole biblical story, Jewish and Christian alike.

Qasr al-Yahud: 31.8378 N, 35.5372 E. Open in Google Maps

הַשּׁוֹמְרוֹנִי הַטּוֹב10. Good Samaritan Museum, Ma'ale Adumim Road

The Judean Desert, halfway down the Jericho road. A mosaic museum on a biblical boundary.

Travelers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho have needed a place to stop for a very long time. The Ottoman inn on this spot was built in the nineteenth century over earlier ruins, and it now houses a museum of mosaic floors gathered from churches and from Jewish and Samaritan synagogues across Judea, Samaria and Gaza, some carrying Hebrew, Greek or Samaritan inscriptions. It opened in 2009 and is named for the parable Jesus told about a traveler robbed on this road. Separate halls cover the Jewish, Christian and Samaritan stories, and one wing is devoted to the Israelite Samaritans, a small community that still lives on Mount Gerizim. Summer hours run from 8:00 to 17:00 and winter hours to 16:00, with earlier closing on Fridays.

• Joshua 15:7 (first half)

  וְעָלָה הַגְּבוּל דְּבִרָה מֵעֵמֶק עָכוֹר וְצָפוֹנָה פֹּנֶה אֶל־הַגִּלְגָּל אֲשֶׁר־נֹכַח לְמַעֲלֵה אֲדֻמִּים אֲשֶׁר מִנֶּגֶב לַנָּחַל

  And the border went up to Debir from the valley of Achor, and so northward, looking toward Gilgal, that is over against the ascent of Adummim, which is on the south side of the river.

  Joshua 15:7. English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Summary. Long before the parable, this slope had a Hebrew name: Ma'aleh Adummim, the Red Ascent, for the reddish rock you can still see around the museum. Joshua uses it to fix the boundary between Judah and Benjamin. Keep the names straight: the modern city of Ma'ale Adumim takes its name from this ascent, and the Samaritans of the parable are a people, while Samaria is a region; the museum sits in the Judean Desert, not in Samaria.

Good Samaritan Museum, on the south side of Route 1 between Ma'ale Adumim and Jericho. Open in Google Maps

דֶּרֶךְTravel Times Compared

How far each spot really is from the Central Bus Station, once walking and connections are counted.

Distance on a map is misleading in this region, because roads bend around towns and armored buses travel slowly. The chart below estimates the one-way trip from the Central Bus Station to each gate, including the walk or the taxi at the end but not the wait for the bus.

מְקוֹרוֹתSources