Tel Aviv Street Art Tour

I tried to give this tour the benefit of the doubt, but it was really disappointing and ultimately a waste of money. First, logistical issues. This tour can be combined with other tours the operator offers. Apparently, I was the only one who had signed up for this portion, and everyone else had come from another tour and was already an established group. It was very confusing and uncomfortable to join halfway through. The guide didn't have my name on a list, didn't come to the right meeting point, and I had to call the company's "emergency number" for clarification. Second, and most importantly, it's a HUGE stretch to even call this a street art tour. I signed up because, while I had seen much of the art before in previous days, I really wanted to understand the context, background, and intent behind it. I've been to many graffiti tours in different countries and they're usually a really deep dive. This tour was super surface-level. Essentially just a few fun facts here and there about art and architecture. The guide asked multiple times what our interpretation of the work was (I get art is open-ended but he rarely delivered the helpful context we needed to make our own assumptions) and sometimes simply read words in the pieces and shared the artists' names, which were already tagged on the piece. In terms of value add, it was slim-to-none. I gave it a full hour, but left after it became apparent it wasn't really a true street art tour. I'm sure the others on the tour who hadn't even walked through this area enjoyed it, but do not sign up if you actually want to learn about street art and graffiti in Tel Aviv. It was a lowlight of my trip :(

our guide was just ok. great art along the way. really loved some of the work displayed on the walls of TA. walked thru side streets and alleys of TA. really glad we did this tour. not great, but good

Our tour was awful. We showed up 15” early, per the company’s instructions. Our tour guide was over 30” late, and since there was no communication from the company about this (like a WhatsApp call), none of us who were waiting knew whether to keep standing around in the street or leave. We finally reached someone at the company, who expressed surprise that the guide wasn’t there and said he’d show up “soon.” No explanation was given. Eventually the guide arrived. When he did finally show up, he said his lateness was a constant problem because the company refused to build in time for him to get a large group of tourists from the Carmel Market to Florentin for the graffiti tour. He said he’d asked multiple times for the graffiti tour to start later so he wouldn’t always arrive late. He apologized for his lateness and then apologized in advance for the fact that the graffiti he was about to show us would be disappointing. He wasn’t wrong… The tour itself was a lousy experience. Our guide spoke English very poorly and seemed to have a stutter, and so every sentence took about 4 times longer than normal to come out. It was excruciating. We saw very little graffiti and, in general, he took us to pieces that were unimpressive, walking right by the impressive ones. He also took us to a random store that makes paddles for beach paddle ball, gave us a long story about how the paddles are made, and then suggested we buy some. Absolutely bizarre on a graffiti tour! Several people just left during the tour without saying goodbye, including our adult children, who were bored and couldn’t stand the excruciatingly slow pace. My husband and I couldn’t wait for the experience to end, so we left a bit early, even though we started about 40” late (because once the guide had finally shown up, we all had to wait while the group he’d brought from Carmel Market used the bathroom). This was the worst tour I’ve ever been on. We paid for our family of five and wish we could get our money back. You don’t tell people to arrive 15” early for a tour that starts 40” late! False advertising!