Trying to decide where to stay in Tel Aviv and what are the best parts of the city to explore? Well, here is a breakdown of Tel Aviv’s best neighborhoods and what you can see and do around the city. Neve Tzedek is Tel Aviv’s trendiest neighborhood and was built as the first Jewish neighborhood outside the walls of ancient Jaffa. It was neglected for many years until the municipality decided to restore and gentrify this pretty neighborhood. Today it is known as Tel Aviv’s Soho.
Florentin is Tel Aviv’s gentrified former industrial neighborhood. Today it is a trendy, hip neighborhood known for its young, arty, residents. The streets of Florentin boast excellent graffiti art that passes comment on local politics and society. Lev Hair (literally translated as the heart of the city), is where you’ll find many of the city’s cultural venues and museums, and it’s a good place to base yourself. Here you can visit Habima, the national theater, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and the must-see Carmel Market.
Lev Hair has many of Tel Aviv’s famous Bauhaus buildings, especially along Rothschild Boulevard. Kerem HaTeimanim (Yemenite Quarter) blends seamlessly with Lev Hair and melts into Neve Tzedek. The best thing to do in Kerem HaTeimanim is eat! Wander the quaint cobbled lanes of the neighborhood, and stop to taste authentic local food as you go.
Jaffa is where the oranges were shipped from, not where they grew! For centuries, Jaffa was the main port and entry point to the Holy Land. It welcomed pilgrims, merchants, and armies that docked here including Persians, Ottomans, and even Napoleon. Jaffa merged with Tel Aviv in the 1950s to form the joint municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. The neighborhood is home to Jews, Christians, and Muslims and has churches, mosques, and synagogues. You can easily explore Jaffa on foot and stop at one of the neighborhood's excellent eateries.
Yarkon Park covers the city’s northern residential area. Sarona is centered on a historical German Templar compound, the Sarona Colony, which has been restored and repurposed, with pleasant gardens, a farmers’ market, eateries, and boutique stores. HaTikva, the city’s southern residential area is not a “hot” spot yet but is recommended for its authentic local cuisine, particularly Yemenite, Moroccan, and Iraqi food. As for the White City, although Tel Aviv’s 400 Bauhaus buildings can be found throughout the city, they are concentrated between Ben Gurion Boulevard to the north and Gan HaHashmal in the south.