Group trips, planned end to end

Who this is for

Community organisations bringing a group to Israel — congregations, young-adult communities, Federation missions, alumni groups, and organisations running a trip for their members for the first time.

What we take off your plate

The itinerary, the ground arrangements, the licensed guiding, the logistics of moving a group of that size, and the day-to-day coordination while you are there.

Get your people to the airport. That is the part that stays with you.

We collect the group on arrival, and from there the hotels, the activities, the sites, the transport and the meals are arranged and paid for in advance — including the tips for the driver and the guide, which is usually the awkward thing nobody wants to handle on the ground.

How group pricing works

There is no rate card. A community trip is priced from the ground up — the coach and driver, the licensed guide, the hotel nights, the site entries, the meals in the itinerary — and then quoted to you as a single per-person figure with everything on the ground inside it. That includes the driver and guide tips, so nobody is collecting cash on the bus halfway through the week.

What moves the number is mostly what you would expect: how many people travel, how long you stay, the season, the standard of hotel, and how many of the days need a private guide and coach rather than free time. A larger group spreads the fixed costs further, which is why the per-person figure usually improves as the group grows.

Flights are not in it — your group books those separately. Deposit and payment terms are agreed directly with whoever is organising the trip, because a synagogue collecting from forty families needs a different schedule from a family paying in one go.

Group size and lead time

Most of the community groups Madison has run over the past six years have been somewhere between fifteen and forty people, which is the size where one coach and one guide still works comfortably. Smaller than that and the trip gets more flexible, not less viable. Larger, and it becomes a question of splitting the group for parts of the day rather than a reason to say no.

On timing, a community trip has two clocks running. The trip itself can come together quickly — we have built these a year out and we have built them a good deal closer in. Getting your own people to commit is the slower clock, and most organisers want a long runway for it. Airline tickets usually only go on sale about ten months before departure, which in practice is the first point your travellers can actually book.

The useful thing is to talk to us before you go out to your community rather than after. It is much easier to answer “what does it cost and what do we see” with a real itinerary in your hand.

Working with your community's calendar

The itinerary bends to the group, not the other way round. If your community wants to be here over a holiday, we build the week around it and find hotels that suit. If you need a particular level of kashrut, we arrange the hotels and the restaurants to match, and the same goes for separate beaches or anything else your community needs.

Common questions

How large are your groups?

There is no minimum and no fixed maximum. We plan trips for a family of four as readily as for a community group of forty, and the size changes how a trip is built rather than whether we will run it: smaller groups can travel in vehicles that reach places a full coach simply cannot, and larger ones need the days shaped so people can split off and come back together. For what it is worth, most of the groups Madison has run over the past six years have been between fifteen and forty people, which is the range where one coach and one guide still works comfortably.

What does a trip to Israel with MY Travel cost?

There is no list price, because no two of our trips are the same. What a trip costs comes down to how many of you are travelling, how long you stay, the standard of hotel you want, how many of the days need a private guide and coach, and which sites you want to go inside rather than drive past. So rather than publish a range that turns out not to apply to you, we quote each trip properly: tell us the group, roughly when, and the sort of trip you have in mind, and we come back with a full costed proposal. Flights sit outside that number and you book them yourself, which keeps the largest and most variable cost of the whole trip under your control.

How far in advance should we start planning?

Whenever suits you. We have planned trips two years ahead and we have planned them a month out. One practical thing worth knowing: airline tickets usually only go on sale about ten months before the travel date, so if flights matter to your budget, that is the point at which you can actually book them.

What is not included in the trip?

International flights are not included — you book those yourself. Travel insurance is not included either, and we would push you to arrange it before you fly. Personal spending stays yours: gifts, anything you buy, and anything you decide to add once you are here. Meals vary from trip to trip rather than following a fixed rule, so the itinerary we send you spells out exactly which ones are covered instead of leaving you to work it out at the table.

All frequently asked questions