From the souks downtown Amman to the UNESCO heritage Petra and from drinking tea in the Dhana Nature reserve to sleeping in Bedouin tents in Wadi Rum: Jordan is full of surprises!

MY TOP 5 PLACES TO VISIT IN JORDAN

1. Amman The capital of Jordan is a must-see. When you’re downtown you feel the typical arab ambience and the locals will greet you ”welcome to Jordan” everywhere you go. Visit the souks (markets) and the Roman amphitheater. The King Abdullah I Mosque is very beautiful and opposite the street there is a church, which shows wonderfully how people from different religions live here together in harmony. When going further away from downtown towards Rainbow street, you’ll find yourself in a Parisian-like area with cute restaurants and terraces on every corner!
2. Wadi Rum A visit to this desert is something you will never forget! We  drove to the Wadi Rum village where we swapped the car for camels as a better way of transport and with our guide made our way to the bedouin camp. Such an amazing experience: we slept in tents, had a local made dinner and watched millions of stars from a mountain just above our camp. Truly breathtaking!
3. Petra UNESCO world heritage, and rightly so! To reach Petra you’ll walk through a canyon which reminds me a lot of Antelope Canyon in the USA. At the end of this magical corridor you reach the Treasury. From there, it’s quite a nice walk to reach the Monastery, but very very worthwhile. There are mules to help those who aren’t able to hike that much.
4. Dhana Nature Reserve We were told by a friend that we should get a guide if we wanted to hike in this nature reserve because there are no routes, paths or any guidelines on where to go! Our guide was amazing, he told us so much about the nature and let us smell various herbs. At some point, he looked over a widespread area and said: Do you see the cafe there? We’ll have some tea. There was nothing to see! He walked to a tree, sat down in the shade and opened his backpack. He took out a metal teapot, water and tea leaves. He walked a bit around to grab some wood and made a little fire to make the tea. After he added a huge amount of sugar, we all enjoyed a quiet little moment of relaxation before we continued the hike.
5. Wadi Mujib was on the top of my list, as it is a wet hike, similar to the one in Zion National Park (Utah), really, if you Google both places you’ll see the incredible similarities! Unfortunately due to too much rainfall it was not accessible in that period, but if you get the chance, I’ll be jealouse!

Extra tip! If you have time to go there (which we did not) north of Amman there is a town called Jerash where there are lots of remains from the Roman empire that are very well preserved!

And, lastly, dipping yourself into the Dead Sea is a whole experience on itself! We visited it from the West Bank side but it’s very well accessible from the Jordanian side as well, there are many resorts on the coast.