Two thousand years cut into a cliff. Then the desert behind it.
Which Petra day leaves you enough hours inside the gate. What a night in a Wadi Rum camp costs. Whether the Dead Sea fits the same afternoon as Madaba. Reviews of every tour you can book in Jordan.
Petrafrom $30
Petra, a camp in Wadi Rum, the float, and Rome an hour north.
The four bookings a first week in Jordan is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The long day southPetra Full-Day Private Tour from AmmanAmman to Petra and back with a private car, and enough hours inside the gate to get past the Treasury to the Monastery steps.
02The night in the sandBedouin Camp Stay,Full-Day Desert Tour with 3MealsA full day out on the red floor, then a Bedouin camp with three meals and a sky no town is lighting.
03The floatDead Sea Day Tour with Optional Entry Fees and LunchFour hundred metres below the Mediterranean, where the water holds you up and the mud is half the point.
04Rome, an hour northJerash, Ajloun Castle or Umm Qais Private TourThe colonnaded street at Jerash and the castle at Ajloun, close enough to Amman to be back for dinner.
The Desert Highway, priced by the day.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. Entry tickets and city walks sit at one end; the runs that take in Petra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea in one trip sit at the other.
Amman walks and food tours, half-days up to Jerash, and the short jeep passes into Wadi Rum.
The full-day standards: Petra from Amman, the Dead Sea with entry, Madaba and Mount Nebo, a night under canvas.
Private drivers, the two- and three-day runs down the King’s Highway, and the trek out of Dana.
Jeep, camel, or a bed in the sand. Wadi Rum sells three kinds of day.
The protected area runs to seven hundred square kilometres of red sand and granite, and hardly anyone drives themselves into it. Here is what each way in costs.
Amman in the middle, and everything else a drive from it.
A capital spread over seven hills, a rock-cut city three hours south, a desert you sleep in, twenty-six kilometres of Red Sea, a lake nobody sinks in, and a Roman street still under your feet.
The tours that put Petra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea in one booking.
Every tour in Jordan →More travellers take these than anything else on the road south, and almost all of them are combining.
1
Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea 2-Day Tour
Explore Petra, Wadi Rum, and the Dead Sea in two days from Amman, with a Bedouin camp stay, jeep tour, meals, and practical travel tips.
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
Rome at Jerash, Moses at Nebo, crusaders at Karak.
Four empires sit within a couple of hours of Amman. A colonnaded street you can walk end to end, the ridge Moses is said to have climbed, a mosaic map under a Madaba church floor, and the castles that held the road to Egypt.
The Dead Sea is a shoreline, not a beach. Give it a day.
Four hundred and thirty metres under the Mediterranean, roughly nine times as salty, and warm enough to swim in February. You float, you take the mud, you rinse it off, and then you climb back out of the valley past the Baptism Site and the mosaics at Madaba.
- 1Dead Sea, Nebo, Madaba & Baptism Site Private or Group Tourfrom $88
- 2Dead Sea Day Tour with Optional Entry Fees and Lunchfrom $61
- 3Petra & Dead Sea Private day tourfrom $63
Jordan owns twenty-six kilometres of shoreline, and all of it is at Aqaba.
The gulf sits at the very top of the Red Sea, so the reef starts a few strokes off the beach and the water is still swimmable when Amman is cold. Diving, glass-bottom boats and a couple of deliberate wrecks, all inside one town.
A canyon you wade up, a ridge Moses climbed, and hunting lodges in the empty east.
Ruins and sand are everywhere in this region. A river gorge with an opening season, the view Deuteronomy hands to Moses, and eighth-century desert lodges with the paint still on the walls are not.
The Mujib Siq Trail
The Mujib gorge drains into the Dead Sea, and the trail runs up it against the current: waist-deep in places, with a harness on the last waterfall. It opens around the start of April and shuts for the winter floods, which makes it one of the few things in Jordan you cannot simply turn up for.
- 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
Mount Nebo
From the ridge above Madaba the Dead Sea, the Jordan valley and, on a clear winter morning, the hills around Jericho are all in one view. Deuteronomy puts Moses here at the end of the walk. The Franciscans uncovered a Byzantine church on the summit, and its mosaic floor is the reason to drive up rather than pull over at the viewpoint below.
- 1Dead Sea, Nebo, Madaba & Baptism Site Private or Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 190 reviews
- 2Private Tour to Madaba, Mount Nebo, and Baptism Site★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 161 reviews
- 3Day Tour – Madaba, Mount Nebo and Baptism Site★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 140 reviews
The Umayyad Desert Castles
East of Amman the map thins out, and every so often a square block of black basalt or pale limestone stands alone beside the road. They went up in the eighth century as hunting lodges, caravan halts and bath houses. Qusayr Amra still has its frescoes, including a domed ceiling painted with the constellations, and the whole loop is usually done in a morning.
- 1Umayyad Desert Castles Tour with Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 69 reviews
- 2Desert Castles of Eastern Jordan Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 53 reviews
- 3Full-Day tour Amman city tour and desert castles★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 23 reviews
Four things here that run to somebody else’s calendar.
Most of this country can be arranged at a hotel desk the night before. These four answer to ferry timetables, border posts, bed counts and a canyon that closes for the winter.
- 01The Lost City (Petra) Day Tour by FerryThe Petra day out of Sinai crosses the gulf on a scheduled sailing and clears two sets of border formalities. There is one boat to work with and no second attempt.
- 02Bedouin Camp Stay,Full-Day Desert Tour with 3MealsA Wadi Rum camp is a fixed number of tents. Spring and autumn weekends fill first, and the good ones go weeks out.
- 03Wadi Mujib Siq Trail with Amman Panoramic&Optional Dead Sea VisitThe Siq Trail runs roughly April to October and shuts when the water rises. Out of season there is no walking it.
- 04Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea 2-Day TourThe two- and three-day runs leave Amman before first light on set days and carry the hotel night with them. Turning up hoping for a seat does not work.
When the valley hits forty and the sandstone is too hot to lean on.
Summer does two things here. The open sites — Petra, Jerash, the whole Wadi Rum floor — turn into a morning-only proposition, and the Dead Sea shore, four hundred metres further down, is hotter again. Both have the same answer: go at first light, then get under a roof until the sun drops.
By place — the north, the south and the valley
By kind of day — ruin, desert, water or table
Amman, Jerash, the Dead Sea, Madaba, Petra, Wadi Rum, Aqaba — in that order, most of the time.
Newest first: Petra, Wadi Rum, Aqaba and everywhere in between.
More new reviews →
Amman Airport Private Round-Trip Transfer to Amman
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Petra Highlight Tour with Private Guide Sami Nawafleh | 2.5 Hours
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Petra Full-Day Private Tour from Amman or Airport
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2 Hour Trail Ride to Little Petra-Morning or Sunset
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Private Lunch or Dinner at a Local Traditional Restaurant from Dead Sea
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Wadi Rum 4-Hour Sunset Tour – Wadi Rum Desert Highlights
Read our review →
Jordan’s Gems: Tour from Amman to Karak Castle & Dead Sea
Read our review →
2-Night Private Jordan Gem Tour: Petra, Wadi Rum, and Aqaba from Amman
Read our review →
Queen Alia Airport Transfers From / To Amman, Petra, Dead Sea.
Read our review →
Private Half-Day Ma’in Waterfalls and Hot Springs Tour from Amman
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