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Few countries like Jordan concentrate in a small space so many monumental and natural spaces of high value: Roman cities, deserts of a thousand faces, a sea that is not but wastes salt in its waters, mosaics that are works of art and historical maps at the same time … And you can see all this in just 8 days thanks to this travel proposal. In addition, the route does not reach the Red Sea, in the extreme south of the country, so do this Circuit through Jordan without flights is an ideal option: we will use a vehicle from our agency to travel by road the most famous and spectacular destinations in the country: Petra, Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea … Take note of the proposal and live a tourist experience that you will remember for a lifetime.
If what you were looking for was a circuit through Jordan without flights, this proposal may fit you. We call it that because, as you can see at the end, international flights in and out of the country are not included, so you can freely choose the airline, the dates of the trip and the airport from which to make the journey to/from Amman.
But what is more important: we can consider it a circuit through Jordan without flights because within the program there is no domestic flight, which in this country always makes the Amman-Aqaba route. Instead, the entire trip is done in one of our comfortable air-conditioned vehicles, thus taking advantage of road trips to make stops and discover the places of interest in our path.
In addition, the option of traveling by road connects with an identity element of the country: the caravan routes that crossed its geography for centuries and millennia, from Syria to Arabia and from Iraq to Egypt. These routes are today historic roads, such as the King’s Road or the Dead Sea Road, which we will travel on this circuit through Jordan without flights.
But the choice to organize a Jordan circuit without flights It is not only a matter of comfort and budget: with a private vehicle like those of our agency, we can integrate into the route tourist destinations of enormous interest, either from a cultural or natural point of view, with a touch of adventure that will please the most daring travelers.
To understand it, it is enough to cite iconic places of the program such as Petra, the Nabataean city carved into the rock. Or Jerash, a Roman city nicknamed the ‘Pompeii of Jordan’. Or even the spaces of religious devotion such as Mount Nebo and the Byzantine churches of Madaba. Without forgetting its medieval castles that take us back to the time of the Crusades.
And from a natural point of view, you can highlight places as fascinating as the desert of Wadi Rum, which dazzled T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). Or the Dead Sea, which can boast of being the lowest point on Earth (-400 masl). Or even the nature reserve of Ajloun, of Mediterranean fauna and flora, which will appear before our eyes on one of the excursions.
The itinerary proposed in this circuit lasts 8 days and 7 nights, starting and ending in Amman, capital of the country and great gateway to Jordan thanks to its international airport. Here you can consult the development of the program, day by day.
The first day of this circuit is the ‘landing’: our staff will be waiting for you at the Amman Queen Alia International Airport, where you will have to do the usual border procedures to enter the country. And outside the terminal, we will transfer you in a private vehicle with driver to the hotel, located in the capital, where you will not only spend the night but also have dinner (if you arrive before 21.00).
At the hotel in Amman you will have the first breakfast of this circuit. And there our staff will pick you up to start an excursion of the most fascinating: the Dead Sea, about 50 km away. To get here, the road descends sharply, until reaching -400 meters above sea level, since this large body of water is the lowest point on the planet.
But beyond this particularity, visiting this huge endorheic lake is worth it for another reason: to get in touch with its waters, which have such a high salinity level that they make their bathers float without difficulty. And that’s precisely what you can do during the morning, as the package includes tickets to the outdoor facilities at Amman Beach 2. That is why so many people come here and take a nice photograph reading the newspaper, also moved by its beneficial mineral composition for certain health problems.
After the bath, we will collect the belongings to return to Amman by road, with enough time to have the afternoon free. That way, you can organize the time according to your preferences: either to visit its iconic places, enter one of its interesting museums, buy local crafts in its traditional shops or perform any other leisure activity. At the end of the day, a new dinner and another night of rest at the hotel will await you.
On this third day of travel, we leave Amman and start one of the days with the longest distance. Being a Circuit through Jordan without flights, we will board a private vehicle of our agency with all the comforts to visit the places provided in the program.
After breakfast at the hotel, we will go to Madaba: known for its Christian past, still present to a large extent in its streets, in this city there is a church that hides a ‘treasure’: the church of St. George, where the Byzantine map-mosaic of the Holy Land is, the oldest representation of this sacred territory for the three monotheistic religions.
That Holy Land, also often called the Promised Land, is the one that Moses beheld with his eyes from nearby Mount Nebo. And there we will go next: at the top of this mountain there is a religious site commemorating that episode, as well as an interpretation space and a viewpoint that allows the traveler to see the same as the prophet. Among other things, the Dead Sea, Jericho and Jerusalem on clear days.
After both visits full of religiosity, our vehicle will head south, crossing the arid central lands of Jordan. On this journey, we will only make a brief stop at the castle of Shobak, which well deserves it for its evocative power: it was built in the twelfth century by the crusaders on the orders of Baldwin I, king of Jerusalem, and was baptized as Mont Real, but decades later it was taken by the Ayyubids of Saladin, in one more of their reconquering victories.
Knowing the ruins of this fortress of enormous importance is a good epilogue to the plan of this third day, which has its final point in Wadi Musa: in this town, annexed to Petra, the hotel where you will have dinner and sleep at night before the important visit of the next day will be located.
The fourth day is, for many, the ‘main course’ of this tour of Jordan: it is entirely dedicated to Petra, ancient capital of the Nabataean empire, later enlarged by the Romans and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. Therefore, as soon as breakfast is finished at the hotel, we will go to the Visitor Center to start the visit.
