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If your last visit was a while ago, the way you get around this city has changed more than the city itself has. There is a light rail now. The train from the airport is the obvious way in. Most guidebooks, and most of what a search engine will tell you, predate both.

The short version

• The train from Ben Gurion is the fastest and cheapest way into the city.
• The light rail Red Line opened in 2023 and runs partly underground through the centre.
• Neither runs from Friday afternoon to Saturday evening. Plan around it.
• The bus network is the big one: cheap, air-conditioned, and it goes everywhere.
• Buy a Rav-Kav travel card at the airport and install the Rav-Kav Online app to top it up.
• We can arrange an airport transfer, which is what the Shabbat gap is for.

From Ben Gurion

There is a railway station underneath the airport terminal, and the ride into central Tel Aviv is short - a matter of minutes rather than an expedition. It is far and away the cheapest way in.

Get off at whichever central station suits you; Savidor Center is the usual choice for this part of town, and from there it is a taxi or a short ride to us. The alternatives are a taxi from the rank, which is straightforward and much more expensive, or a sherut shared minibus.

Or ask us. We arrange airport transfers, which for a late arrival with luggage and children is usually the right answer regardless of what the timetable says.

The light rail

The Red Line opened in 2023 and was the first line of what is planned to be a network. It runs across the metropolitan area and goes underground through the dense central section, which is what makes it useful rather than merely present.

What it does not do is serve the seafront. The nearest stop to us is a walk or a short ride away, so for the beach, the promenade and the immediate neighbourhood you will still be on foot - which, as the neighbourhood post explains, is generally what you want anyway. The light rail earns its keep for crossing the city, not for pottering around it.

Further lines have been under construction for years. Whether any of them are open by the time you read this is exactly the sort of thing to check rather than trust a blog post about.

The buses, which do most of the work

It would be easy to read the last two sections and think the trains and the tram are the network. They are not. The bus network is the network, and it is enormous.

Buses go everywhere in this city, at a frequency that means you rarely wait long, and they go everywhere in the country as well. They reach the places the railway does not, which is most places. They are cheap, and they are properly air-conditioned - a genuine consideration in July, when the walk to the stop is the uncomfortable part and the twenty minutes on board are the relief.

In Tel Aviv the buses are Dan - that is the operator whose blue winged wheel you will see on almost everything moving through the city. Egged is the Jerusalem operator, and you will meet it on intercity routes rather than around here. For a visitor the distinction barely matters at the point of paying: the same Rav-Kav card works on all of them, exactly as it does on the trains and the light rail. Tap on when you board.

Intercity coaches run from the terminals rather than from a street stop. Between them and the trains, almost anywhere in the country is reachable in a day from here, which is the practical argument for staying put in one apartment rather than moving from hotel to hotel.

Two things worth knowing. Routes and stops are best found through a journey planner app rather than a map on a pole, because the network is dense enough that guessing is slow. And buses stop for Shabbat along with everything else, which is the subject of the next section.

Jerusalem, and out of the city

The fast line has made Jerusalem a genuine day trip - you can go in the morning and be back for dinner, which was not true a decade ago. It runs from the airport station, so from here you take the train out and change.

The same network reaches Haifa up the coast and a good deal else besides. That is the argument for basing yourself in one apartment for a week rather than moving hotels every two nights.

The thing that catches people out

Public transport - trains, light rail, most buses - stops from Friday afternoon until Saturday evening. Every week.

This surprises a startling number of first-time visitors, usually the ones who booked a Friday evening flight. Taxis run throughout, sherut minibuses run on some routes, and the city itself is entirely awake: the beaches and cafes are at their busiest on a Saturday. It is only the public network that pauses.

If you are landing or leaving in that window, arrange a transfer in advance. That is the single most useful thing on this page.

Get a Rav-Kav at the airport

This is the practical tip that saves the most bother, and almost nobody arrives knowing it.

Fares here are not paid in cash on board. The whole network runs on a travel card called the Rav-Kav, and it covers the trains, the light rail and the buses. Pick one up at the airport, before you leave the terminal, and load some credit onto it while you are there. It takes a couple of minutes at the service point and it means your first journey starts with getting on the train rather than working out how to pay for it.

Then install the Rav-Kav Online app. It lets you top the card up from your phone whenever you need to, instead of hunting for a machine at a station you have never been to before, at the exact moment you want to be getting on something. If you are here for a week and using the network at all, this is the difference between the system being invisible and being a small daily nuisance.

A few notes worth having:

• One card per person. They are personal, not shareable, so get one each.
• Top up before you travel, not on the platform. The app is for exactly this.
• Keep it. The card stays valid, so if you come back it still works.
• Ask us if something has changed. Ticketing here is modernised often, and we would rather tell you what is true this month than have you rely on a page written earlier.

You may not need any of it

For a week spent between the beach, the cafes and the White City, you will walk almost everywhere. The network matters for three things: getting in from the airport, crossing the city when it is too hot to walk it, and getting out for a day. All three are easier than they used to be, and a Rav-Kav in your pocket covers all of them.