The Best of Jordan

Jordan is an amazing country filled with great food, culture and history.

Jordan borders Saudi Arabia to the south and the east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and Israel and Palestine to the west. If you have the opportunity to head to Jordan here are a few things that will help plan your trip:

• 💰 Jordanian Dinar is used and is basically the same conversion as GBP £
• 🇯🇴 In Jordan, they speak Arabic
• 🚕 Uber and Gett are transport apps to use
• ✈️ You will need a visa that costs around £60 (or Jordan pass)
• 🎫 The Jordan pass costs around £70. It waives the visa cost and covers your entrance fees into most top attractions. Highly recommend it!
• 🌡 Average temperature in summer is 32 and winter it’s 10.
• 🍽 Average meal was 6-7 JOD. We ate lots of mixed grills, hummus and Middle Eastern food.
• ⛑ We found Jordan to be relatively safe. People were friendly. We have heard taxis can scam you but we had a great driver (contact me if you need his details.

Places to visit:

Petra was by far my favourite place to visit and is an absolute must. We stayed right across the road from the entrance which was convenient as it opens at 6am. Between 6-8am there were no tourists and it was much more enjoyable. Again camel rides are available here but I recommend doing the 2K walk to the monastery. It was well worth it.

Amman is the capital city. You will most likely fly into here. There are some sights outside the city including: Ajloun Castle and Jerash (ancient city). Apart from that, it’s a busy city with markets and shops.

Aqaba is a really nice city filled with restaurants, bars and hotels. It’s on the beach! We only spent a few hours there but it is a nice stop if you’re passing through.

Wadi Rum is in the south of the country and is in the desert. Here we went on a Jeep ride and there was the option to do a camel ride as well. I strongly urge you not to as I saw animals being mistreated but each to their own. We camped here (and got eaten alive) so bug spray is a must!

The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth reaching 430 metres below sea level. It’s 33% salt and is called the Dead Sea because of the high levels of salt no fish can live there. If you have done a float tank it’s similar to this but way better. The water feels slimy but you can wear a normal swimsuit there and shower after. You need to bring your own towel or buy one there. 

As there are quite long distances between these destinations, it would be best to join a tour. We did the Travel Talk tour and made some amazing friends but it was targeted at budget travellers. The tour guide was super knowledgeable and shed light on some different tour companies and what they focus on. If I was to go again, I’d look into the intrepid tour as it’s smaller groups and the itinerary is slightly different.

Neighbouring countries are Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I highly recommend visiting Egypt and Israel and I know you can do longer tours that cross into these countries. We came from Israel so if you have questions about crossing the border you can see the info here.