For years I’ve been most comfortable taking beach holidays with the occassional city break thrown in. These were easy holidays focussed on relaxation and pampering, but Jordan was an adventure/hiking/trekking holiday with a bit of Dead Sea pampering thrown in at the end of the five day trip.
Was I biting off more than I could chew?
I was a tad worried about the level of activity each day. Petra in particular lies in a valley, but my research had shown that if I wanted to see the most revered monument in the city, the Monastery, I would have to climb some 950 steps up to reach it. Even The Treasury, which lies opposite the main entrance, Al Siq, while being on ground level, had an overlook view that was a good climb up, on some treacherous looking paths to get there.
Choose your travelling companions wisely
Holidaying with my sister and cousin, (we styled ourselves as ‘The Three Amigos’ for this trip), I knew both wanted to see either one of those, so there was no way I was going to get away without a climb.
My fear stemmed from having piled on the pounds after working so hard over 2022 to rid myself of the extra body weight. My diabetes had flamed over the new year and I was now taking medication to get it back under control. Both these things meant I was tiring more easily and cast doubts on whether I’d be able to cope with the exertion. Read about the climb to The Monestary here, where you can find out if I made it or not.
Don’t stop me now
In any case, I wanted to see the spectaular vistas, I wanted to photograph the larger than life monuments of antiquity, I wanted to see a Petra sunrise and sunset, I wanted to make the most of the experience.
Determined to cross this destination off my bucket list, we planned and researched, spent copious hours watching Youtube videos from others that had ‘done’ Petra and Jordan. We began organising the various aspects of the trip and by April 1st, everything was booked and the countdown had begun.
Making a plan
Our trip was five days and four nights. We knew Petra was to be the star of the show, but additionally we wanted to experience staying in the desert at a Bedouin campsite, but I had one eye on doing some milky way photography as well so checking out the bubble tents to see if we could get value for money there was a must.
Travel Planning
As a seasoned traveller, you may be tempted to go with the flow and play thing by ear, that’s fine, but I always think it’s as good to make a checklist of things that you need to remember before going.
Here’s my one, well to tell you the truth I had a couple including for photography gear and for clothes I was packing (I tend to over pack so this is a must)
My Jordan Travel Checklist
Flights and transfers
Because we were travelling from Qatar to Jordan, we opted to fly with Qatar Airways as they had several flight options daily and the flight time was in the region of 3 hours.
I live in the UK, and travelling from London to Amman has a good selection of Airlines including Royal Jordanian, British Airways and Wizz if you are looking for non-stop flights, plenty more operators if you’re willing to add stops to your travel.
Non-stop flights from the UK take around 5-6 hours, depending on the airport you leave from
Jeep tours
Taking a jeep tour in Jordan is very popular and there are far too many operators for me to list in this article. Since we opted to be a tourist, we booked our Jeep tours with the same company that was picking us up from the airport and sorting out our visas and Petra tickets.
Animal Taxis
Personally not for me.
Accomodation Planning
We planned our accomodation using booking.com. Although we stayed 4 nights 5 days, we actually stayed in three different places. Two nights in Wadi Rum, one in Petra and one at the Dead Sea.
One thing that complicated the bookings was we were travelling during Eid, so prices were higher than they would normally be during that time of year.
We opted to stay at:
- Wadi Rum Guest Camp - Wadi Rum
- Ata Ali Hotel - Petra
- Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa - Dead Sea
Summing up
Travel planning is vital if you’re going to a location that you’ve not visited before. It can help to use a local guide or tour company to assist you with this, but the resources on the internet, especially for a location like Jordan are very good, and with websites like bookings.com, tripadvisor and others you can plan and structure a varied and enjoyable trip.
In addition there are thousands of travel bloggers that share their knowledge, expertise and tips for travelling in most regions of the world.
Next up: Take a look at the travel destinations we explored in Jordan