EXILE IS THE JEWISH CONDITION, so perhaps it is no surprise that travel away from Israel has become central to the Israeli identity. The origins of this itch, as well as the origins of the Book itself, go back to the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, in 1973, when the country defeated the combined armies of Egypt and Syria. For the first time, Israelis could venture abroad knowing their country would still exist when they returned. "You didn't have the Rough Guides translated into Hebrew," notes Tal Muscal, the former tourism correspondent for the Jerusalem Post. "People were xeroxing their notes from trips, and you could find them in cafés in Tel Aviv or on university bulletin boards."

Thirty years later, Israelis can buy Lonely Planet and other guidebooks in Hebrew, but the Book is still widespread, a

Watch out for infested dogs on Islas del Sol. P.S. Also, Bolivian men always want to know the name of your hotel so they can ring and hassle you. —Carla, Australia, El Lobo

grassroots Talmud of travel, a commentary without beginning or end. If it has a home in Israel, it's Lametayel, the chain of gear stores, which offers lectures and detailed notebooks filled with trip reports from returnees.

For Israelis, travel is therapy. "There is a sense of a mental prison living here, surrounded by enemies," explains Yair Qedar, editor of the Tel Aviv–based travel magazine Masa Acher. Every moment is pregnant with menace. A trip to the pizzeria can end in the flash of a bomb. And there is the claustrophobia of tight-knit families in a miniature country hemmed in by ancient social traditions. "Suffocation is a constant feeling," Qedar says. "When the sky opens, you get out."

In the early 1990s, the sky opened. Israeli and Palestinian leaders signed the Oslo Accord, the economy boomed, and airfares dropped. Masa Acher grew from a minor rag into Israel's largest monthly magazine. A tiny nation—now almost seven million people—churned out enormous numbers of travelers.

The backpackers call this mass movement gal, or "the wave." "Everyone goes the same route," explains Darya Maoz, who teaches a class at Jerusalem's Hebrew University called Sociological and Anthropological Aspects of Tourism and Backpacking. "Depending on the seasons, it's Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and certain places within each country," she says. "So if they start in February, they start at Carnival in Brazil."

Maoz backpacked all over the world, off and on, for eight years, interviewing Israelis for her Ph.D. thesis ("Aspects of Life Cycle in the Journey of Israelis to India"). Many societies, she notes, encourage their youth to drop out for a period of self-discovery. (This is called a "gap year" in Britain, "walkabout" in Australia, and "wasting your life" in America.)

No nation can flee its stereotypes—think of Japanese shutterbugs, Germans in socks and sandals, and solipsistic Americans searching for someplace exotic with all the conveniences of home. Israelis are criticized for... well, maybe Maoz should say it: "They tend to be rude, to curse the locals, to ruin things if they are not satisfied," she sighs. Living on a shoestring budget, they will argue over the price of anything—even, she recalls, a cup of tea costing five rupees. After venting for several minutes on the flawed character of her compatriots, she concludes with the indictment that "they don't respect local people, they party all night, they take a lot of drugs, and if people say something, some Israelis call them Nazis."

This can deepen grudges and feed the very stereotypes Israelis are hoping to escape. "Personally," one scowling hotelkeeper told me in Chile, "I would not deal with the Israelis." I asked why. "They are not reliable," she said. "Not trustworthy. They will always try to get the best bargain from you. They are not all the same, but still, I don't recommend you go with them."

"We are not so nice," concedes Kobi Tzvieli, a manager at the Tel Aviv branch of Lametayel, who himself relied on the Book in Colombia and Thailand. Lametayel has started a program called Good Will Ambassadors to teach Israelis to be polite while abroad.

This can be hard when you're traveling in a pack. Military life and thousands of years of anti-Semitism have taught Israelis to rely on tight, strong units, and they tend to create their own ecosystems wherever they go. El Lobo, for example, is now surrounded by shops, travel agencies, and even juice carts equipped with Hebrew signage. In India, a whole village called Kasol is wall-to-wall restaurants serving hummus and matzo.

There's a popular joke in Israel that Maoz was the fourth person to tell me. It always begins with an Israeli backpacker walking into what he thinks is a remote village (in India, Thailand, Chile, or Guatemala, depending on the narrator). He puts his passport on the counter and the hotelkeeper asks, "How many are you?"

"Seven million," the Israeli replies. The owner nods and says, "And how many back in Israel?"