Teaneck—Planning a family trip to Israel? Not sure how to maximize your visit? Having trouble planning your itinerary?
The family that has together created inspireconverstion.com, “a site for smart, caring parents and teens,” parents Naomi and Jason Greenblatt, with their six children (including a set of triplets!) have recently launched a new guidebook to planning a family vacation to Israel, entitled, Israel for Families: An Adventure in 12 Days. The book offers a range of suggestions regarding the best tourist sites to visit and unique stories for children that take them inside the land and history of Israel. It presents a pre-planned, 12 day vacation in Israel, with activities appropriate for all ages and a variety of activity types suited to each family’s likings.
“My family is very passionate about traveling, we build relationships with each other and grow as a family and as individuals as we experience a new culture and place,” said Anna Greenblatt. “Our parents work very hard to put together vacations that are a mixture of excitement and fun, and we thought it would be a great idea to put all of our ideas into one place.”
For the Greenblatts, writing the guidebook came naturally. “It felt like a very natural extension of what we’ve been trying to do since we started our website,” explained the Greenblatts.
Their website, realfamilytrips.com, provides an expansive collection of itineraries to various locations, travel tips and the best travel deals. The Greenblatts had the idea to write a guidebook for a while, but actually began the process a few months ago, while planning their own family trip to Israel, which will take place this August.
The Greenblatts decided to self-publish the guidebook because they had a lot of specific ideas, and wanted the freedom to create the guidebook that they had envisioned. The guidebook was a joint effort on the part of the Greenblatt family, they conducted all the research and preparations together.
The guidebook begins with an introduction to Israel, with facts about the land’s history, culture and topography. It suggests full itineraries for each day of the 12 day trip, with each day focused on a particular location in Israel and tourist sites to visit there. “We didn’t want to just write, visit Chizkiyahu’s water tunnels, but rather, here’s what you’ll need, here’s what you should bring with you,” said Noah Greenblatt. The guidebook divides each day of the trip into a specific chapter and focuses on one particular location in Israel. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Northern Israel, the Dead Sea, Gush Etzion and Mitzpe Ramon are among the locations covered.
The book also provides ways to make the family trip educational and growth-oriented through understanding the significance of the sites being visited. For children ages 4-17, the guidebook provides a collection of original children’s historical fiction stories that take place at the sites actually visited during the trip. The Greenblatts collaborated with a writer to create these stories.
The stories can engage younger children in the trip while also keeping them historically informed.
“[The guidebook is] meant for the whole family to enjoy vacation without worrying about the planning,” said Julia Greenblatt.
The guidebook is currently available in e-book format on Amazon and Smashwords, which offers the guidebook in a variety of formats that will work on almost all devices, including Kindle, Nook, iPads and a PDF that can be read on a computer. The guidebook will soon be available at Barnes and Noble and other online retailers. A print version of the guidebook is to follow in a few weeks.
By Esther Hirsch