To do this, we will use a horse service at the entrance, which will allow us to speed up the displacements. After leaving behind the Tomb of the Obelisks, we will visit the spectacular Siq (rocky canyon), which leads to the well-known Treasury: a royal tomb (Aretas III, first century BC) with a façade of columns and pediment, popularized by Harrison Ford in
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and
that in the XXI century has not lost an iota of its charm.
But beyond the Treasury there are many other interesting spaces to discover, starting with the Calle de las Fachadas and continuing through its Theater and the urban center itself. Petra was known to the Nabataeans as Raqmu, and tourists today call it the Pink City, for the pinkish color of the rocky walls as it reflects the sun’s rays. And if the forces allow it, we will arrive at the Al Deir Monastery, of beauty comparable to the Treasury, which awaits those who complete a climb of hundreds of steps.
The entire visit is guided to optimize the time and to discover the most interesting details of this unique enclave. And after the visit, you will return to Wadi Musa’s hotel to have dinner and to enjoy a well-deserved rest.
Petra has a ‘younger sister’, Little Petra, named for her size, but not for lack of interest, because it is a place with great capacity to amaze. Therefore, the morning of the fifth day of the route will be used to visit it, after having breakfast at the hotel.
Little Petra, in the nearby town of Al Beida, was possibly a caravanserai or a settlement that served the Nabataean capital, perhaps as an agricultural, commercial or logistical center. The truth is that many of its structures, also excavated in the rock and articulated around canyons, are maintained today, for the enjoyment of tourists: houses, tombs, temples and other spaces yet to be deciphered, which the visitor can know in a quieter environment than in the ‘major’ Petra.
From Little Petra we will travel to another of the great Jordanian attractions: the Wadi Rum desert, which is also a World Heritage Site. His fame in the West came largely from T.E. Lawrence, a British writer and soldier who participated in the Arab Rebellion. But this magical natural space was known and populated by Zamudis, Nabataeans, Romans, Bedouins… as can be understood in the petroglyphs of its canyons. And to reach the most remote places of the reserve, we will get on board a 4×4 SUV.
At the end of the day, fatigue will be proof that the day has been squeezed to the maximum. But we will still have to conserve enough energy to keep our eyes and minds wide open: we will stay in comfortable Bedouin tents inside a camp in the middle of the desert, and above our heads will emerge a sky of bright stars, existing in very few places in the northern hemisphere. In this atmosphere of peace and quietness, dinner will be served, included in the half board of the camp.
The awakening of the sixth day will not be like that of the others: sleeping in a tent in the desert offers you the possibility of witnessing the sunrise in this nature reserve, which is a unique spectacle in the world. The lights that project the first rays of the sun on the rocky mountains and the tones of a thousand nuances that the sky acquires fill the beginning of the day with magic. And in this atmosphere you will have breakfast at the camp.
After that, we will return to our usual vehicle to travel back to Amman. In the capital you will have free time to plan the day according to your preferences. Therefore, it is the ideal time to shop, book a leisure activity or visit a museum. Regardless of the choice, you can have dinner at the hotel, booked in half board in the city center.
Although this is a circuit through Jordan without flights, the times and displacements are optimized to the maximum, as this penultimate day shows: the program is coming to an end, but important visits and surprises still await the traveler, in this case in the north of the country.
Before moving to that region, breakfast will be served at the hotel and we will make an urban tour of Amman to discover its most interesting corners, such as the Citadel, the Archaeological Museum and the Roman Theater, icon of ancient Philadelphia (name by which it was known in Antiquity).
After that, we will travel to Jerash, called by the Romans Gerasa: its interest lies in its extraordinary level of conservation, with important monuments still standing, such as Hadrian’s Arch, the Oval Square, two theaters, a Roman circus or hippodrome, temples and ornamental fountains … In addition, classical Roman urbanism, based on the Cardus and Decumanus axes, is very well appreciated.
Finally, there will be time to visit the nearby castle of Ajloun, a medieval fortress, closely related to that of Shobak but very different from it: it was built by Saladin’s troops in Crusader times (twelfth century) and rebuilt by the Mamluks after the assault of the Mongol invaders in the thirteenth century. In addition, the surrounding area has nothing to do: the views from the castle allow us to sink our eyes into the Ajloun nature reserve, the greenest area in Jordan.
Well into the afternoon, we will return to Amman and at the hotel you can enjoy the last dinner in the country, prior to the final night of this intense circuit through Jordan, without flights but with a long way behind us.
The eighth is the last day of this circuit through Jordan and we will dedicate it to organize the return home in a calm and orderly way. Breakfast will be served at the hotel and then, depending on the flight schedules, you will meet our driver for the transfer by private vehicle to the Amman Queen Alia International Airport. Already in the terminal we will offer the last assistance before boarding and we will say goodbye full of gratitude for the trust placed in Jordan Exclusive.
With the following services included in the package, the travel experience will be comfortable, safe and enriching:
On the contrary, there are a number of services that are not included in the package, on which the traveler can decide. However, our staff will provide assistance in this regard.
Fill out the form below to receive a free non-binding quote tailor-made by a specialized agency in Jordan.
DMC travel agency specializing in tailor-made trips to Jordan
Mandala Tours, S.L, NIF: B51037471
License: C.I.AN-187782-3
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