What a different world I entered when I went to Jordan!

Jordan is an amazing country with diverse nature. Mountains in the north, the dessert in the south, the salty dead sea, amazing Petra and the nice Red Sea in the south. This was the first time I would visit a country in the Middle East.

As Jordan is laying in the middle of a few, not so safe countries (think of Syria, Iraq), it is not yet over crowded with tourists. This is such a pity for Jordan, because it definitely deserves more. I never felt unsafe in Jordan and everyone was very hospitable (´Welcome to Jordan!´)

I went on a road trip through this incredible country and I want to share all of my stories with you.

First let´s start with one of my favorite cities, Amman.

Amman

We started our trip in Amman and after a week I felt home in this city. There´s much more to tell about Amman, maybe a bit too much 😉 So I wrote in a different blog about Amman.

I Amman you have to visit all the historic landmarks, fun and buzzling old town and the food. Oh the food in Jordan… you have to try the Mansaf!
Some people avoid Amman and think it is not interesting enough, but I think you have to. You have to visit Amman!

From Amman we went to Jerash, Petra, Wadi Rum, Aqaba, Mount Nebo and the Dead Sea. I think I have never visited this many places in one country in just two weeks.
There is not one place I would say not to go, because all of the places are unique on their own way!

Jerash

The first place after Amman we went to was Jerash. This is a huge site filled with Greek-Roman monuments. This site is so large you can easily spend a whole day here!

We went from Amman to Jerash by taxi, which cost us 40 euro and the taxi guy would stay there the whole day. It was a beautiful one-hour drive and especially with taxi it was very easy to reach it.

Be aware that it can be pretty hot in Jerash, especially because there is not much shade. So I recommend you to not go on the hottest day of that week. But it is definitely worth to go.

This is a unique place and I even liked this place more than Pompeii (a very famous historical site in Italy). To be honest this could also be because of all the pretty views. Just walking through those huge pillars (see the second photo of my dad above), makes you wonder what happened here in history.

After Jerash, we were off to our next destination, Petra. My second world wonder that I would witness…

The archaeological city with one of the 7 worldwonders is a must go! I was excited to see everything and all of my dreams came true, the whole site was just so stunning!
I literally did not have enough eyes to see everything around me. The nature, the animals, the people… I am so happy my parents and I took many, many pictures here.

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Amman is a good start to get to know Jordan. In 2018 we spend one whole week in Amman and

People
But, you often hear the saying, people make or break a trip. Well the people in Petra kind of ruined my trip to Petra. Where everywhere else in Jordan the people are too kind and say ´Welcome to Jordan,´ the people in Petra were completely different.
Unkind, pushy and I even did not feel safe because of them. I have not heard anyone else about this, even not when sharing this experience twice on Instagram, so maybe it was just my experience. Maybe the people there had a bad day 🙂

So for the people in Petra I do not advice you to go, but that can not compete with the breathtaking site and history.
If you ever have to chance to go to Petra, you are very very lucky and you have to go! Take a good camera with you, because you want to make a lot of photos.

Nebo mountain

The Nebo Mountain is a cool place to go if you want to go out of Amman for a day.
It is only one hour of driving… if you go by car.

Nebo Moutain is the mountain on which the prophet Moses was shown the Promised Land before he died. We became ´friends´ with a kind taxi driver and trusted him to take us to the Nebo Mountain.

Even if you are not religious, Nebo Mountain is an amazing place to go to. The views are absolutely stunning and from there it is easy to go to the Dead Sea, that sea where you can float in the water.

When we were driving toward Nebo Mountain, I first felt like we were in Spain. Once we were up that mountain, that feeling faded away completely. That view is something I have never seen before.

Even though we did not see any tourists in Amman, we did see these in the other places we went to. Still not that many, but more as we saw in Amman!

Dead Sea

From +1000 meters to -430 meters under sea level… in 30 minutes by car, I swear, you can really notice that!

When we left Amman I remembered it was around 34 degrees, which was completely fine. With every corner we took, we felt the heat rising in the car, so by the time we reached the Dead Sea, it was around 42 degrees.
Hmmm, a bit too much for me and the heat swept me in face when I opened the door of the car.

Then our ´friend´ the taxi driver, told us we couldn´t swim in the water or we had to pay 10 euros each. Huh? Why did we never read that on the internet?! At that time we also saw no one swimming in the water (haha, who will with 42 degrees, I would also have stayed inside ;)), so we couldn´t ask around.

We thought it was a bit too much, so we entered the car quickly and went up to the much cooler Amman. When I finally had internet I read that probably because our car stopped close to a hotel was the reason we had to pay. A pity, but now we at least had seen the Dead Sea and even a little bit of the border with Palestine.

Now I also know that the next time I am close to the Dead Sea, I want to experience the miracle of the Dead Sea, so I definitely am going to swim! Please don´t be like me and do your homework before you go to the Dead Sea, so that you can enjoy the water!

Wadi Rum

Until this day Wadi Rum is still one of my favorite places on this magnificent world…

A place that looks like Mars is what they always say. From cruising through the desert, with it´s different kind of sands, to climbing scary and high rocks. To admiring an amazing sunset, eating wonderful traditional food and their alcohol: tea.

Also meeting the nicest people from Jordan and sleeping under the never ending stars... This still is one of my favorite days ever!

We found a place called the ´red mountain camp´ on Booking.com and stayed there. It´s definitely a recommendation to stay there as well!

Aqaba

Then last but not least, one of the most southern cities in Jordan, Aqaba.

The first day we arrived here, all three of us got food poisoning and outside it was more as 40 degrees, so not the best conditions to discover this place.
Haha it sounds like we only had bad experiences in Jordan, but that is not true. It´s just to hard to describe how amazing all these experiences were. That is also why I am adding many photo´s, because 1 photo tells more than a 1000 words.

We stayed here three days and most of the days we were all sick, but we still went outside for a few hours a day to see the place. I would have loved to go on a boat and sail over the red sea or visit Eilat, a city in Israel.

So if you ever go there, do these things for me!