Tour Guide, Amman, Jordan
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1. It's safe and the people are lovely, welcoming, hospitable and generous.
Jordan is kind of like the Switzerland of the Middle East so while they are surrounded by conflict, this little kingdom has managed to stay out it. The death in 1999 of King Hussein, who ruled for 46 years, left the country struggling for it's survival - economic, social and in it's pursuit of peace. The King's son, Abullah II, continues to fight the good fight to maintain not just peace but economic stability. Most of that economic stability comes from tourism but their tourism industry has suffered greatly since the Gulf War. Look, the last terrorist activity (and one of the only ones) was in 2005 so, in that regard, it's actually got a better record than Canada at this point. I'm just saying.
With true world wonders like Petra, The Dead Sea and the Wadi Rum not to mention lesser know archeological sites like the Roman ruins of Jerash, the Citadel, endless important religious sites like Mount Nebo and a host of desert castles, this place should be crawling with tourists and those tourists should be there with their kids. If you like a bit of city action,Amman is where you want to be - you can go to the new part of town and stay in a high end hotel and shop in the modern malls or you can roll in the older, downtown area to soak up the middle eastern flavours, sights and sounds, shop at the souk and buy a couple of pashminas. We skipped the new part altogether because, frankly, I don't travel half way around the world to shop and H&M and eat sushi but to each his own.
I was told by many a tour guide that where there used to be so many visitors to Petra that Unesco was considering putting limits on how many people could enter the site daily but now, that number has dropped tenfold. Sure, it made it nice for us to not have to contend with huge crowds but it's not great for Jordan
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https://theyumyumfactor.blogspot.com/2014/12/ten-things-you-dont-know-about-jordan.html