Petra and Wadi Rum Tours — Walk Into a Rock-Cut City, Then Sleep in the Desert

When to go, and how long the days really are

March to May and September to November are the windows worth planning around: highs of 18 to 29 °C, good light, desert nights cold rather than freezing. They are also the busiest months. June to August pushes past 37 °C at Petra with almost no shade, which makes a 10 km walking day a different proposition. Winter brings the opposite problem: nights near freezing in Wadi Rum, and heavy rain that can turn the Siq into a flood channel — a real risk with serious incidents on record in 1963, 2018 and 2022. If your dates fall in the cold, book a camp with heating and check the forecast rather than assuming.

Petra opens around 06:00 and closes near 18:00 in summer, 16:00 in winter. On a two-day tour you arrive mid-morning; to walk the Siq before the coaches you need to have slept in Wadi Musa — the case for the three-day itinerary.

Tickets, the Jordan Pass, and the arithmetic that decides it

Petra costs 50 JOD for one day, 55 for two and 60 for three, provided you have spent at least one night in Jordan. If you have not — if you cross the border and visit the same day — the ticket is 90 JOD, though you can reclaim 40 JOD after staying a night. The Jordan Pass folds Petra together with more than 40 other sites, including the 5 JOD Wadi Rum protected-area fee, and waives the 40 JOD tourist visa if you stay three nights or more. Its cheapest tier is 70 JOD against 90 JOD for a visa plus a single Petra day bought separately, so for almost anyone on a three-night trip it pays for itself before you have done anything else. What it does not cover: Petra by Night, which is a separate 30 JOD ticket, and every Wadi Rum activity — jeep tours, camel rides, camps and meals are all outside it. The full breakdown is on our Jordan Pass and Petra tickets guide.

What the tour price leaves out

This is the single biggest gap between what a Petra and Wadi Rum tour advertises and what the trip costs. Across the combined tours we checked on GetYourGuide, the common pattern is that transport, the jeep tour and the camp night are included, while the entrance fees are not: listings say plainly that Petra at roughly $70 and Wadi Rum at roughly $10 are payable on site. A minority of operators sell an all-inclusive option that folds them in, and a few note that Jordan Pass holders are exempt. Budget around $80 per person on top of the headline price unless the option you have selected says otherwise, and carry cash — camps, tips and small vendors are not card operations. Lunches, drinks beyond what the camp serves, and the Dead Sea resort day-pass on the two-day itineraries are also usually extra.

Two suitability limits worth checking before you book: the featured two-day tour lists children under 12, pregnant travellers, people with mobility impairments and travellers over 80 as unsuitable, and Petra beyond the Treasury is rough, sandy and heavily stepped. An electric shuttle now runs part of the main route, which is also the answer to the animal rides — walk where you can, and skip the donkeys on the Monastery stairs.

Two days or three, and how hard the walking is

Two days works and is what most people book; three days is what we would book ourselves. The difference is pressure, not sights: on two days Petra gets one visit, and the Monastery — roughly 800 steps, 40 to 60 minutes each way, on top of the 2 km to the Treasury and the 10 km a full day passes — becomes a decision you make at 14:00 on tired legs. Only about 15 to 20 per cent of Petra has been excavated, so seeing it all is not on the table at any length. Our two-day versus three-day comparison lays both out hour by hour, and the camp comparison covers the choice the second night turns on.