All of Jordan fits in one week.
Petra deserves two days and most tours give it four hours. Wadi Rum is worth the overnight. The Dead Sea is an afternoon. Reviews of the tours that get you to each, with what they cost.
Jordan in the order most people drive it.
Amman to Aqaba is four hours on the Desert Highway and about eight if you stop at everything worth stopping for. This is the spine almost every itinerary hangs off.
Amman
Jerash
Madaba
Dead Sea
Petra
Wadi Rum
AqabaPetra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea decide the trip.
Everything else in Jordan arranges itself around those three. Get the days right and the rest of the week falls into place on its own.
Petra is far bigger than the Treasury.
All 419 Petra tours →
The Siq runs about a kilometre and a half before it opens on the Treasury, and that is where most day trips turn round. The Monastery is 800 rock-cut steps further on, and the Royal Tombs burn orange in the last hour of light.
Amman to Petra and back
Three hours down the Desert Highway, four or five inside the site, home after dark. It is the reason so many people see the Treasury and nothing beyond it.
Petra, then a night in the desert
Finish at Petra in the afternoon, drive an hour south, and sleep under a sky with nothing in the way. The most-booked shape of a Jordan trip, and deservedly.
Petra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea
One car, one driver, three landscapes that share nothing but a border. Long days, very little repeated, and no bus timetable to lose an afternoon to.
Nobody regrets the night in Wadi Rum.
Seven hundred square kilometres of red sand and sandstone jebels, inside a protected area run by the Bedouin families who hold the permits and the pickups. Jeep in the afternoon, zarb out of the sand pit at dusk, then the sky.
The Jordan tours travellers keep choosing.
Every review →One two-day loop out of the capital carries more travellers than anything else in the country. Here it is, and the seven closest behind it.
1
2-Day Tour: Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea from Amman
See Petra, sleep in Wadi Rum, and float in the Dead Sea on a fast-paced two-day tour from Amman with transport included.
From · $249
Read our review →
2
Petra & Wadi Rum Private or group Day Tour
from $126
3
Petra and Wadi rum Full day Tour
from $99
4
3-Day Private Tour from Amman: Petra, Wadi Rum, Dana, Aqaba, and Dead Sea
from $349
5
Petra Full-Day Private Tour from Amman
from $78
6
Wadi Rum Full Day Jeep Tour + Overnight & Dinner in Bedouin Camp
from $107
7
Jerash, Ajloun Castle or Umm Qais Private Tour
from $59
8
Petra & Wadi Rum: Full Day Private Tour with Hotel Pickup
from $133
The Dead Sea takes an afternoon, and you should still go.
You do not swim in it, you lie on it. Twenty minutes floating, ten caked in black mud, a long rinse, and that is the experience. Stack Mount Nebo and the Madaba mosaics onto the drive down, or the Mujib gorge if you want the day to work harder.
A day in Jordan starts at $19.
The entry ticket at Petra is the expensive part of a Jordan trip. The tours around it mostly are not. Everything on the site, by what you actually pay.
Jeep runs in Wadi Rum, a dive off Aqaba, a morning among the columns at Jerash.
The full-day standards: Petra from Amman, the Dead Sea and Mount Nebo, a camp night in the desert.
- 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
Multi-day circuits with a driver, private guides through the Siq, and the treks that need permits arranged.
Three things only Jordan has.
Roman ruins and coral reefs turn up all over the region. A canyon you climb up through the water, the east bank of the Jordan River, and camps run by the families who own the sand do not.
The Mujib Siq
The Siq Trail starts at the Dead Sea shore, more than 400 metres below sea level, and goes straight up a slot canyon in the water. You wade, you scramble, you haul yourself up waterfalls on fixed ropes. It shuts through the winter flood season and reopens around April, and there is nothing else like it anywhere nearby.
- 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
Bethany
Al-Maghtas sits on the Jordanian bank of the river, and the excavated churches and pools there match the place the Gospel of John describes. It is a working pilgrimage site and a UNESCO listing, twenty minutes off the Dead Sea road, and almost empty on a weekday morning.
- 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 From Amman★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 121 reviews
The Camp Night
Wadi Rum is a protected area, and the camps inside it belong to Zalabia families from the village at its edge. Dinner is zarb, buried in a sand pit under coals for three hours. The camps people actually rave about hold about a dozen tents, which is why spring and autumn weekends go months ahead.
- 1Wadi Rum Full Day Jeep Tour + Overnight & Dinner in Bedouin Camp★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 368 reviews
- 2Bedouin Camp Stay,Full-Day Desert Tour with 3Meals★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 198 reviews
- 3Full Day Jeep Tour in Wadi Rum (incl. Bedouin picnic lunch)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 75 reviews
Jordan owns 27 kilometres of Red Sea, and all of it is reef.
All Aqaba tours →
Private Red Sea Diving for Beginner or Experienced
Read our review →
Glass-Bottom Boat 2-hours Tour and Coral-Reef Viewing from Aqaba
Read our review →
Take advantage of a half-day boat dive experience in Red sea of Aqaba.
Read our review →Book these before you land in Jordan.
Most of the country can be arranged from the hotel desk the night before. These cannot. They run on candle nights, dawn winds, fixed departures and a dozen tents.
- 01Petra by Night Tour with Optional Day VisitIt runs three evenings a week, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, and the candles are lit whatever the season.
- 02Hot Air Balloon Flight at Wadi RumDawn only, wind permitting, and a handful of baskets go up over the desert each morning.
- 03Wadi Rum Full Day Jeep Tour + Overnight & Dinner in Bedouin CampThe camps worth staying in hold about a dozen tents. Spring and autumn weekends go months in advance.
- 043-Day Private Tour from Amman: Petra, Wadi Rum, Dana, Aqaba, and Dead SeaLong walks on the Jordan Trail run to set departure dates and need a guide booked ahead, not on arrival.
High summer in Jordan: start at dawn, or get in the water.
Aqaba clears 40°C through July and the Dead Sea shore runs hotter still, because it sits 430 metres down. None of that cancels a trip. It moves the desert to sunrise, puts the afternoon under the Red Sea, or spends it wading up the Mujib gorge with the water at chest height.
By base — where you sleep
Amman687 tours- Petra419 tours
- Wadi Rum329 tours
Aqaba275 tours- The Dead Sea301 tours
Jerash & Ajloun128 tours
Madaba22 tours- Every review →
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Desert Secret: Six Hour Private Jeep Tour and Overnight
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2nights|3Day all-inclusive BedouinDesertExperience
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1-Day Sunrise Balloon above Rum Valley & Transfer
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