Traveling to JORDAN in 2025? You NEED to Watch This Video!

Hello my friends and fellow travelers. My name is Pierce, and this is my channel, Tales From The Road. Thanks so much for stopping by. Today, because you clicked on this video, we're going to talk about the beautiful pearl of the Middle East, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. I just spent nine days traveling from the north to the south of this country, meeting the people, eating the food, and learning so much while I was there. Now I'm ready to share everything you need to know before you go, to make sure that you have an awesome, memorable, and truly unique experience in this country that I truly fell in love with. If that sounds good, let's do it, yalla. So let's start with a country overview. Who are the Jordanians, what is this country, and where did it come from? Geographically speaking, Jordan is located in a region of the Middle East called the Levant. This is really the cradle of civilization, where the Fertile Crescent came from, and it's at the crossroads of the Middle East. To the west, we have Israel and Palestine, to the north, there's Syria, to the east, Iraq, and to the south, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This means that all these different peoples and cultures have been crossing through this area for thousands of years, which makes it a uniquely deep and rich country to explore. Historically speaking, everybody's been through Jordan, and the tale of Jordan is about as old as time. In religious texts, Jordan pops up as the Holy Land, as a place where Moses looked out and saw the bounty of what God put before people. Many empires have called Jordan home, including the Hellenistic Empire of Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, the Arab Caliphates of the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire, and the British Empire. Today's Jordan is a kingdom. A kingdom with a deep and rich Islamic tie, as their king, Abdullah II, claims lineage directly to the great-grandfather of the prophet Muhammad. While the kingdom does have deep Islamic ties, this doesn't change the fact that Jordan has thousand years of history, with great Roman ruins, with significant religious sites for both Jews and Christians and Islamic people alike. It's a beautiful country with so much to explore, and such a rich history to sink your teeth into. So, with that being said, let's get into some more practical details. Practical information number one is getting into the country. For many people around the world, Jordan requires a visa. That being said, normally it's just a visa on arrival, so you can get it at any major airport in Jordan. They have two major airports, one in Amman, one in Aqaba in the south. That being said, the best way to get into the country is to buy the Jordan Pass. The kingdom of Jordan has made it super easy to visit Jordan and to see the sites, and they've created a pass in which you can pay for the entrance visa, as well as all of the archaeological sites in the country, in one QR code. I would definitely recommend this because it saves you time on entrance, as well as a ton of money because each archaeological site in Jordan charges you money, whereas the pass, everything is free and you just pay one time. The Jordan Pass that I had was 70 Jordanian dinars, which is about $100 US, but that being said, the visa on arrival just by itself is 40 Jordanian dinars, or about $65 US, and the entrance to Petra is 50 Jordanian dinars, or about $60 US, as well. So, that means you can pay the Jordan Pass, which basically, for the same fee, you can see all of the archaeological sites and get your visa on arrival, or you can go without it, pay an exorbitant amount for the entrance visa, get ripped off at Petra, and then pay for everything as you go. The Jordan Pass is a really good idea, it's really smart by the Jordanians, and you should definitely use it. Link below in the description. Now that you're in Jordan, you're going to need some money. So, the Jordanians use a currency called the Jordanian dinar. There's a dinar for you, it's a very pretty thing. And the thing about the Jordanian dinar is that it's very strong, it's one of the strongest currencies in the entire world. It's tied directly to the United States dollar, so the exchange rate actually doesn't change, but it's actually quite unfavorable if you're coming from euros, pounds, or dollars. One Jordanian dinar is 1.4 US dollars. So while sometimes the prices seem a bit cheap, it does add up quickly. I would say on a personal note, Jordan is the most expensive, least expensive country that I've ever been to. The tourist trap restaurants and everything around the tourist zone is very expensive. You're going to be paying upwards of 15 to 20 dollars for lunch. Tours are quite expensive, tour guides are quite expensive, and everything in between can be kind of a ripoff. If you do it the local way, like if you shop at markets or you go to the store, Jordan is actually very cheap. You can find lunch for like 1 or 2 dinars. There's a famous kebab shop in Amman where you can get a kebab for 1 dollar. But you can also pay basically 20 dollars for the same kebab at a tourist place. Jordan is weird in that sense that I don't think I've been to a country that the discrepancy between tourist prices and local prices are so big. I would say you need to be diligent with where you spend your money and what you think is a good price because some of the prices are very bad and some of the prices are very good. You just have to do a little work to get the right price. Since Jordan is such a small country, the transportation in it is really not super complicated. If you're flying into Jordan, you're either going to fly to the north in Amman, the capital city, or you're going to fly to the south in Aqaba. Both are equally good places to start your trip as if you're trying to see the touristy things throughout the country, the majority of them are in between Aqaba and Amman. So both places are good places to start and many people end up going to both in a sort of round trip. Getting around the country is pretty easy. There's buses between every major city. There's a major bus company called JetBus, which can get you to every site. They also have online schedules