Hi, I’m Kika

I am Kika Kahana. I live in Pardes Hanna with Ofer, my husband. I am the mother of three daughters — two by birth and one through foster care — and now I am also a grandmother.

When I was a child, my parents took us to Sinai twice a year, during Sukkot and Passover, for three-week camping trips in tents by the sea. Those are some of my best childhood memories. That is where all this began.

After my military service, I worked as a community coordinator in the Noar HaOved VeHaLomed youth movement and as an instructor in hiking groups run by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. When I had saved enough money, I left to travel. I reached Everest Base Camp and spent a year travelling through Asia.

When I returned to Israel, I completed a BA in archaeology and later an MA in criminology. I worked with young people facing mental-health challenges and became deputy director of a residential home for girls in distress in Jerusalem.

Ofer’s work later took our family to Paris for three years. I walked across Paris and travelled around France whenever I could. In the end, we chose to return to Israel and build our life here.

For thirteen years I was a partner in a kindergarten in Pardes Hanna. I learned a great deal from the children, their parents and my partner, who became a close friend. I am also a certified Imago facilitator and continue to work with parents, children and educational teams.

Throughout all those years I kept walking. I hiked across the Golan Heights, walked long stretches of the Israel National Trail, travelled from the Mediterranean towards Jerusalem and went camping whenever I could invent a reason to do so.

When I started Under the Sky, I turned the way I had always travelled into my work. I invent a journey, put it in the calendar and go — come what may. I keep the groups small and take care of the route, equipment, food and logistics, so the people who come with me can simply be outside together.

I am a licensed Israeli tour guide, but conventional sightseeing tours are not what I usually do. I lead journeys in my own way: outdoors, in small groups, with flexibility and close attention to the people, the place and what is actually happening along the way.

If you have a different or unusual request, talk to me. Sometimes I may guide it myself; sometimes it makes more sense for me to produce the experience, help plan it or advise you.

Tell me who you would like to take outside