8-Day Jordan Highlights Tour with Petra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea

• Meet your tour guide and transfer to Aqaba. Get assistance with check-in, then enjoy dinner and an overnight stay at a hotel in Aqaba.

• After breakfast, spend some free time enjoying Aqaba and the hotel facilities.
• In the afternoon, continue to the magnificent desert of Wadi Rum, northeast of Aqaba. Wadi Rum is the route T.E. Lawrence and Sherif Hussein took in World War I while fighting the Ottoman armies.
• Check in at the camp, then go for a 2-hour 4x4 jeep tour that will take you around the mesmerizing landscape, where you will drink a glass of tea in a Bedouin tent and meet the locals.
• Head back to the camp for dinner, enjoy a desert DJ party, and stay overnight in Wadi Rum.

• After breakfast, head to Petra and visit the Nabataean city of Petra, one of the settings of "Indiana Jones". Petra, one of the seven wonders of the world, was excavated in pink rock more than 2,000 years ago.
• Access the entrance of the gorge, known as the Siq.
• From there, continue to reach the impressive monumental complex of the Treasury (El Khazneh).
• Visit the theatre, the royal tombs, the Byzantine church, and the Street of Columns.
• Return to the hotel.

Dinner and overnight at the hotel.

• After breakfast, leave the hotel and travel on the road to Amman, the Jordanian capital.
• Start the day with a visit to the Eastern Desert Castles. This is the harshest and least populated part of the country. They were built or restored in the seventh and eighth centuries by the Umayyad caliphs.
• The first stop will be at Qasr Azraq, 96 km east of Amman. From Azraq, take the Amman-Baghdad highway 32 km towards Amman to reach the most famous of the desert castles, Qasr Amra, built as a pleasure and sporting lodge by the Umayyads. Its fame lies in its still colourful, though time-scarred, frescoes covering its walls and vaulted ceilings.
• Later, drive back to Amman to visit downtown, the Roman Theatre, and the Citadel, then continue to the hotel in Amman for dinner and an overnight stay.

• After breakfast, drive north, approximately 45 km (1 hour) from Amman, to Jerash. Visit its paved and colonnaded streets, soaring hilltop temples, handsome theatres, spacious public squares and plazas, baths, fountains, and city walls pierced by towers and gates, finishing at the Roman theatre with its wonderful acoustics.
• Proceed to Ajloun for a visit to Ajloun Castle, which was built in 1184 by Izz al-Din Usama, a general in the army of Saladin, to control the traffic along the road connecting Damascus and Egypt. The fortress marks the furthest limit of Frankish incursions during the Crusades, and later the Mamluks added a prominent tower to the castle. It was captured by the Mongols in 1260 and was partially destroyed in the process.
• In the afternoon, drive back to Amman for a panoramic city tour through the old and new parts of Amman, with no site visits, then return to the hotel in Amman for dinner and an overnight stay.

• After breakfast, check out early from your Amman hotel and drive approximately 20 minutes south of Amman on the King's Highway, directly to Madaba to visit the famous Greek-Orthodox Church of St George and the map of the Holy Land, with its large and easily recognized depiction of Jerusalem.
• Then transfer to Mount Nebo, which lies 10 minutes away and is the site where Moses overlooked the Promised Land. A magnificent panorama of Palestine lies before you, and you can see the springs where Moses struck the ground to bring forth water. Many believe this church was built over the burial site of Moses.
• Afterwards, proceed to the Dead Sea, the first natural spa and the lowest place on earth. Upon arrival, enjoy free time to use the hotel facilities, including the beach and pool, followed by dinner and an overnight stay at the Dead Sea.

• After breakfast, take about a 15-minute drive from your hotel to arrive at Bethany and beyond the baptism site. The visit lasts about 90 minutes. Bethany is located at or around the natural hill at Tell El Kharrar, where John the Baptist lived, preached, and baptized. The village of Bethany beyond the Jordan was explicitly mentioned in the Bible, in John 1:28, "Bethany beyond the Jordan where John was baptized," while John 10:40 mentions an incident when Jesus escaped from hostile Pharisees in Jerusalem and "went away again across the Jordan to the place where John at first was baptizing."
• Then depart along the Royal Road to the fortress of Kerak, built between 1110 and 1213 AD by the Templars during the Crusades, which Saladin later took.
• Later, drive to Aqaba. Dinner and overnight at a hotel in Aqaba.

• After breakfast, get dropped off at the airport to conclude your trip.