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The Sea of Galilee seen from the hills above Tiberias

The Sea of Galilee · Where to stay

Where to stay on the Sea of Galilee

Fourteen of the twenty hotels in the listing snapshot behind this page carry a Tiberias address, and only two of the rest stand more than eight kilometres from that one town.

Thalia Tran / Unsplash

Hotels with a Tiberias address

14 of 20

Counted from the dated listing snapshot behind this page; four more sit at Migdal and Ginosar within six kilometres

VAT on a hotel bill

18%

Isrotel publishes shekel prices without it and states Israeli citizens are charged it; Dan says its prices refer to tourists only

Saturday room handover

18:00

Fattal and Dan both give out rooms at 18:00 on Saturdays and the last day of festivals, against 15:00 midweek

Guarded beaches on the lake

31

Eleven in Tiberias, fifteen in the Kinneret municipal union, four in Emek HaYarden and one at Migdal, according to Ynet

People do sleep on the Kinneret, in quantity, but they sleep in one place. Fourteen of the twenty hotels in the listing snapshot behind this page carry a Tiberias address. Of the six that do not, four are strung along the north-western shore at Migdal and Ginosar within about six kilometres of the town, and only two, on the north-eastern shore under the Golan, are more than eight kilometres away. The lake has one hotel town and a thin scatter of everything else.

On water this small that matters less for driving times than it does for evenings. Almost nothing on the shore is more than half an hour from anything else, so the question a base really answers is what is outside the door at nine at night: a promenade with restaurants and buses on it, or a lawn, a beach and whatever the hotel is serving. The second choice also puts you inside the ring of Christian sites, which are on the northern shore rather than in the town.

The ten places below were researched from what their operators publish: room counts, what the spa holds, what the shore under the lawn is and is not, and when the room is handed over on a Saturday. Ratings and vote counts are not in the writing. They render from the dated listing snapshot in their own panel, so it is visible when they were pulled. Nightly rates are not here either, because they move week to week and would be wrong before this page was read.

10 places to stay

The places to stay worth the trip in The Sea of Galilee

Our pick and why, then everything the listing knows, with the date it was pulled.

  1. 01

    The Scots Hotel

    A stay with a documented past, on the Tiberias waterfront

    The hotel belongs to the Church of Scotland, and the black basalt core of it was built as a mission hospital: David Watt Torrance, a Scottish doctor who qualified in 1883, began treating patients of every religion in Tiberias, the hospital moved to larger premises in 1894, and it ran until 1959. The buildings were converted into a hotel in 1999 and the property now has 69 rooms, divided between the old stone wards and later additions. It stands on Gdud Barak Street with the water immediately below and the promenade, the bus station and the town's restaurants within a short walk. The trade is that this is a church-owned house with gardens and a history rather than a resort with a children's club, and it is priced as the former.

    “Beautiful hotel, helpful staff, right on the Sea of Galilee”
    A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing.
    4.71,908 ratings

    94% of raters gave four or five stars.

    Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.

    Address
    Gdud Barak St 1
    Kitchen
    Hotel, Bed & breakfast, Breakfast restaurant
    Map, hours and reviews

  2. 02

    Nof Ginosar Hotel

    The Gospel shore, from a kibbutz lawn

    Nof Ginosar sits on the shore at Kibbutz Ginosar, about six kilometres north of Tiberias, at the foot of the Arbel cliffs and looking across at the Golan. The hotel describes rooms and suites in a rural setting, an adjacent beach and a swimming pool open daily from 10:00 to 18:00 with lifeguard cover, and states outright that it has no spa, which is a useful piece of honesty at this price. The Yigal Allon Centre is on the same kibbutz, and the first-century hull found by two of its members in 1986 has been displayed there since 2000. Capernaum, Tabgha and the Mount of Beatitudes are minutes up the road. The cost of all this is that there is nothing to walk to after dinner.

    “Convenient location Great staff Good food Clean”
    A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing.
    4.43,860 ratings

    85% of raters gave four or five stars.

    Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.

