Jordan is the easiest introduction to the Middle East and one of the most efficient countries in this guide: the distances are short, the road network is simple, and the four things everybody comes for are strung along a single north–south axis.
A week does it properly. Ten days does it without hurrying.
Before anything: the Jordan Pass
Buy it online before you fly. It bundles the tourist visa with entry to Petra and about forty other sites, and it costs substantially less than buying them separately.
The critical condition: the visa waiver only applies if you purchase before arrival and stay a minimum of three nights. Buying it at the airport gets you the sites and not the visa.
Day 1: Amman
A city of white limestone spread over nineteen hills, and more interesting than its reputation.
The Citadel on Jebel al-Qala’a — Roman temple, Umayyad palace, Byzantine church, and the view over the whole city. The Roman Theatre below it, still used. Rainbow Street and Jabal al-Weibdeh for the cafés and the small galleries.
Eat mansaf, the national dish — lamb in fermented dried yoghurt over rice — at least once, and knafeh at Habibah, which is an institution.
Day 2: Jerash and the north
Jerash, 50km north, is one of the best-preserved Roman provincial cities anywhere: a colonnaded cardo with the original chariot ruts in the paving, two theatres, an oval forum, and temples to Zeus and Artemis. It is comparable to anything in Italy and has perhaps a twentieth of the visitors.
Half a day. Add Ajloun castle, a twelfth-century Ayyubid fortress built against the Crusaders, on the way back.
Day 3: the Dead Sea and the King’s Highway
The Dead Sea is 430m below sea level, the lowest land on earth, and about ten times saltier than the ocean. You float; you cannot really swim. Twenty minutes is enough, the mud is genuinely good for skin, and it will find every cut you did not know you had.
The lake is shrinking by about a metre a year and the shoreline has retreated dramatically, which is visible and sobering.
Then south on the King’s Highway rather than the Desert Highway. It is slower and it is the whole point: Mount Nebo, where Moses is said to have seen the promised land; Madaba, with a sixth-century mosaic map of the Holy Land on a church floor; and Kerak, an enormous Crusader castle.
Wadi Mujib, the Siq Trail — wading and swimming up a slot canyon against the current — is open roughly April to October and is one of the best things in the country.
Days 4–5: Petra
Two days, not one. The Jordan Pass includes multi-day entry and the second day is where Petra stops being a queue.
Day one: in at opening, through the Siq, the Treasury, the Street of Facades, the theatre, the Royal Tombs, the colonnaded street.
Day two: the 800 steps to the Monastery, which is larger than the Treasury and reached by far fewer people, and the High Place of Sacrifice.
Little Petra, 8km north, is free and takes an hour.
Stay in Wadi Musa, the town at the entrance.
Days 5–6: Wadi Rum
Two hours south. Do not day-trip it — Wadi Rum at dusk and at two in the morning is the reason to go, and neither happens before 4pm.
A jeep tour in the afternoon, dinner cooked in a sand oven, and a night in a Bedouin camp. Book direct with a camp rather than through an agency.
The temperature swing is severe: hot afternoon, cold night, and below freezing in winter.
Day 7: Aqaba, or back north
Aqaba on the Red Sea, an hour from Wadi Rum, has genuinely good coral reefs a few metres offshore and is the natural place to end. Snorkelling or a dive, and a flight or a four-hour drive back to Amman.
If diving is the point, add two days.
Practical
Driving is straightforward. Roads are good, signage is bilingual, and the country is small — Amman to Aqaba is four hours on the Desert Highway. Hire a car unless you are nervous about Amman’s traffic, which is chaotic.
Public transport exists between the main towns via JETT buses but will cost you a day at each end.
Season: March–May and September–November. Summer inland exceeds 40°C. Winter is cold at Petra’s altitude and it does snow.
Dress modestly outside Aqaba and the Dead Sea resorts — shoulders and knees covered for everyone.
Ramadan changes opening hours and daytime eating in public. It is still an interesting time to visit.
Solo women travellers generally report Jordan as straightforward by regional standards, with the usual persistent attention in tourist areas.