Discover the central Arava: Israel’s desert haven for wellness and renewal

Each encounter revealed another layer of a region that continues to surprise those who choose to linger. This is the third chapter in my project of mapping wellness and healing across Israel. The Central Arava is a place where wellness does not need branding; it grows from the soil itself.

Amara Tzukim overlooks the valley of Nahal Sheizaf, where acacia trees and chalk cliffs cradle a nature reserve that shelters gazelles and herds of wild asses. For years, I have hoped to witness these donkeys tracing the wadi at dawn. Their presence speaks to something ancient, reminding us that even in stripped landscapes, life persists with quiet authority.

The retreat is now under new ownership and has been transformed into a destination for Israeli and international wellness groups and families. A new wooden spa deck offers hot and cold plunge pools, a dry sauna, and hilltop wooden benches overlooking the valley for sunrise rituals and slow afternoons. A ridge of couples’ suites features private hot plunge pools carved into the sand, blending seamlessly with the wadi cliffs.

Behind the suites rises a circular white tent, a tipi-like heart chamber designed for meditation, breath work, sound healing, yoga workshops, and intimate group circles. The acoustics soften every movement of the air, creating an ideal space for emotional work.

Our days moved between the calm of this quiet enclave and the lively communal center of the 65-dunam complex, where shared meals, outdoor lounges, and a family-friendly pool area form the social heartbeat of the retreat.

The on-site bar and restaurant offer a variety of delicious food options, enhancing the overall guest experience. Evenings brought us back to the warmth of the spa deck, where conversations lingered under the violet desert sky. The Arava regulates your heartbeat without asking for anything in return.

Tzukim began as an abandoned military base. Twenty-two years ago, a small group envisioned transforming it into a creative desert community. Land was almost symbolic in price, allowing people from across Israel to start anew in a landscape defined by silence and sky. Today, more than 90% of the residents are former city dwellers who exchanged noise for stillness.

Clay studios, craft workshops, pottery houses, and small galleries fill the village. Artists create with the raw materials of the desert, grounding pigments from local minerals, shaping acacia branches, weaving natural fibers, and forging metal into forms that echo the desert horizon. Children roam freely. Neighbors gather for sunsets. The vegetation remains mostly natural, allowing Arava plants to thrive without interruption. Life here moves at an intentional rhythm.

Below the chalk cliffs stretches the Nahal Sheizaf Nature Reserve, one of the last remaining habitats for desert wildlife in the valley. Gazelles, foxes, and wild asses pass quietly through the open terrain. Knowing they are there, unseen but present, became a motivation for future visits. The desert hides its life in soft gestures. You only need to slow down to notice.

During COVID, Amara Tzukim became a refuge for travelers seeking open space and quiet isolation. After Oct. 7, it played an even more critical role. Families from Ofakim and Sderot were evacuated to the resort and housed there for extended periods. What had been vacation cabins became temporary sanctuaries for those navigating shock and loss. The staff still speaks about that period with humility. The desert offered what no city could provide then: psychological breathing room.

Amara Tzukim also anchors the cultural identity of the region. The Arava Film Festival, now over a decade old, brings foreign cinema and Israeli filmmakers to a vast outdoor desert screen. The Arava Culinary Festival, each February, celebrates the valley’s agricultural creativity, drawing chefs and food lovers from across the country. The on-site bar and restaurant offer a variety of food options, enhancing the guest experience. Culture thrives where space invites experimentation, and the Arava continues to grow through this creative energy.

Our recordings captured the voices of young people who chose to spend months or years in the Arava after completing their military service. Their stories vary, but they all describe the same shift. They come searching for breathing room. They stay because the desert gives them something they did not expect.

Ofri Bahat, guiding coordinator of the Bein Ha’shitin Farm, described the moment she descends from the Dimona plateau into the valley. A release in her shoulders. A quiet warmth in her chest that says “home.” After years in Herzliya, overwhelmed by noise and pace, she found in the Arava a place where she could sleep in her car without fear. A place where residents’ doors remain unlocked. A place where people look each other in the eyes.

The region has become a magnet for Preferred Work, the national program that enables discharged soldiers to gain experience while transitioning into civilian life. They become gardeners, kindergarten assistants, shop employees, welders, cooks, and general helpers throughout the moshavim. They join the desert’s daily rhythm.

Alongside this, the Arava offers a unique midrasha, originally designed as a post-army program for self-reflection. Under the direction of educator Uriah Rozen, young adults spend months learning, grounding, and reconnecting with themselves before taking their next steps. For many, the desert becomes the bridge between who they were in uniform and who they hope to become.

