Getting to Israel cheaply is obviously important for a lot of tourists who visit Israel, particularly amid rising air fares. Whilst it may seem obvious, there are a number of ways to dramatically decrease the cost of your flights to Israel and after our recent article about the best ways to visit Israel on a budget, we publish this guide of the best ways to get to Israel cheaply with some general tips that you might find helpful in planning your trip. We’ve broken it down depending on where you’re coming from, and then at the end are some general tips.

It is becoming more and more popular for tourists to take a cruise to Israel, with the Israeli ports of Haifa and Ashdod featuring as stops on the itineraries of more and more cruise companies. The cruises stopping in Israel tend to stop for one night in Haifa and one night in Ashdod (south of Tel Aviv), although occasionally they’ll stop for two nights in one of these ports.

Flights from San Francisco to Tel Aviv with Continental Airlines, an expanding El Al fleet, direct flights between Israel and Lisbon with Sun D’Or, and possibly Chinese Hainan Airlines and Indian Airlines flights to Israel

Israel will become closer to the Danes with the launch of the first direct flights between Copenhagen and Tel Aviv expected to launch in November.

Flights from Tel Aviv to Eilat are by far the quickest and easiest way to get from the center of Israel to the resort on the Red Sea. There are three options for flying to Eilat – domestic airlines Arkia and Israir, and international airline EL AL. The majority of Arkia and Israir flights depart from Tel Aviv’s domestic airport, Sde Dov, although some do depart from Ben Gurion. All of EL AL’s flight to Eilat leave from Tel Aviv.

Low-cost German airline, Air Berlin are upping their services to Tel Aviv this year with new direct flights from Cologne/Bonn, Dusseldorf, and Munich, as well as business class offerings on their current Berlin route.

Low-cost airline Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA plans to inaugurate a weekly Stockholm-Tel Aviv route in March. Norwegian Air Shuttle is Scandinavia’s second largest airline, flying between Europe, the Middle East, and North America.

Portuguese national airline TAP are expected to launch direct flights between Lisbon and Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport towards the end of the year greatly improving connections between Israel and Portugal and South America.

Easyjet, who started flights between London and Tel Aviv in November, are now expanding their service to Israel by launching flights from Basel in Switzerland.

Cruises are sailing back into Israeli ports after a ten year hiatus, and there are now more and more Mediterranean cruises including Israel on their itineraries.