    Kitchen
    Hotel
    Map, hours and reviews

  3. 03

    Magdala Hotel

    Pilgrims who want the excavation under the building

    Magdala is run by the New Gate to Peace Foundation and stands on the Migdal shore at the foot of Mount Arbel, on ground that turned out to hold the first-century town: the 2009 excavation that preceded construction uncovered a synagogue of that century, houses, ritual baths, a market and harbour works. The house publishes more than 150 rooms and suites, each with a balcony or terrace, and a buffet restaurant, Tarichaea, on the first floor above the atrium. Duc In Altum, the chapel in the grounds, has seven areas for prayer and holds daily Mass. It is built and run for groups, which is exactly right if you are travelling as one and the main reservation if you are not.

    “The property, room, grounds, food, and overall experience was top-notch.”
    A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing.
    4.6833 ratings

    92% of raters gave four or five stars.

    Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.

    Kitchen
    Hotel
    Map, hours and reviews

  4. 04

    Gomeh Hotel

    An Israeli family week with all the machinery

    Isrotel's Gomeh has 212 rooms on Migdal beach on the north-western shore, about five kilometres out of Tiberias and inside the ring of Christian sites rather than in the town. It is the full domestic-holiday apparatus: a semi-Olympic heated pool, a children's pool, a kids' club, a buffet restaurant, a lobby bar and lawns with seating running down towards the water. Rooms with connecting doors are advertised prominently, which tells you who fills it. One line on the hotel's own page is worth reading before booking, because it is honest and it changes the picture: the shore below is not a declared beach and is not the hotel's responsibility.

    “Beautiful hotel, beautiful people, great service, delicious food.”
    A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing.
    4.41,337 ratings

    86% of raters gave four or five stars.

    Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.

    Address
    Migdal Shore
    Kitchen
    Hotel
    Map, hours and reviews

  5. 05

    Caesar Premier Tiberias

    Full service on the promenade, water in front and shops behind

    Caesar Premier has 220 rooms plus seven suites and two presidential suites at 103 on the Tiberias promenade, which puts the lake on one side and the shopping and eating streets on the other. The Hamat Caesar spa attached to it runs twenty treatment rooms, and the indoor pool is thermal salt water held at 36°C, named for the hot springs a short way down the same shore. There is an outdoor pool with a snack bar, a kids' club, and a kitchen certified by the Tiberias Rabbinate. It is a large, busy, family-shaped hotel with conference halls taking up to 350 people, so anyone whose first requirement is quiet should be reading about Ginosar instead.

    “Nice and clean hotel , fascinating views and very accommodating personnels.”
    A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing.
    4.67,691 ratings

    90% of raters gave four or five stars.

    Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.

    Address
    הטיילת 103
    Kitchen
    Hotel
    Map, hours and reviews

  6. 06

    U Boutique Kinneret

    Water at the door without the resort scale

    U Boutique stands at 17 Gdud Barak Street, on the waterline itself, with a private beach, a pool and a spa, and the hotel puts the shopping about 500 metres away. Fattal runs it as the smaller and quieter of its Tiberias properties, alongside two Leonardos on the same short stretch, and the room categories it lists run from roughly 26 to 35 square metres. The U restaurant serves the standard Israeli breakfast spread and an evening menu of meat, fish, vegetarian and vegan dishes. It is a compromise in the useful sense: town on foot, a beach of its own, and a building small enough not to feel like a coach stop.

    “Amazing staff, beautiful rooms, good food!”
    A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing.
    4.71,833 ratings

    92% of raters gave four or five stars.

    Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.

    Address
    Gdud Barak St 17
    Kitchen
    Hotel
    Map, hours and reviews

  7. 07

    Ron Beach Hotel

    A lake-facing balcony and a kitchen that is not kosher

    Ron Beach sits on the shore just north of the town centre, and its own description is the one that decides it: 136 rooms, every one with a balcony facing the lake, the Golan and Mount Hermon. There is an outdoor pool, a garden, a basketball court, a playground and a stretch of private shore, and the hotel states that its meals are not kosher, which on this shoreline is unusual enough to settle a booking one way or the other. Facing east, the balconies get the sunrise over the Golan rather than the sunset. It is an independent house rather than a chain property, and it is run and priced accordingly.

    Kashrut:
    Not kosher
    “Stayed here in 08, our room smelled like mold so they upgraded us for free.”
    A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing.
    4.5791 ratings

    89% of raters gave four or five stars.

    Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.

