Petra Travel Forum

We are travelling to Sharm El Sheik and we want to visit Petra. From Petra we will continue on to Amman to catch our flight.

Questions:
1. How long does it take to get from Sharm to Petra? How do you get there?
2. What is the cost?
3. We see that there is tours from Sharm for 300 euros that take 3 days, one day to get there, one day to visit petra and one day to come back. Does it really take a whole day to get there?

Thanks for your advice!!!!
(:
Adriana

well, it is not so simple. the best way to go from Sharm El Sheik to Petra is by land ... to pass Eilat (israel) at Tabba checkpoint, and from there to goto jordan via Rabin checkpoint north of Eilat. you may spend some days in Eilat if you wish. another possibilities are to get by air from Sharm El Sheik to Aqaba at the south of Jordan (flights are rare) or by sea (ships/boats are rare). so, regarding Yr question "How long does it takes", it depends on the solution. by air about 2 hours. by sea about 2 days. by land 2 days if you do not stop at Eilat. the cost ... depends. air (if you find) may be up to 250euro, ship up to 150euro, land bus and cheap taxi up to 100euro. at the boarder you may be asked to pay a fee, depends on your passport. if you got a 300euro all-inclusive trip you are lucky. i hope it is really all inclusive. be prepared to pay extra 100 to 200 euros in case it's not all inclusive.
ENJOY !!! it is fantastic

there are three agents in Nama who can manage to make a excursion to Petra, once it was possible to do by plane. They three are the ones who organize all the excursions from sharm to Cairo, Sinai, S.Caterina and Petra. I've been at "Italy Italy" there beside I think they are very similar. If you can do not buy any excursion at resort, they will come to collect you and take you back with no surcharge.

Assuming that you want to get there as quickly as possible (and as cheaply as possible) :

There's a bus leaving Sharm at about 8.30am, it reaches Dahab at 10.30 or so and Nuweiba at about 11.00, stopping for ten minutes at each of these places. It gets to Taba on the Israeli frontier just after midday. The bus station is some two or three hundred yards/meters from the frontier.

Cross into Israel, take a taxi to the Jordan border and another taxi to Petra. Time in Petra should be around 3pm.

So yes, it takes a good slice out of a day to get to Petra from Sharm. If you take the ferry from Nuweiba which leaves at 3pm then you would be in Petra around 6 or even 7pm. This is probably the route taken by the tour you mention. However the ferry is much more expensive since the fare is 45USD.

Cost : call it around 100LE for the bus (probably much less actually, more like 50LE/person), 40NIS for the taxi to cross Israel 15USD/person departure taxi from Israel, and 20JD to get to Petra. That's less than 80 euros, but I expect they were counting the hotel in as well as the return. All in all that price isn't bad for an organized trip, but as usual you can do better alone.

You haven't asked but there are buses from Petra to Amman, but leaving in the morning, so you can have a whole day in Petra before you have to go home. The entrance fee to Petra is 21JD for one day and 26JD for two days, so consider carefully if it is worth going down there on the first day, especially at this time of year when you would only have an hour or so before it gets dark. One day isn't all that much to see Petra, but infinitely better than nothing. Can you not take two days? Or another morning, the last bus to Amman leaving at midday?

Lulu

Sorry, I forgot to say that the Israeli visa and the Jordanian visa are both free and can be obtained with a minimum of hassle, say 5 minutes each.

Adriana

Did you make the trip from Sharm to Petra? We'd like to do the same when out there in May.

Thanks

Sandra

at the time I've been there (three/four years ago) there was a escursion with plane to Petra and back the following day. Check locally at one of the travel agencies in Nama.

ok I'm not Adriana, I hope it helps in some ways