that are easy to access so you can see when the buses leave and where they leave from. There's also many local buses that are cheaper options, but those are normally easier found if you're asking a local or someone in your local area because they don't post any schedules online. I took both JetBus and the local buses and they were solid ways of transportation. Getting around the cities, you can use Uber, especially in Amman, the capital. It's really nice. It's not that expensive and it's much better than taking a taxi off the street. Many people in Jordan rent a car, which I think is a good thing to do if you're comfortable driving in chaotic Middle Eastern traffic. If you're not, it's a bit of a risk, although the roads in Jordan weren't very complicated as the country's not so big and the majority of the traffic that you'll hit is just in Amman as the rest of the roads really just pass through the desert. So it depends on what kind of trip you're trying to do. So how about staying connected while you're in Jordan? What I would recommend is that in the airport, you can get a SIM card. That's what I did. I paid 10 Jordanian dinars for a SIM card from one of the local providers. That's just about $12, $13 US. I got 30 gigabytes for 10 days. It was a really good deal. It was really well connected. It even got me while I was in the desert, which I was quite surprised that it even functioned out there. And since it's quite a modern country with kind of one foot in the new world, one foot in the old world, I wasn't necessarily expecting it to be fantastic, but it definitely exceeded my expectations. So internet, not a problem, cheap and very prevalent. Hotels and hostels also had great internet, so if you need to work from Jordan, it's definitely possible. I didn't think it would be, but it was. So let's talk about Jordanian people and safety getting around the country. Jordanian people are fantastic. The first thing to know is that they come from a very Islamic Arabic background. While some people may be quite religious, other people may not be, but the civilization that you'll be visiting is very Islamic in nature. Many people pray, many people live an Islamic life, and you'll see many women wearing hijabs, many men wearing traditional clothing. That being said, the Jordanians are incredibly nice, incredibly friendly, and incredibly helpful. Everywhere I went, people were offering to help me for no money at all, were very happy to practice their English and just have a chat. And as I was there during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, sometimes I would walk by and people would even offer me food to break the fast at the end of the day, just for no reason other than just being friendly and open. I was very, very happy traveling in Jordan, and it was easily one of the safest countries that I've been to. Of course I'm speaking as a man, and so I can't exactly vouch how it is as a woman, but there was no homelessness, there was very little sketchy people, there was pretty much no situation where I ever felt I would be in danger or in a weird situation at all. Amman is very clean, it's an old school city, but in general the city center is very well policed and there's lots of people walking around. I didn't see any sketchy alleys, I didn't feel uncomfortable at any time. So with any place, it's important to be aware of what's going on around you, and when you're in tourist zones like Petra, maybe don't carry $500 cash with you just in case, but other than that, it's one of the safest and nicest countries that I've been to in a long time. That being said, discussing the culture a little bit, Jordan is an Islamic country and it is marginally conservative, so maybe it's best to wear longer clothes if you're a woman, and to respect people's sort of vibe in general. I always think it's good to look around at what people are wearing in the country and try to match that so that people don't stare at you or make you feel uncomfortable for any reason. For example, I went and visited one of the grand mosques in Amman, they asked me to actually wear a full robe because I was wearing shorts. So it's always good to pick up what other people are doing and I always try to not offend people where I'm traveling, I think that's what we should do, we should be good representatives when we travel to other countries. That being said, it is an Arabic-speaking country, so a lot of things are written in Arabic and they even write the numbers in Arabic, so sometimes the money, the coins can be quite confusing, so it's always good to ask how much things are. It's also a country where a lot of things aren't written, especially the price, so you just kind of have to go with what people tell you. I don't always like that because I feel like you're going to get ripped off, but my experience in Jordan was pretty fair, I feel like people charged fair prices, even if it may have been higher than what local people were charging. Some nice Arabic phrases you can say when you're in Jordan include assalamu alaykum, which is peace be upon you, or hello, which you can also say marhaba, that also totally works. Thank you in Arabic is shukran, very easy to say. I think if you hit just a little Arabic in Jordan, people get very excited and very friendly with you because there's a lot of tourists that come and don't necessarily try. The language goes a long way for making connections and kind of opening people up to the idea of you being a foreigner, and it's the best way to make a quick friend on the street. Food. Jordanian food is criminally good, and it is what I would consider typical Levantine food. So you find a lot of the same food in Palestine, in Israel, in Lebanon, in Syria. The center of the cuisine is dips. There are dip people. So when you're in Jordan, you have to go for nice plates of hummus, either with meat or without meat. You could get mutabal or baba ghanoush, which are eggplant dips, as well as the various other offerings that they have available at each individual restaurant. They have a lot of salad options to go with that as well. It's like really fresh, really nice and really communal as everybody's picking at little plates together. For major dishes, they're definitely a rice people. The dish that I think I enjoyed the most