Petra, Wadi Rum & Dead Sea Tours

If you have two days rather than one, this is the itinerary the whole Jordanian market is built around — and the numbers say so. The flagship listing on this page carries more than 1,500 reviews at 4.9 out of 5, which is more reviews than every other tour in this catalogue put together.

What the extra day actually buys

Two things, and the second is the one people do not anticipate.

Petra gets a real visit. On a one-day Petra and Dead Sea combination you walk the Siq, look at the Treasury and turn around. With an overnight south you have the time to go further into the site — the Street of Facades, the Royal Tombs, and for the fit, the climb to the Monastery.

You get a night in Wadi Rum. This is the part that tends to become people’s favourite day in Jordan, and it is impossible to fit into any day trip. A two-hour jeep tour through the sandstone at the end of the afternoon, dinner at a camp, and a sky with no light pollution in it for a hundred kilometres in any direction.

The camps are basic by design: one tent for up to three people, dinner and breakfast included. Desert nights are genuinely cold outside high summer — bring a layer even if the day was 35 degrees, because nobody warns you and everybody needs it.

Read the option name before you book

This is the one thing on this page that costs people money. The flagship listing sells the same two days in three formats, and they differ in ways the headline price does not show:

• Private — your own vehicle and driver, hotel pickup and drop-off in Amman.
• Small group — shared vehicle, still with hotel pickup.
• Mid-size group — the cheapest. It departs from a fixed meeting point at a set time and does not collect from hotels, and the operator states plainly that the bus will not wait beyond the departure time. It is also, confusingly, the option that includes Dead Sea resort entry with lunch and licensed guides at Petra and Wadi Rum, which the other two do not.

So the cheapest option is the one with the most inclusions and the least flexibility. Whichever way you go, know which one you clicked.

Entry fees and the Jordan Pass

On the standard options, entry fees and licensed site guides are excluded. Petra admission is the largest single charge on the itinerary, and the operator themselves recommends buying a Jordan Pass online before you arrive if you are spending two nights or more in the country — it bundles Petra with a number of other sites and, on the relevant tiers, waives the tourist visa fee. Terms change, so check the official scheme rather than taking a figure from a tour listing.

Is two days enough?

For these three places, yes — enough to see them properly, not enough to linger anywhere. Three- and four-day versions of the same loop exist in this catalogue and add Jerash, Dana or a slower Petra. But two days is where the review volume is, which usually means it is where the operators have practised most.

Check availability for your dates, or compare the shorter formats in which Dead Sea tour is right for you.