    Address
    Tiberias
    Kitchen
    Hotel
    Map, hours and reviews

  8. 08

    Leonardo Plaza Hotel Tiberias

    A promenade address with the rules written down

    The Leonardo Plaza is at 1 HaBanim Street on the promenade, roughly 500 metres from the shops and the central bus station, with the Tiberium light show a three-minute walk away by the hotel's own reckoning. It has an outdoor pool with a toddler pool overlooking the lake, the Dakl spa with hydrotherapy pools and a dry sauna, a gym, a children's club and three conference halls. What earns it a place here is that Fattal publishes the mechanics most hotels leave you to find out: rooms from 15:00 midweek and 18:00 on Saturdays and festivals, checkout at 11:00 or 14:00 respectively, and late checkout at ₪250 subject to availability. It is a large block and it behaves like one.

    “Great customer service, nice room, gorgeous view, solid pricing.”
    A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing.
    4.34,376 ratings

    82% of raters gave four or five stars.

    Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.

    Address
    Ha-Banim St 1 ב
    Kitchen
    Hotel
    Map, hours and reviews

  9. 09

    Shirat Hayam Boutique Hotel

    Eleven rooms in a nineteenth-century building

    Shirat Hayam occupies a nineteenth-century building on the Tiberias waterfront that was put up as a hotel in the first place and has been restored as one, at 1 Ha-Yarden Street in the sculpture garden on the Yigal Alon promenade. It has eleven rooms, most of them looking at the lake, running from small capsule rooms through economy and deluxe grades to suites with a balcony or a jacuzzi. Breakfast is served and the service is personal, but there is no pool, no spa and no children's club, so it works as a two-night stop for a couple rather than as a base for a family week. The scale is the whole proposition: a door onto the promenade and ten other guests.

    “Very nice little boutique hotel with really great people and service”
    A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing.
    4.0347 ratings

    74% of raters gave four or five stars.

    Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.

    Address
    Ha-Yarden St 1
    Kitchen
    Hotel, Extended stay hotel, Love hotel
    Map, hours and reviews

  10. 10

    Astoria Galilee Hotel

    Cyclists, walkers and anyone paying their own way

    The Astoria is at 13 Brurya Street, up the slope and about a kilometre back from the water, which is the main reason it costs less than the promenade hotels. It lists 100 rooms over four floors, a seasonal pool, private parking, three event halls and a restaurant serving breakfast and a home-style Galilean dinner, and it has been run as a family business for more than ninety years by its own account. The hotel makes a point of catering for cyclists, jeep parties, water-sports groups and walkers, which is a fair description of who fills it and of what it is good at. The trade is the climb back up at the end of the day, and a view of the lake rather than a place on it.

    “very good hotel in a great location - very tasty food, nice service.”
    A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing.
    4.0812 ratings

    72% of raters gave four or five stars.

    Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.

    Address
    Brurya St 13
    Kitchen
    Hotel
    Map, hours and reviews

The decision

Four shores, and only one of them has a town

Tiberias is the default because it is the only settlement on the lake with a hotel economy. It gives a promenade, restaurants, shops, the central bus station and a hotel every hundred metres, and it gives them within a few minutes' walk of the water. It also gives noise, coach parties and, in July and August, the full weight of Israeli domestic tourism. Within the town the difference that matters is height: the promenade addresses on HaBanim and Gdud Barak are on the water, while Brurya, Ahad Ha'Am and the streets above them are a climb back up at the end of the day.

The north-western shore, from Migdal to Ginosar, is four to six kilometres out and is a different holiday. This is where the Gospel sites are: Magdala, Tabgha, the Mount of Beatitudes and Capernaum sit within a few kilometres of each other on one road, and the Arbel cliffs rise behind the hotels. The buildings here are set in lawns rather than in streets, which is the attraction and also the catch, because there is generally nowhere to walk to for dinner. Anyone whose trip is built around the Christian sites should sleep on this stretch and treat Tiberias as somewhere to drive into.

The north-eastern shore, under the Golan escarpment, is emptier still: two of the snapshot's hotels stand out there, and the rest of that side is beaches, plantations and very little else. It is the quietest option, it adds twenty minutes or so to the run round to Capernaum, and it reverses the light, since the western shore looks east into the sunrise over the Golan while a room on the eastern side faces the Galilee hills and the sunset. The south, around Degania and the Jordan outlet, has the Yardenit baptismal site and almost no hotel stock at all.

