Petra Travel Forum

Hi all

Its our first time to Petra and we are wondering the best way to do it as we are landing in Amman. It seems the cost of a taxi is 70JD each way, so we are thinking of renting a car for £125 for 4 whole days (flights are either side of this). This will also allow us the freedom of going to the Dead Sea and maybe seeing some things on the Kings Highway (or even Jerash). I'm wondering the practicalities of this. So here here my questions for anyone that has experience of driving to Petra:

1) Is it worth renting a car for 4 days to give us time to see the sites or to get the bus/taxi?
2) How far can you take the car to Petra site and Wadi Rum?
3) Is it worth staying the night in Wadi Rum? If so where would we park the car?
4) How is the driving in terms of safety in Jordan?

Thanks for any driving tips!

mike

I would definitely hire a car and take the King's Highway to Petra. You can detour to some interesting places on your way to Petra - Mt Nebo, Madaba, Mukawir and Kerak are all well worth a visit and the drive through Wadi Mujib is spectacular. I would then stop at Wadi Dana for the night at the guest house in Wadi Dana, 60 km north of Petra, get up really early in the morning and drive on to Petra.

You park your car at the entrance to the Petra site - in a car park - and then it's walking all the way. Spend the day in Petra, stay overnight in Wadi Mousa (the town outside Petra)and drive to Wadi Rum (80km away) next day, either stay in the Wadi overnight or drive on to Aqaba if you want to cut the driving the following day. Return to Amman via the Dead Sea Highway. If you stay ovenight in Aqaba you'll definitely have time to swim in the Dead Sea and visit the new museum at the base of the Lot's Cave mountain.

Jerash is 50km north of Amman - you may have to leave it for another time.

You can only explore Wadi Rum with a local guide - pick one up at the Visitors Centre - the prices are all set and regulated and, unless you have already booked someone, you must take the first in line.

Daytime driving in Jordan is fine, be sure to arive by where you're heading by dark.

The King's Highway is much slower - and far more interesting than the Desert Highway to Petra and the Desert Highway carries a large volume of trucks heading for the port at Aqaba.

Consider staying in Madaba - closer to the airport, on the King's Highway south of Amman

Lots of tips on The WanderingCamel's Jordan pages and be sure to take a look at www.jordanjubilee.com - the best site on Jordan anywhere.

Have a great trip
leyle

if you decide to drive yourself then you should also make stops at madaba and kerak along the way.
both very scenic spots.

you can drive your car right to the entrance of petra where you will have to walk a couple of kilometers (or take a horse cart) as there is no real road through the very narrow siq.

you can drive all the way in to wadi rum easily and there are lot's of places to park your car there as the area is huge and mostly empty.
most people stay in tent camps while in wadi rum and they all have a guarded parking area.

Thank you for the excellent tips! That has helped make my mind up.

I had one other question about Wadi Rum - Since you have to take a guide - Can you do an overnight stay in the evening and then a tour the morning you wake, or do the tours start in the day, and you camp that night? Also, is it too cold to camp in February?

Thanks
Mike

No, I'm sure it won't be too cold to camp in February, though be aware temperatures always drop sharply in the desert at night no matter what the season. I don't see any reason why you cannot arrange to arrive in th evening, camp and then take a tour through the Wadi in the morning. You can make that arrangement when you book your camp.

Thanks for the reply again - Sounds like a plan.


I checked your site on Jordan also and its given me a lot of advice! Nice one

all the best!
mike

You can visit this site Also
www.wadirum.webobo.com

Hoping to keep this thread alive as we have some made some definte plans and go in a few weeks! Just had a few more questions.

We indeed have booked the care hire, and since we have just got back from India and staying in the desert there I don't think we will stay the night in Wadi Rum, but would still like to see the scenary.

I've got this for a tentative itinerary:

Day 1: Pick up car at 8AM. Drive to Jerash for a couple of hours. Drive to Dead Sea. Drive through Wadi Mujib. Drive to Petra (hopefully not too late. How is the Kings highway if it gets dark?). Stay in Petra
Day 2: Petra Tresury, High Place, Tombs
Day 3: Petra Monestry.
Day 4: Wadi Rum morning, drive back to Amman stopping at Madaba to see Mosiacs. Drop off car. Stay in Amman

Our flights are either side of these 4 days.

