Jordan is four days of driving and a thousand years a mile.
Which Petra day actually reaches the Monastery. What a night in a Wadi Rum camp costs once the jeep is included. Whether Jerash is worth a morning away from the south. Reviews of every tour you can book in Jordan.
Petra, a desert night, the Roman north, the Red Sea.
Four days that a first Jordanian week is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The one you came forPetra and Wadi rum Full day TourPetra and Wadi Rum in a single run out of Amman. Long, and the reason most people fly in.
02The desert nightBedouin Camp Stay,Full-Day Desert Tour with 3MealsA jeep through the protected area, three meals and a bed in a Bedouin camp. The stars are the point.
03The Roman morningJerash, Ajloun Castle or Umm Qais Private TourJerash, Ajloun Castle and Umm Qais, an hour north of the capital. Colonnades nobody queues for.
04The Red Sea halfJourney of Diving or Snorkelling from a BoatAqaba by boat, with a mask or a tank. Jordan has 27 kilometres of coast and it all happens here.
In Wadi Rum the question is how long you stay, not what you see.
Nothing in the protected area is reachable on your own, so the jeep is the ticket. Three lengths of desert day, what it costs to get into each, and which one puts you there at night.
The days out more travellers take than any other in Jordan.
Every Jordanian tour we have reviewed →Long runs to Petra, desert nights and the Dead Sea circuit. These carry the traffic, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea 2-Day Tour
Travel from Amman to Petra, Wadi Rum, and the Dead Sea in two packed days. Walk through Petra’s Siq, spend the night in a Bedouin camp, ride a 4WD jeep across the desert, and float in mineral-rich Dead Sea water. Drivers such as Jafar, Qutaibeh, Majd, and Ahmed are praised for useful advice and warm care.
Read our review →
2
2-Day Tour: Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea from Amman
from $249
3
Petra & Wadi Rum Private or group Day Tour
from $126
4
Petra and Wadi rum Full day Tour
from $99
5
2-Day Petra, Wadi Rum and Dead Sea Tour from Amman
from $275
6
3-Day Private Tour from Amman: Petra, Wadi Rum, Dana, Aqaba, and Dead Sea
from $349
7
Petra Full-Day Private Tour from Amman
from $78
8
Wadi Rum Full Day Jeep Tour + Overnight & Dinner in Bedouin Camp
from $107
Seven bases, and the best day out from each.
A rose-rock city in the south, a protected desert below it, a shore where nobody sinks, a capital built on seven hills, Roman streets in the north, a Red Sea port, and the town that mapped the Holy Land in mosaic.
Petra is a walk, not a viewpoint. Plan for the distance.
The Siq alone is a kilometre and a half before the Treasury appears. The Monastery is another 800 rock-cut steps beyond that, and the Royal Tombs sit above the valley floor on the other side. A day trip shows you the front. Two days show you Petra.
- 1Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea 2-Day Tour
- 22-Day Tour: Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea from Ammanfrom $249
- 3Petra & Wadi Rum Private or group Day Tourfrom $126
Jordan has 27 kilometres of coast, and all of it is worth a mask.
Aqaba sits at the top of a gulf where the reef starts a few metres off the beach. There is a cargo ship, a tank and a plane sunk on purpose along the shore, and the water stays warm enough to swim in through the winter.
Amman is where the road starts, and it is worth a day of its own.
Everything in Amman →
The Citadel holds a Roman temple, an Umayyad palace and the best view in the city on one hilltop. Below it a second-century theatre still seats six thousand, and the downtown lanes between them sell knafeh by the kilo. These three carry more travellers than anything else here.
- 1Amman Petra Full-Day Tripfrom $95
- 2Amman Walking Tour: Hidden Gems, Culture & Street Foodfrom $66
- 3Multi day tour in Jordan – 08 Daysfrom $1,764
Citadel, theatre and the downtown stairs
Hercules on the Citadel, the Umayyad dome behind it, then the walk down through Hashemi Street to the theatre. Mornings are cooler and the light on the columns is better.
Mansaf, knafeh and the downtown counters
Lamb in fermented yoghurt over rice, then cheese under orange pastry at a counter that has sold nothing else since 1950. Most walks finish somewhere with a view of the theatre lit up.