One decision sits above all of these. The Kinneret is a good base for the Lower Galilee and the Jordan valley and a slow one for the coast and the upper hills, so if the object of the trip is Nazareth, Safed, Akko or the Golan rather than the lake, sleep there instead. For a week, two bases usually beat one.

The stock

Resort hotel, kibbutz guesthouse, pilgrim house, a night on the sand

The lake hotel, in its commonest form, is a resort hotel in the Israeli sense: two hundred rooms or more, a heated pool, a spa, a children's club and a buffet twice a day. Isrotel's Gomeh has 212 rooms on Migdal beach; Caesar Premier has 220 on the Tiberias promenade with a spa of twenty treatment rooms and an indoor thermal salt pool held at 36°C. These are built for the domestic family week rather than for a couple touring the country, which is why the pool and the connecting doors are advertised harder than the lobby.

The kibbutz guesthouse is the lake's own contribution. Nof Ginosar stands on the shore at Kibbutz Ginosar with an adjacent beach, a pool open daily from 10:00 to 18:00 with a lifeguard, and, in the hotel's own words, no spa. The Yigal Allon Centre is on the same kibbutz, and the first-century hull pulled out of the mud in 1986 has been on display in its hall since 2000, which makes this the one hotel on the lake you can walk from to a boat of the period.

Pilgrim houses are a category of their own here and are not only for pilgrims. Magdala, run by the New Gate to Peace Foundation, publishes more than 150 rooms and suites above the first-century town its own 2009 excavation uncovered. The Scots Hotel is the Church of Scotland's, and its stone core was built as a mission hospital. Both take ordinary bookings, and both are quieter than a resort of the same size because the guests are mostly on a schedule.

What the shoreline has very little of is the zimmer, the privately let Israeli cabin: every one of the twenty places of this kind in the snapshot behind this page is a hotel, and the zimmer belt is in the hills rather than on the water. The cheap end of the lake is not a cabin but the sand. Ynet's survey of the shoreline reports that several beaches have camping and lodging areas, some renting tents, chairs and sunbeds for the night, others no more than a place to park a caravan, and that provision is not consistent from beach to beach.

The week

Friday afternoon changes the hotel, not just the town

Shabbat runs from sunset on Friday to nightfall on Saturday, and an Israeli hotel reorganises itself around it. The visible part is the clock. Fattal gives out rooms at Leonardo Plaza Tiberias from 15:00 midweek but from 18:00 on Saturdays and festivals, with checkout pushed from 11:00 to 14:00 on those days; Dan publishes the same 18:00 handover across its hotels. A Saturday arrival that assumes a mid-afternoon check-in will spend three hours in a lobby.

The kitchens change too. Most Tiberias hotels are kosher and say so: Caesar Premier holds a certificate from the Tiberias Rabbinate. In practice that means no meat and dairy at the same sitting, a Friday dinner served early or held over, and a Saturday buffet built around food cooked the day before. Ron Beach is the exception worth knowing about in either direction, because the hotel states plainly that its meals are not kosher.

Breakfast is the meal Israeli hotels are actually known for, and on the lake it is almost always in the rate: salads, cheeses, eggs cooked to order, cured and pickled fish, bread and fruit, laid out as a buffet. It is substantial enough to stand in for lunch, which is worth planning around on a day out at Capernaum or up on the Arbel cliff. Dinner is a different question. In Tiberias there are restaurants outside the door; at Ginosar, Migdal or out on the Golan side there usually are not, so half board is worth pricing rather than dismissing.

The calendar also fills the place. The Kinneret is a domestic destination first, and the school holidays, the summer weeks and the festival weeks are when its own country arrives. Ynet notes a free shuttle running the whole shoreline at weekends through the summer and then daily from the middle of August, which is a fair measure of how many people are moving between the beaches by then.

The bill

VAT, parking, and the beach that may not be a beach

Israeli VAT stands at 18 per cent, and hotel accommodation sold to a tourist is not charged it. The chains state this in their own terms: Isrotel says its shekel prices exclude the 18 per cent, that Israeli guests are charged it under Israeli law, and that foreign citizens are priced in euros or dollars, while Dan says the prices on its site refer to tourists only and that Israelis booking through its non-Hebrew sites pay full VAT. The exemption goes with being a tourist and paying in foreign currency, so expect to be asked for a passport at check-in and to be billed in dollars or euros.

