Petra & Wadi Rum, Jordan
A city carved into rose rock, then a night in a Bedouin camp under a desert sky. Spring and autumn are ideal.
Best time to visit
Weather by month
Cost
Serves travellers at Backpacker→Ultra-luxury level. Typically around $130 a day on the ground.
Ranges are typical costs, not quotes. Check the real price before you book.
What's on
Wadi Rum Ultra October
Desert stage race
Worth knowing
A hire car or a driver between the sites; the King''s Highway is the slower and far better of the two roads south. Inside Wadi Rum you transfer to a 4x4 with a Bedouin driver, because private cars go no further than the village.
getting around · editorial
Amman is the main airport, about three hours by road down to Wadi Musa for Petra and another ninety minutes on to Wadi Rum. Aqaba has an airport too and is closer to the desert end.
getting there · editorial
Petra is a full day of walking with real climbs and almost no shade; the Monastery is around 800 steps above the valley floor. Desert camps run on limited generator power, so charge everything before you leave the town.
know before · editorial
Cash dinars for the camps, the village and the horse and camel handlers around Petra. Cards work at hotels in Wadi Musa and in Amman. Machines are in the towns, not the desert.
money · editorial
High summer, when the Siq and the climb to the Monastery are brutal by mid-morning and the desert is worse. Winter nights in Wadi Rum drop near freezing, and rain can flash-flood the Siq and close it.
when not to go · editorial
Wadi Musa, the town above Petra''s gate, is where you sleep for the ruins, and the closer to the entrance the better because the walk in is long enough already. In Wadi Rum you stay at a desert camp reached by 4x4, ranging from goat-hair tents to bubble domes.
where to stay · editorial
Quests
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Al-Khazneh, the Treasury
Forty metres carved into the rock, appearing all at once at the end of the Siq.
The Siq
A kilometre and a half of cleft, with eighty metres of wall on either side.
The Nabataean theatre
Three thousand seats cut into the rock in the first century.
Lawrence's Spring, Wadi Rum
The spring on the hillside he described in Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Um Fruth rock bridge
A natural arch fifteen metres off the ground, climbable without gear.
The red dunes of Wadi Rum
Iron sand against black sandstone. Climb one barefoot.
See
Reach the Treasury through the Siq, on foot, early
Eat
Eat mansaf, the lamb in fermented yoghurt
Zarb
Lamb and vegetables roasted for hours in an oven buried in the sand.
Mansaf
Lamb with dried fermented yoghurt over rice. The national dish of Jordan.
Bedouin tea with sage
Too sweet on purpose. Refusing the second cup is bad manners.
Moment
Sleep in the Wadi Rum desert and wake before the sun
Stars in the desert with no moon
No town within a hundred kilometres. The Milky Way casts a shadow.
Reach Petra before the coaches arrive
Seven in the morning in the Siq, alone, with the sound of your own footsteps.
Trail
Ad-Deir, the Monastery
Eight hundred steps cut into the rock, to a façade larger than the Treasury.