Petra & Wadi Rum

Two Days Is The Minimum, And People Still Book One

The single most common mistake in Jordan is treating Petra as a long day trip. It is not a monument, it is a city, carved into rose and grey sandstone by the Nabataeans over centuries, and the walk from the entrance to the far end and back is a serious day on its own before you climb anything. Two full days is the honest minimum and three is better. An hour and a half further south, Wadi Rum is the other half of this trip: a protected desert of sandstone towers rising out of red sand, run by Bedouin communities who operate the camps and the drives. Together they are one of the great short itineraries in the world, and they are consistently undercooked by people fitting them around something else.

The planning decision: how many days, and which road south

Two nights at Petra and one or two in Wadi Rum is the working shape, usually reached from Amman and finished at Aqaba on the Red Sea. The drive south is a choice in itself. The Desert Highway takes about three hours and is purely functional. The King's Highway takes four to five and is the reason to hire a driver, running through Madaba, the crusader castle at Kerak and the Dana Biosphere Reserve, and it turns the transfer into a day of the trip rather than a gap in it.

Spring, autumn, and the two seasons to think hard about

March through May and September through November are the windows, with warm days, cold clear desert nights and light that suits the sandstone. Summer is punishing: Petra sits in a rock bowl that holds heat, Wadi Rum runs past a hundred and ten, and the only workable approach is to be inside the site at opening and out by late morning. Winter is cold rather than mild, with night temperatures in the desert near freezing, and heavy rain can cause flash flooding in the Siq, which is occasionally closed as a precaution. It is a real consideration rather than a theoretical one.

Where to base, and how the two halves connect

Petra is visited from Wadi Musa, the town above the entrance, and the only geography that matters is how far your hotel sits from the gate, because you will walk in at opening and come out tired. Wadi Rum has no town. You leave the vehicles at the village and are driven into the protected area to a camp, so the transfer time, usually thirty to sixty minutes, is part of what you are booking. Aqaba is an hour on from Wadi Rum and has the country's second airport, with short domestic flights back to Amman, which is why most itineraries run one way south rather than driving the whole route twice.

Stay strategy at the gate and in the desert

The Mövenpick Resort Petra sits directly opposite the gate and is the most convenient by a distance. The Petra Marriott and the larger hotels sit higher up the hill with the valley views and a short drive down, and a few smaller village properties in the surrounding hills give a quieter and more local version. In Wadi Rum, the camps range from simple Bedouin tents with shared facilities to private cabins and the transparent domes that have become the signature image of the place. They are camps rather than hotels, the better ones are genuinely comfortable, and the setting rather than the room is what you are choosing.

When to begin

Four to six months for spring and autumn is sensible, and longer over Easter, when both the Petra hotels and the best Wadi Rum camps sell out well ahead. Petra by Night runs on set evenings, typically a few nights a week, and both the schedule and the ticketing arrangements change, so they should be confirmed for your dates.

Four experiences worth building the days around

• The Siq at opening, walking the narrow kilometre of gorge in the cool and the quiet before the coaches arrive, so the Treasury appears in the gap with nobody in front of it.
• The climb to the Monastery, roughly eight hundred cut steps up the far end of the site, which most day visitors never reach and which is the single best thing in Petra.
• Petra by Night, when the Siq and the Treasury are lit by candles on set evenings, quiet, slow and entirely unlike the daytime version.
• A night in a Wadi Rum camp, with a four wheel drive afternoon through the canyons and rock bridges, dinner cooked underground in the Bedouin way and a sky with nothing competing with it.

Who this trip suits

This suits anyone with an interest in archaeology, and it suits walkers, because Petra rewards legs more than anything else. It suits couples and small groups, and works well for multi generational families provided the ambitious climbs are optional. And it suits travelers who want two genuinely different landscapes inside three days.

When another plan may fit better

Petra involves several miles of walking on uneven ground with real climbs, and while horses, carts and donkeys operate inside the site, anyone with significant mobility limitations should be honest about that before booking. Wadi Rum camps are comfortable but they are still camps, with basic power and desert nights that get genuinely cold. If you want ancient sites with easier logistics, Cairo and the Nile are the alternative. Regional conditions and government travel advice for this part of the world change, and both should be confirmed for your dates before anything is committed.

Plan it with one accountable advisor

Tell us your month and how many nights you can give the south, and we will set the road down from Amman, the two Petra days in the right order, the camp that matches how rough you want it and the Aqaba finish. Our luxury leisure travel planning builds the whole Jordan route as one arrangement.