Parking is the second line on the bill and the one people forget. Hotel car parks range from free and included to charged by the night, and the Astoria, for instance, lists private parking among its facilities. Away from the hotel, the rule on the shoreline is that walking in is free and driving in is not: pedestrian entry to the guarded beaches is free under an Interior Ministry decision, according to Ynet, but most of them charge for a car.

The third thing to read before booking is what the hotel is promising about the water. The lake level rises and falls from year to year, and a receding shore leaves gravel and mud where a beach was. Isrotel is unusually direct about this on Gomeh's own page, stating that the shore below the hotel is not a declared beach and is not the hotel's responsibility. A private shore, a lawn running to the water and a declared guarded beach are three different things, and the difference is worth a phone call if children are going to swim.

One piece of small print: late checkout is a published charge rather than a favour, and Fattal lists ₪250 for it at Leonardo Plaza Tiberias, subject to availability.

The full list

Every place to stay we found in The Sea of Galilee

All 20 that Google Maps returned for this area, ranked by rating weighted for how many people rated it, so a five from three people does not outrank a four and a half from three thousand.

Every place to stay in The Sea of Galilee, from a Google Maps snapshot taken on 2026-08-13
NameKindRatingRatingsPriceWhere
The Scots HotelHotel4.71,908n/aTiberias
U Boutique Kinneretמלון יו בוטיק כנרתHotel4.71,833n/aTiberias
Caesar Premier TiberiasHotel4.67,691n/aTiberias
Magdala Hotelמלון מגדלה טבריהHotel4.6833n/aMigdal
Galei KinneretResort hotel4.51,337n/aTiberias
Ron Beach HotelHotel4.5791n/aTiberias
Nof Ginosar HotelHotel4.43,860n/aGinosar
Gomeh HotelHotel4.41,337n/aMigdal
Leonardo Plaza Hotel TiberiasHotel4.34,376n/aTiberias
Leonardo Hotel TiberiasHotel4.33,642n/aTiberias
Emily's HotelHotel4.3441n/aTiberias
Kinar Galilee Hotelמלון כינר גלילHotel4.23,179n/an/a
Sofia Sea of Galilee Hotelמלון סופיה טבריה, כנרתHotel4.1840n/aTiberias
Prima Galil Hotelמלון פרימה גלילHotel4.11,538n/aTiberias
Shirat Hayam Boutique HotelHotel4.0347n/aTiberias
Golan Hotelמלון גולן טבריהHotel4.0730n/aTiberias
Astoria Galilee HotelHotel4.0812n/aTiberias
The Setai Sea Of GalileeHotel4.03,940n/an/a
HaHof Shel Mushהחוף של מוש, כנרתHotel3.7536n/aMigdal
Club Hotel TiberiasHotel3.03,876n/aTiberias

Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings and counts move daily and this table does not: it is a snapshot, and it is here so the ranking above can be checked rather than taken on trust. Prices are Google's own price band, not a menu price.

The Sea of Galilee seen from the hills above Tiberias

Practical

What to know before you go

  • A Tiberias address does not mean an address on the water. The Astoria is about a kilometre back and uphill from the shore, and several other town hotels sit well above it.
  • Ask what the shore below the hotel actually is. Isrotel states on Gomeh's own page that it is not a declared beach and is not the hotel's responsibility.
  • Plan a Saturday arrival around 18:00. Fattal and Dan both hand over rooms at 18:00 on Saturdays and the last day of festivals, against 15:00 the rest of the week.
  • Expect the room to be billed in dollars or euros. Isrotel prices foreign citizens in those currencies, and Dan states its published prices refer to tourists only and exclude VAT.
  • Budget for parking rather than for beach entry. Pedestrian access to the guarded beaches is free under an Interior Ministry decision, but most of them charge for a car.
  • Price half board if you are sleeping at Ginosar, Migdal or on the Golan side. There is usually nowhere to walk to for dinner.
  • For the Christian sites, sleep between Migdal and Ginosar rather than in the town. Magdala, Tabgha, the Mount of Beatitudes and Capernaum are all on that one short stretch of road.
  • If Nazareth, Safed, Akko or the Golan is the main object of the trip rather than a day out, sleep there instead and treat the lake as the day out.

