Petra is only the start.
Petra at opening time, a night in Wadi Rum, the float on the Dead Sea, the Roman street at Jerash: what each day is really like, what it costs, and where to book.
The seven worth the drive.
Petra and Wadi Rum carry most itineraries. The rest of this list is what travellers add once they work out the country is bigger than two days: a Roman street at Jerash, mezze in downtown Amman, coral twenty minutes off the Aqaba shore.
Petra & Wadi Rum Private or group Day Tour
One-day Petra and Wadi Rum trip from Amman with a Jeep ride, Bedouin culture time, and hotel pickup for a packed 14 hours.
From $126 per person
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★ 5.0The Jordan classicPetra and Wadi rum Full day TourFrom $99538 reviews
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★ 5.0Booked twice overWadi Rum: Morning or Sunset Jeep TourFrom $46285 reviews
Stay the night in Wadi Rum.
The jeep run takes three or four hours and most day tours turn round straight after it. The ones that leave you out there are the tours people talk about afterwards: bread baked under the sand, a mattress in a rock alcove, and nothing between you and the sky. The desert changes colour twice a day and both times are worth being there for.
Everyone books Petra. Then what?
The Treasury is not the hard part; the shape of the trip around it is. Three ways travellers actually run it out of Amman, with the prices, the durations and the full list behind each one.
Down and back
Petra in one long day
1,173 reviews
Pickup around six, three and a half hours down the Desert Highway, and you are through the Siq before the coach groups thicken. The Treasury, the Street of Facades, and the climb to the Monastery if you keep moving. Back in Amman after dark, and most people are glad they did it this way.
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A night in the desert
Petra, then Wadi Rum
from $107 · 368 reviews
The pairing most travellers wish they had booked. Petra in the morning, the drive south after lunch, a jeep run while the light goes orange, then dinner and a camp bed under the stars. Two days, no doubling back, and the desert gets the evening rather than a rushed hour.
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The long way round
The whole country
from $1,764 · 137 reviews
Jerash and Ajloun in the north, the mosaic map at Madaba, Mount Nebo, the float on the Dead Sea, Petra, Wadi Rum and the Red Sea at the bottom. Five to eight days with one driver, which is how the distances in Jordan actually want to be travelled.
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The desert only starts at dusk.
Wadi Rum empties of day visitors around five and the camps light up an hour later. Zarb lifted out of the sand pit, tea that keeps arriving, and a sky that makes a whole table stop talking. Every tour below includes the night, which is the part the afternoon jeep runs miss.
The float, and what to do after it.
You are in the water for twenty minutes and out again; the rest of the day is the black mud, a shower you will be very glad of, and lunch on a terrace below sea level. Most tours pick up Madaba and Mount Nebo on the way down, which is the right way to spend the drive.
There is coral at the bottom of the country.
Aqaba gets four hours of most itineraries and deserves a good deal more. The reefs start close enough to swim to, the water stays warm enough to dive through winter, and there is a sunken plane and a tank down there for people who like a story with the fish.
Jerash still has its street.
Most Roman cities are a field with signposts. Jerash kept a colonnaded main street you can walk end to end, a hippodrome, two theatres, and an oval plaza no photograph ever quite fits in. Ajloun castle and the hills at Umm Qais sit on the same road north, which is why the good tours take all three.
Seven places, and what each one is for.
The country is small enough to cross in a day and dense enough that people still miss half of it. Petra for the walk in. Wadi Rum for the night. The Dead Sea for the float. Amman for dinner.
Twelve kinds of Jordan day.
Some people come for the ruins, some for the sandstone, and a few come to get under the Red Sea. Pick the row that sounds like your trip; the list behind it carries the prices.
Almost everything is a day trip from Amman.
Jordan runs about 400 kilometres top to bottom and the roads are quick. Jerash is an hour north, the Dead Sea under an hour west, Petra three and a half south. The return seat is in the price.
Three days, north to south.
You cannot see all of Jordan in three days, but you can see the three things people fly for. This is the order that wastes the least of it on the road.
Day 1
North, then dinner downtown
Jerash before the heat, Ajloun castle on the way back, the Citadel at golden hour and mezze in the old centre. An easy day while the flight wears off.
See the northern tours →
Day 2
The whole day at Petra
Leave by six. Through the Siq before nine, the Treasury while the light is still on it, then the Street of Facades and the long stair up to the Monastery. Take more water than you think.
See the Petra tours →
Day 3
Desert, then the salt
A jeep run through Wadi Rum in the morning and the road north after lunch, with the Dead Sea on the way back if the day holds. A fourth day belongs in the desert, not the car.
See the desert tours →
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