Volunteers from Israel and abroad add another layer of community life. Those who stay for more than a month receive housing, breakfast, and vegetables from the farm. One volunteer, Hana from Paris, returned after a 10-day desert hike with her mother. Something in the land called her back. Those who spend time here use the same word: “enabled.” The desert does not demand. It creates space.

On our second day, we visited Bein Ha’shitin, a farm known for its holistic integration of visitors into agricultural work. Although the farm has no clinical therapists, the land itself offers therapeutic grounding. As one farmer explained, when a person pulls peppers from the plant, walks barefoot on warm soil, or stands still at sunrise, something inside settles. The desert recalibrates the nervous system.

The farm’s rhythm is shaped by the Sanitation Law, or thermosolar fumigation, a unique regulation requiring farmers to clear their greenhouses and seal the soil under thick nylon sheets for three weeks each summer.

Another aspect of sustainability practiced on the farm is biological pest control, which involves the use of beneficial insects to combat pests instead of relying on chemical pesticides.

Additionally, the diversity of crops cultivated at the farm fosters biodiversity, supports pollination, and enhances the natural ecosystem. They also incorporate cover crops – such as okra, beans, and buckwheat – that help to enrich the soil with nitrogen.

Long before sustainability became a national conversation, the farmers here were already practicing it.

The farm regularly hosts workshop groups seeking emotional decompression, such as women with PTSD, soldiers, and individuals from vulnerable backgrounds. For many, touching the soil becomes a symbolic act of reconnection. The land offers a grounding that language alone cannot provide.

Our visit to the Antelope Farm, perhaps our last, revealed a sanctuary far deeper than its safari-like appearance. The farm houses one of the most ambitious wildlife conservation projects in Israel, where field care meets advanced genetic science.

Walking through the open enclosures feels like moving through several continents at once. Herds of antelope drift between acacia trees, carrying instincts shaped by ancient migrations.

Yossi Ben, the owner, guided us through the sanctuary and shared the story behind one of its most remarkable achievements. This is the first place in the world where Saharan oryx and white oryx have successfully mated, creating a natural hybrid species known locally as the  Witkoff – King of the Desert Antelope. Its name honors US envoy Steve Witkoff’s efforts to help secure the release of the hostages. Wildlife veterinarians study the hybrid’s health and stability, marking its existence as evolution witnessed within a single lifetime.

Inside a small laboratory, we saw another extraordinary effort. A wildlife DNA bank preserves white blood cells from endangered species, including the DNA of the last Negev desert leopard, discovered two decades ago. Scientists hope that one day these cells may be introduced into a compatible large cat to begin the long process of reintroducing the extinct Negev leopard to Israel’s desert ecosystem.

The Antelope Farm collaborates with global networks working to revive endangered mammals across Africa and Asia. Israel’s desert has become a testing ground for ecological resurrection. Beginning January 1, the farm’s cabins and tourism facilities closed to the public, leaving the conservation mission as its primary focus.

Standing among these animals, sensing their vulnerability and resilience, I understood that healing here extends beyond human experience. The desert is a living laboratory for renewal.

In every conversation and encounter, one truth emerged. The Arava heals because it returns people to a scale of life that modern Israel often obscures. Space expands. Sensation slows. Silence restores.

Our exploration was coordinated by the Arava Tourism Department, which hosted us at agricultural and wildlife sites and now channels this same spirit of renewal into the return of Israel’s largest agricultural exhibition after a two-year hiatus due to the war. On January 28 to 29, at the Yair research station of the Central Arava and Tamar councils R&D center in Hatzeva, more than one hundred companies will gather across 20 dunams (two hectares) to present cutting-edge innovations in agriculture, water, environmental quality, solar energy, gardening, off-road technologies, and new varieties of vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs. This alongside a pavilion of international students and cultures, guided tours of research greenhouses and the Vidor visitor center, and a vibrant farmers and artisans market, with admission free of charge.

On our final morning, I woke before sunrise and climbed the low ridge above our suite. The sandy curves of Tzukim glowed softly under the first light, and the desert floor opened toward Jordan as the sun rose in muted pastels over the Edom mountains.

Hard as it is to imagine, these same hilltops are sometimes dusted with snow in winter. Below me, Amara Tzukim lay quiet, its pools and wooden decks still wrapped in shadow. No wildlife crossed my path that morning, but the silence felt charged with everything we had learned here.

This journey began as a professional mission to map wellness across Israel. It became something more intimate. The Central Arava reflects a national story of healing, survival, reinvention, and quiet resilience. It is a place where people and animals seek restoration side by side. A place where extinction and renewal coexist. A place where those searching for themselves may finally hear their own voice again.

As we drove north and the valley receded behind us, I felt the same release in my shoulders described by so many in our recordings. The Arava teaches you to breathe differently. It also teaches you to listen.

The desert continues to call, and we will continue to map its healing landscapes, one valley at a time.