Thalia Tran / Unsplash

The figures

Numbers behind this page

Each figure carries the year it belongs to and links the source it came from.

MeasureFigureAs ofSource
Israeli VAT rate18%2026isrotel.com
Rooms at Caesar Premier Tiberias220, plus 7 suites and 2 presidential suites2026caesarhotels.co.il
Rooms at Gomeh, Migdal beach2122026isrotel.co.il
Rooms and suites at MagdalaMore than 1502026magdala.org
Rooms at Ron Beach, all with balconies1362026ronbeachhotel.com
Rooms at Astoria, Tiberias100 over four floors2026astoria.co.il
Rooms at the Scots Hotel692026en.wikipedia.org
Guarded beaches around the lake312026ynetnews.com

The rest of the The Sea of Galilee guide

Things to do in The Sea of Galilee →Where to eat in The Sea of Galilee →Getting to The Sea of Galilee →The best time to visit The Sea of Galilee →

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.

  1. OfficialKibbutz Ginosarginosar.co.il
    Nof Ginosar Hotel

    The setting below the Arbel cliffs, the adjacent beach, pool hours of 10:00 to 18:00 with a lifeguard, the kids' club and the hotel's own statement that it has no spa.

  2. OfficialYigal Allon Centre, Kibbutz Ginosaren.yigal-allon-centre.org.il
    The Ancient Boat

    The 1986 discovery by two members of the kibbutz, the radiocarbon range of 100 BCE to 100 CE, the move to the exhibition hall in 2000 and the centre's published hours.

  3. OfficialMagdalamagdala.org
    Magdala Guest House

    Operation by the New Gate to Peace Foundation, more than 150 rooms and suites with balconies or terraces, the 2009 excavation, Duc In Altum and the Tarichaea restaurant.

  4. OfficialIsrotelisrotel.co.il
    Gomeh Kinneret

    212 rooms on Migdal beach, the semi-Olympic heated pool and kids' club, and the statement that the shore below is not a declared beach and not the hotel's responsibility.

  5. OfficialIsrotelisrotel.com
    Terms and Conditions

    The 18 per cent VAT position, shekel prices offered to Israelis without it, and reservations for foreign citizens priced in euros or dollars.

  6. OfficialDan Hotelsdanhotels.com
    Legal terms

    That published prices refer to tourists only and exclude VAT, that Israelis booking on non-Hebrew sites pay full VAT, and access to rooms from 15:00, or 18:00 on Saturdays and the last day of festivals.

  7. OfficialCaesar Premier Hotelscaesarhotels.co.il
    Caesar Premier Tiberias

    220 rooms with seven suites and two presidential suites, the Hamat Caesar spa of twenty treatment rooms, the indoor thermal salt pool at 36°C and the Tiberias Rabbinate certificate.

  8. OfficialFattal Hotelsfattal.co.il
    Leonardo Plaza Tiberias

    The address at 1 HaBanim Street, the three-minute walk to the Tiberium show, the Dakl spa, check-in at 15:00 and 18:00, checkout at 11:00 and 14:00, and late checkout at ₪250.

  9. OfficialFattal Hotelsfattal.co.il
    U Boutique Kinneret

    17 Gdud Barak Street on the waterline, the private beach, pool and spa, room categories of 26 to 35 square metres and the U restaurant's breakfast and evening menus.

  10. OfficialRon Beach Hotelronbeachhotel.com
    Ron Beach Hotel

    136 rooms with balconies facing the lake, the Golan and Mount Hermon, the pool, gardens and private shore, and the hotel's statement that its meals are not kosher.

  11. OfficialShirat Hayamshirathayam.co.il
    Shirat Hayam Boutique Hotel

    The nineteenth-century building on the promenade, originally built as a hotel, its eleven rooms and their grades, and the address in the sculpture garden at 1 Ha-Yarden Street.

  12. OfficialAstoria Galileeastoria.co.il
    Astoria Galilee Hotel

    100 rooms over four floors about a kilometre from the shore, the seasonal pool and private parking, more than ninety years in family hands and the cyclists and walkers it caters for.

