Lebanon 7 Day Itinerary

As of 2026, the US State Department has Lebanon at Level 4, Do Not Travel, its highest advisory tier, citing airstrikes, drone activity, and rocket fire occurring in the south, in parts of Beirut, and specifically in the Beqaa Valley, which is exactly where a Baalbek and Ksara Winery day trip would take you. Non-emergency US government personnel were ordered out of the country earlier this year and the embassy has suspended routine consular services. I’m not going to pretend this is a normal city-break itinerary with a caveat bolted on at the end. What follows describes the places that make Lebanon one of the most historically dense countries in the Mediterranean, written for whenever conditions genuinely allow safe travel again, and it should be read as that rather than as current trip-planning advice.

Day 1: Arrival in Beirut

Flights land at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport, and visa on arrival is available to citizens of roughly 80 countries including the US, UK, and most of the EU, running about 20 dollars for a single-entry one-month stay; note that any Israeli stamp or visa in your passport will get you refused entry outright, so check this before you fly if your passport has a complicated travel history. Settle into Beirut and walk Hamra Street and Gemmayzeh, two neighborhoods that capture the city’s real character better than any single monument, one academic and café-heavy, the other dense with restored Ottoman and French Mandate-era buildings turned into bars and restaurants. The National Museum of Beirut holds artifacts spanning prehistory through the Ottoman period and, notably, survived the civil war years by having its most fragile pieces encased in concrete for protection, a detail the museum itself now displays as part of its story.

Day 2: Beirut proper

Spend the morning in the Beirut Souks, rebuilt after the civil war into a modern retail district that still nods to the layout of the historic marketplace it replaced. Raouche and its offshore Pigeon Rocks are worth the walk along the corniche for the view alone, and the seafront restaurants nearby lean into that view rather than standout food, so treat lunch here as scenery with a side of fish rather than the culinary highlight of the day. In the afternoon, the Sursock Museum is the better of Beirut’s two major art institutions for anyone short on time, a restored Ottoman-era mansion turned into a serious modern and contemporary art collection; it was heavily damaged in the August 2020 port explosion and its careful restoration since is itself part of what makes visiting worthwhile now. Close the day with an evening walk along the Corniche, Beirut’s seaside promenade, which fills with locals fishing, jogging, and smoking shisha well after dark in a way that says more about the city’s resilience than any museum plaque.

Day 3: Baalbek and Anjar

Baalbek holds the largest Roman temple complex ever built anywhere in the empire, the Temple of Jupiter’s remaining columns are taller than anything comparable in Rome itself, and the site’s scale genuinely surprises people who expect a modest ruin. Local Baalbek food centers on kibbeh and sfiha, both worth seeking out over a generic tourist menu near the site entrance. Anjar, the other stop this day, is often mis-described as having circular architecture; it’s actually laid out on a strict Roman-style rectangular grid, two colonnaded avenues crossing at a central tetrapylon and dividing the city into four quadrants, one of the clearest surviving examples of Umayyad urban planning anywhere. Both sites sit in the Beqaa Valley, which is precisely the region current advisories flag most heavily, so this day above all others is the one to reconsider entirely under present conditions.

Day 4: Byblos and Jeita Grotto

Byblos claims to be among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and its layered Phoenician, Roman, and Crusader-era ruins sit within walking distance of a still-working fishing harbor, which makes the seafood lunch here genuinely fresh rather than just marketed that way. Jeita Grotto, a two-chamber limestone cave system with one of the largest known stalactites on the planet, is reached by cable car and boat tour through its lower gallery, and photography is not permitted inside the caves themselves to protect the formations, so don’t plan on it for your feed.

Day 5: Beqaa Valley wine country

Ksara is the oldest winery in Lebanon, founded in the mid-1800s by Jesuit priests who used its Roman-era tunnels for aging, and tastings here cover both the historical tunnel tour and a proper sampling of Lebanon’s increasingly well-regarded reds. Lunch in the valley leans toward grilled meats and mezze rather than anything fussier. This entire day sits inside the same Beqaa region flagged in current travel advisories, so weigh that seriously rather than treating wine country as automatically lower-risk than the rest of the valley.

Day 6: Jounieh and Harissa

Jounieh’s cable car, the Teleferique, climbs from the waterfront up to Harissa in a few minutes and delivers sweeping views over the bay that are worth the ride on their own. Our Lady of Lebanon, the large bronze Marian statue at Harissa, draws pilgrims of multiple faiths and sits at a genuinely striking elevation looking back down over the coast. Seafood along Jounieh’s waterfront is a reasonable way to close the day before heading back to Beirut.

Day 7: Departure

Check out and transfer to Beirut-Rafic Hariri International for your flight home, building in extra time for security given how variable staffing and processes have been at the airport during periods of regional tension.

Visa and safety notes

Visa on arrival covers roughly 80 nationalities for a one-month stay at about 20 dollars, extendable with the right documentation, but check the current State Department and equivalent advisories from your own government before booking anything, not just before departure. Given the active Level 4 advisory, comprehensive travel insurance that explicitly covers conflict zones is not optional here the way it might be elsewhere, and standard travel insurance policies frequently exclude destinations under a Do Not Travel warning entirely, so read the policy terms rather than assuming you’re covered.