2 Best Sights in Beersheva, Eilat and the Negev

This one-of-a-kind museum focuses on the Bedouin people, who have long populated the Negev and whose traditional way of life is changing in the 21st century. The study center (marked with an orange sign) is named for the late Colonel Joe Alon, a pilot who took a great interest in this area and its people. Housed in a circular building designed by Israeli architect Tzvi Lissar, the museum tells the story of the Bedouin's rapid change from a nomadic to a modern lifestyle through tableaux of life-size mannequins. They are grouped by subject: wool spinning and carpet weaving, bread baking, wedding finery (including a camel elaborately decorated for the event), donkeys and camels at work, and toys made from found objects such as pieces of wire and wood. The tools and artifacts—most handmade and many already out of use in modern Bedouin life—form an outstanding collection. Another wing of the museum explores the Bar Kochba revolt of the Jews against Romans in the 2nd century AD. Admission includes a cup of thick coffee in a real Bedouin tent, where the sheikh performs the coffee ceremony over an open fire.

For plane lovers, this is a field of dreams. Housed on the Hatzerim Air Force Base, this open-air museum has more than a hundred airplanes and helicopters parked in rows. The fighter, transport, and training (plus a few enemy) aircraft tell the story of Israel's aeronautic history, from the Messerschmitt—obtained in 1948 from Czechoslovakia, and one of four such planes to help halt the Egyptian advance in the War of Independence—to the Kfir, the first fighter plane built in Israel. Young Air Force personnel lead tours (included in the price) that take about 90 minutes and include a movie shown in an air-conditioned Boeing 707 used in the 1977 rescue of Israeli passengers held hostage in a hijacked Air France plane in Entebbe, Uganda. Another attention-getting display is a shiny, black Supermarine Spitfire with a red lightning bolt on its side, flown by Ezer Weizmann, the IAF's first pilot and later president of Israel. The museum also houses an antiaircraft exhibit and a rare collection of historical and instructive films. Tours are available in English, French, and Russian.