Rainbow Street and the Jabal hills
Above downtown the city turns into galleries, book cafes and stairways between the hills. Slower, shadier and the only way to see how Ammanis actually spend a Friday.
The north is Rome, the west bank of the Jordan is scripture.
Jerash keeps a full provincial city with its streets still paved. An hour away Mount Nebo looks over the valley Moses was shown and never entered, and Madaba has the oldest surviving map of the Holy Land set into a church floor.
What a day in Jordan actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs per head. The desert is cheaper than most people expect; the long private runs to Petra are where the money goes.
Half-day jeep runs in Wadi Rum, city walks in Amman, a snorkelling boat out of Aqaba.
- 1Morning or Sunset Jeep Tourfrom $46
- 2Bedouin Camp Stay,Full-Day Desert Tour with 3Mealsfrom $39
- 3Stargazing Adventure in Jordanfrom $30
The standards: Petra from Amman and back, the Dead Sea circuit, Jerash and Ajloun in a morning.
- 1Petra & Wadi Rum Private or group Day Tourfrom $126
- 2Petra and Wadi rum Full day Tourfrom $99
- 3Petra Full-Day Private Tour from Ammanfrom $78
Private drivers for several days, multi-day southern loops and the guided treks.
Three things that only happen in Jordan.
Deserts and ruins exist across the region. Sleeping inside a protected wilderness nobody may drive into alone, floating in water too heavy to sink in, and walking up a river through a slot canyon do not.
Sleeping in Wadi Rum
The whole valley is a protected area, so the camps are reached by somebody else's jeep and nothing else. Dinner is zarb, cooked in a pit under the sand and dug out at dusk. After the generator goes off there is no light between you and Saudi Arabia, which is what people actually remember.
- 1Wadi Rum Full Day Jeep Tour + Overnight & Dinner in Bedouin Camp★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 368 reviews
- 2Wadi Rum Cave Camping with Jeep Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 200 reviews
- 3Bedouin Camp Stay,Full-Day Desert Tour with 3Meals★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 198 reviews
Floating at minus 430 metres
The water is roughly ten times saltier than the sea and you cannot sink in it, which is disconcerting for about a minute. Black mud off the shore goes on, dries, and comes off in the shower. Shave the day before rather than the morning of, and keep the water away from your eyes.
- 1Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea 2-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,173 reviews
- 22-Day Tour: Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea from Amman★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,141 reviews
- 32-Day Petra, Wadi Rum and Dead Sea Tour from Amman★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 467 reviews
The Wadi Mujib Siq Trail
The canyon below the Dead Sea road narrows to a few metres and the only route through it is the river itself, waist-deep in places with ropes at the waterfalls. It runs from roughly April to October and closes when the flash-flood risk rises, which is most of the winter.
- 1Wadi Mujib Siq Trail with Amman Panoramic&Optional Dead Sea Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 46 reviews
- 23-Day Tour to Petra, Wadi Rum, Karak, Mujib, Aqaba, and Dead Sea★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 40 reviews
- 3Wadi Al Mujib Adventures From Amman, QAI Airport, Deadsea or Madaba★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 38 reviews
Four Jordanian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on fixed nights, seasonal water levels and a rule about flying, none of which care when you land.
- 01Petra by Night Tour with Optional Day VisitIt runs on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings and on no other night of the week. Miss those and the Siq is closed after dark.
- 02Wadi Mujib Siq Trail with Amman Panoramic&Optional Dead Sea VisitThe Siq Trail is a walk up a river, so it opens around April and shuts for the winter floods. Out of season there is no walking it.
- 03Wadi Rum Full Day Jeep Tour + Overnight & Dinner in Bedouin CampNo private vehicle may drive into the protected area, so the bed and the jeep that reaches it are one booking or neither.
- 04Private Red Sea Diving for Beginner or ExperiencedYou cannot fly for the best part of a day after a tank, so Aqaba has to sit before the flight home rather than beside it.
From May to September the sun decides your schedule.
Petra and Wadi Rum have almost no shade, and by eleven the rock is throwing heat back at you. The answer is the same in both: be at the gate when it opens, then spend the hot hours in water or under a roof. The south has a whole coast for exactly this.
By place — north, capital, rift and desert
Amman down to Aqaba: the week almost everybody drives first.
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