was something called mansaf, which was a chicken or lamb dish served over yellow rice with a yogurt sauce on the side. I think the highlight of Jordanian food for me was the desserts. They were really going crazy for desserts, and I think during Ramadan, it's like extra serious with desserts. If you have time and you do find a dessert shop in Jordan, you cannot miss knafeh, which is what we call an Arabic style cheesecake. It has nothing to do with the American style of cheesecake, but this is a melty cheese on the bottom with a kind of nice, sometimes phyllo dough top covered in simple syrup. Think of baklava, but with cheese. Super delicious, super addicting, and probably one of the best desserts out there. When you are eating food in Jordan, you can always say bsaha, which means cheers or eat well or something like that, and people get super stoked when you say that as well. Because people don't really drink alcohol in Jordan, you'll find many juice stands that specialize in fresh pressed juice. For just a couple dinars or like $2.50, you can get a melange of different juices and different beautiful fruits, and I think that's like a really nice experience getting something local as opposed to finding something foreign. To end the video, I'm going to give you my top five places you should visit in Jordan or the top five things that you should do on your trip. Recommended and done by me. Number one is you have to go to Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is also known as the Moon Valley. It's a Bedouin area where you can go visit the desert, get that sort of desert feel. You can wear a kufi like this to protect yourself from the sand over your face, and it's a really good experience to get away from the city, go somewhere quiet, go somewhere very ancient, and just enjoy being out in nature. It's a very specific situation because you actually stay in a desert tent little community, and they'll take you throughout the desert on sort of like 4x4 pickup trucks with a tour group typically. It's a really nice place to get in touch with Jordanian culture, with Bedouin culture, and it's really beautiful. Camels and the like. My second recommendation would be visiting the Dead Sea in Wadi Mujib. It's on the west side of Jordan near the Israeli border. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth and has a very high salt level. Many people have heard of this place. You can get it from the Israeli side, you can get it from the Jordanian side, it really just depends on you, but it's a very unique place to go relax, enjoy the sort of specific vibe that it offers, and also maybe get a mud mask because the mud of the Dead Sea is very famous for replenishing nutrients in your skin. Wadi Mujib, which is right next to it, is a beautiful canyon that you can walk through, really good hiking. You can see the red rock canyons that are very endemic of Jordanian landscapes, and it's a place unlike any other that I've seen in this part of the world. The third thing you can do in Jordan is get in touch with real Jordanian culture in Amman, the capital city. It's a very unique city with a really, really long history. It even used to be called Philadelphia in the past during the Roman times, where you'll find a really big Roman coliseum right in the center. It's the living embodiment of Jordanian culture, it's a great place to try some of the best restaurants in the country, and it's a good place to experience a night out along many of its busy boulevards and avenues. Number four would be going to Jerash, which is the home to one of the best and most well preserved ancient Roman cities that I've personally ever seen. I've been to over 70 countries, many of which were in the Roman Empire, and of all the places around the world that I've seen Roman ruins, this might have been number one. The most amazing thing is this really old, long street that really, like, stayed together, and it's cool to see Roman ruins that still are, like, intact. And it's a really interesting little city if you go into the city itself. It's a really good place to see traditional Jordanian life with markets, butchers, meat shops, hummus makers, and all of that jazz. I really liked Jerash, and it's someplace I would very much like to go to another time. Number five, you didn't think I was going to leave out Petra, did you? Petra is a wonder of the world, and after visiting it, it definitely is a wonder of the world. It's so special, so unique, so mysterious, so ancient, and it's definitely worth visiting. Out of all the wonders of the world that I've been to at this point, this would be my fifth one. Petra, I think, might be my favorite because what they built there is so specific. They really carved these beautiful monuments, monasteries, and the treasury into the rock face, and it's so impressive what they did. Petra is much more than just the picture that you often see online. It's a massive place where you need maybe one or two days and 20 to 30 miles of walking to really explore and to do right. It's a beautiful day out in the desert. It's a beautiful place to get in touch with Jordan's past, as well as Jordan's present, where this has become the centerfold of Jordanian tourism and the thing that they are maybe the most proud of in their country. It's so amazing. I can't really even explain it. Just go to Petra. Get the ticket, and if you do get the Jordan pass, get the two-day pass because you definitely want enough time in Petra without overdoing it in one day, and if you only have three hours, it's kind of sad because you're missing so much depth and such an amazing place in the world. So that being said, thank you guys for watching. I really hope you have an amazing time in Jordan. I know I did. It's a country that I definitely want to go back to, and I don't always say that after every country that I've been to. I love the food. I love the ancient history. I love the kufi, and I just love the people. It's the nicest people in the world, and they are so happy to have you. So thank you guys for watching again. If you have any questions, please link in the comments below. I'm happy to answer them, and I wish you happy and prosperous travels in the Pearl of the Middle East. As-salamu alaykum. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.