I guess our big question is Day 1 possible? I'd really like to see Jerash after seeing Pompeii and Ephesus. But I'd also like to experience floating in the dead see for a bit also! May its possible to do this on day 4?

any help appriciated once again.

thanks
mike

Your Day 1 itinerary is too ambitious. You need to allow at least half a day to visit Jerash. Where are you collecting the car from? You say you're picking it up at 8am, from my experience, you need to be prepared for this process to take at least a half an hour, if not longer! If you are collecting it from downtown Amman, you will have the morning traffic to negotiate, if you're collecting it from the airport, Jerash is 50km the other siude of Amman. Realistically, you're not going to be there much before 10am.

On leaving you will have another 100km or so to drive to reach the Dead Sea, have your swim and then return to the King's Highway and you're still the best part of 200km from Petra.

I would repeat my earlier suggestion that you stay at Wadi Dana and continue your drive to Petra in the morning. It will cut 60km off the driving the first day, still give you plenty of time to do the things you want to do in Petra the next day, and take you to a wonderful place. http://www.greentraveller.co.uk/node/169

"Highway" is something of a misnomer. It's no fast motorway. This is the ancient name for an ancient road. Driving at night is to avoided if at all possible.

leyle

Thanks again for the advice. We are going to knock the Jerash idea on the head and spend the first day going to the Dead Sea and the Kings Highway experience. I checked and it looks like it gets dark around 5PM and we don't want to be driving then. We have the car from Amman.

Thanks
Mike

BlueMenagerie,

Could you please share your experience in hiring the car?

Details such as name of the company, car make and model and the reliability of the car please.

Hi

Info on the car from what I remember: It was a 2WD Citron from Thrifty car hire. We booked it online in advance through Lastminute.com and got a good rate. I think £30 a day. Petrol is really cheap there also. Filled up whole tank for £12. We went with Cyprus airlines that seemed cheaper than Royal Jordanian at the time.

As for Jordan, well.....

What a fantastic country - what can I say, the people are amongst the friendliest I've ever met, Petra is indeed one of the wonders of the world and the Holy Sites and Jerash were really interesting too. We played it by ear due to the freedom of the car so here is what we ended up doing. Maybe it will help someone out in the future:

Day 1. Picked up car in Amman. Drove to Madaba early to see the facinating mosiacs. Drove via Mount Nebo (place of Moses death) to the Dead Sea and had a float around for a couple of hours. Then onto the Baptism site nearby to see the place of Jesus' Baptism. Drove the Desert Highway 3 hours to Wadi Musa (Town of Petra). This was a long day but the early start helped. We got to Baptism site around 3PM for the last tour and got to Wadi Musa around 7:30PM. Driving in the dark on this highway was fine. In fact driving in general was a lot easier than I thought.

Day 2. Whole day in Petra. Early start to beat the tourist rush down the Siq. Tresury, Tombs and Monestry. One of the best days ever at Petra, beautiful skies and out of this world sights.

Day 3. Early start drive to Wadi Rum (1.5 hours), 3 hour 4x4 tour of the desert. Nice to drive it but would have been nice to do some of the activities there such as Abseiling or a Trek. Maybe next time. The scenary was sweet and great for photos. Drive back to Petra and did the hike to the Place of High Sacrifice at around 3PM. By this time most people had left. It was great walking down the other side to the Soldiers Tomb without a soul in site. Seeing the colours of the Tresuary towards dusk was great too compared to the morning.

Day 4. Drive back to Amman via the Kings Highway. Had enough time to visit Jerash at 3PM. We did consider visiting Dana but the weather was poor. Jerash is an amazing Roman site and was beyond all my expectations. If you liked Pompeii or Ephesus you'll love it. Again as it was afternoon we pretty much had the place to ourselves!

It would have been nice to have a couple more days for trekking and Dana but it was one of the best places I've been so can fully recommend it!

Sounds great and, having had a taste, I'm sure you'll be back one day. Take more time and visit Syria too - now that really is a fabulous country!