Day 2: Jerash, Rome in the Desert
Drive north to Jerash, once a major Roman city along the Decapolis. Walk its colonnaded Cardo, stand in the Oval Plaza, and climb to the Temple of Artemis, dedicated to the goddess of hunting and fertility. Return to Amman and take an evening stroll through Rainbow Street. Pick up some knafehat Habibah Sweets, and hot cheese pastry dripping with syrup.
Day 3: Madaba, Mount Nebo and the Dead Sea
Leave Amman and head south to Madaba, one of Jordan’s oldest Christian towns, where church spires rise above low stone buildings and the town’s long religious history still feels close to the surface. Visit St George’s Church to see the famous 6th-century Mosaic Map of the Holy Land, an extraordinary surviving fragment of Byzantine cartography that once guided pilgrims through the region. Have lunch at Haret Jdoudna.
Continue on to Mount Nebo, the windswept ridge where Moses is said to have stood at the end of his journey, looking out across the Jordan Valley toward the Promised Land. On a clear day, the view stretches across a huge sweep of earth and haze, reaching toward Jericho and even Jerusalem in the distance. The summit has a quiet, reflective atmosphere.
From here, descend toward the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth. Spend the afternoon floating in its mineral-rich waters, coated in black mud and suspended in complete weightlessness as the sun drops over the hills. Stay overnight in a guesthouse or spa resort by the water.
Day 4: The King’s Highway to Petra
Follow the King’s Highway south, an ancient route that has linked kingdoms, caravans, traders, and armies for thousands of years. This is not the fastest road to Petra, but it is by far the most atmospheric, winding through high plateaus, villages, deep valleys, and long stretches of open mountain scenery.
Stop at Karak Castle, the vast 12th-century Crusader fortress that looms above the town. Its tunnels, ramparts.
Continue south through dramatic switchbacks and changing desert light toward Wadi Musa, the modern town that sits at Petra’s entrance. The road climbs and dips through the mountains. Arrive in the early evening, settle in, and get an early night ready for a full day in Petra the next morning.
Day 5: Petra, the Lost City of Stone
Set out early for Petra, entering before the heat and crowds build. Walk through the Siq, the narrow sandstone gorge that forms the city’s theatrical entrance, its towering walls twisting and closing around you until the path suddenly opens onto the Treasury, Al-Khazneh, one of the most iconic façades in the Middle East.
But Petra is far more than the Treasury alone. Spend the day moving deeper into the ancient Nabataean city, past carved tombs, weathered stairways, ceremonial spaces, and façades cut directly into the rose-red rock. Visit the Street of Facades, the Theatre, the Royal Tombs, and the Colonnaded Street, each section revealing a different layer of Petra’s former life as a wealthy desert trading hub. The scale of the site is crazy.
If you have the energy, climb up to the Monastery (I highly recommend), Ad-Deir, a long uphill ascent rewarded by one of Petra’s most spectacular monuments and sweeping views over the surrounding mountains. Along the way, it becomes easier to appreciate the brilliance of the Nabataeans, who built a flourishing city here by mastering water collection, storage, and engineering in an unforgiving desert environment. Stay until late afternoon if you can. As the light softens, the stone deepens into shades of copper, pink, and gold, and Petra feels less like a ruin and more like something still quietly alive.
Leave Petra in the early afternoon and drive south into Wadi Rum, a vast protected desert of sandstone massifs, granite outcrops, shifting dunes, and open valleys that feels completely different from Petra’s enclosed canyon world. This is one of Jordan’s most cinematic landscapes, but it is even more impressive in person than on screen: huge, silent, and almost lunar in scale.
Day 6: Wadi Rum, Desert of Echoes
In the morning, meet Bedouin guides (organised through your camp) and head out by 4x4 across the desert, passing natural rock arches, narrow canyons, ancient petroglyphs, and red sand plains framed by towering cliffs. The landscape changes constantly as the light moves, with rocks shifting from orange to rust to deep crimson over the course of the day. There is a real sense of openness here, of distance and stillness, that makes time feel slower and simpler.
At sunset, climb a dune or low ridge for a panoramic view across the valley as the desert glows in layers of gold and red. Later, return to a Bedouin camp for dinner under the stars: grilled food, sweet tea, quiet conversation, and a very sky to see stars. We ended up extending our time in Wadi Rum because it was the perfect place to properly slow down, spending hours reading, playing backgammon, smoking shisha, riding a camel.
Day 7: Return to Amman
On the return journey, stop at Shobak Castle, a lonely Crusader stronghold perched high above the surrounding hills. Less visited than Karak, it feels more remote and atmospheric, its ruined walls and underground passages still hinting at the strategic importance of these fortified routes across Jordan’s interior.
From here, continue back to Amman, arriving in the afternoon or early evening.
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