  13. ReportingYnetnewsynetnews.com
    Sun, sand and serenity: the spectacular beaches of the Sea of Galilee

    31 guarded beaches and how they divide between Tiberias, the Kinneret union, Emek HaYarden and Migdal; free pedestrian entry by Interior Ministry decision, parking charges, beach camping and the free summer shuttle.

  14. ReferenceWikipediaen.wikipedia.org
    Scots Hotel

    Church of Scotland ownership and 69 rooms; David Watt Torrance's hospital from the 1880s, its move in 1894, its closure in 1959 and the 1999 conversion to a hotel.

Where to stay on the Sea of Galilee: common questions

Should I stay in Tiberias or out on the shore?+

Stay in Tiberias if you want to walk out to dinner, use buses, or have a town around you; stay at Migdal or Ginosar if the Christian sites are the reason for the trip. The northern shore puts Magdala, Tabgha, the Mount of Beatitudes and Capernaum within a few kilometres of the bed, and the town is a short drive back in. Everything on this lake is within about half an hour of everything else, so this is a choice about evenings rather than about distances.

Is there anywhere to stay that is not a hotel?+

On the shoreline itself, not much. Every one of the twenty places of this kind in the listing snapshot behind this page is a hotel, and the zimmer, the privately let Israeli cabin, belongs to the hills above the lake rather than to the water's edge. The genuinely cheap option here is the sand: Ynet reports that several of the lake's beaches have camping and lodging areas, some renting tents, chairs and sunbeds overnight, though what is provided varies from beach to beach and is not consistent.

Do I pay VAT on the hotel bill?+

Not as a tourist. Israeli VAT is 18 per cent and hotel accommodation sold to tourists is exempt, which is why Isrotel publishes shekel prices excluding it and prices foreign citizens in euros or dollars, and why Dan states that the prices on its site refer to tourists only and do not include VAT. The exemption goes with being a tourist and paying in foreign currency, so bring a passport to check-in and expect the room to be billed in dollars or euros rather than shekels.

What happens in the hotel on Shabbat?+

The clock moves and the kitchen changes. Fattal hands over rooms at Leonardo Plaza Tiberias from 18:00 on Saturdays and festival days rather than 15:00, with checkout at 14:00 instead of 11:00, and Dan publishes the same 18:00 handover; a Saturday arrival planned for mid-afternoon will be waiting in the lobby. Most Tiberias hotels are kosher, so Friday dinner is served early and the Saturday buffet is built around food cooked the day before.

Is breakfast included?+

Almost always, and it is a real meal. The Israeli hotel breakfast is a buffet of salads, cheeses, eggs cooked to order, cured and pickled fish, bread and fruit, and it is substantial enough to replace lunch on a day out at Capernaum or on the Arbel cliff. Dinner is the question worth asking about instead: in Tiberias there are restaurants outside the door, and at Ginosar, Migdal or on the Golan side there usually are not, so half board is worth pricing.

Are all the hotels kosher?+

Most of the Tiberias ones are, and they publish it: Caesar Premier holds a certificate from the Tiberias Rabbinate. Ron Beach is the exception that states the opposite, telling guests directly that its meals are not kosher. If it matters to you in either direction, the hotel's own site is the place to check, because it is one of the few things every Israeli hotel states plainly.

Will there be a beach below the hotel?+

Sometimes, and a private shore is not the same thing as a declared beach. The lake level rises and falls from one winter to the next, and a low lake leaves wide gravel margins where the water used to be. Isrotel says so on Gomeh's own page, stating that the shore there is not a declared beach and is not the hotel's responsibility, and other hotels are less explicit about the same situation. Swim at the guarded beaches instead.

Do I need a car if I sleep on the lake?+

In Tiberias, no; anywhere else on the shore, effectively yes. The town has the central bus station, intercity services and local shoreline routes, and Ynet notes a free summer shuttle running the whole lake at weekends and then daily from the middle of August. From a hotel at Ginosar, Migdal or out under the Golan, a car is what turns a lawn by the water into a base for the Gospel sites, the Arbel cliff and the Golan.

Is parking free at the hotels?+

It varies, and it is worth checking at booking. Some hotels include it, the Astoria lists private parking among its facilities, and others charge by the night. Away from the hotel the pattern on the shoreline is consistent: walking into a guarded beach is free under an Interior Ministry decision, according to Ynet, but most beaches charge to bring a car in, so keep some cash for the barrier.

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