Jordan

Harry took a spontaneous trip to Jordan — a country he knew little about — with his friend Mac, joined for the second half by Sofia, producing a vlog series of ten-plus videos across ten days in November 2021.

His verdict, given twice and unequivocally: Jordan is one of the best countries he has ever been to, and in the closing film he goes further — his favourite he has ever travelled to, with not one bad encounter with a local that he can recall. The two reasons he gives both times are the people and the landscapes.

Observations

From BRITISH TOURIST travels to AMMAN, JORDAN 🇯🇴

• Entry: the Jordan Pass includes the visa as well as site entry, so it is bought before flying. Harry puts it at around £100 and says on camera he is unsure of the figure (from video – unverified).
• Getting in from the airport: unlicensed taxis work the airport run. Harry ends up in one by accident and is swapped into a second car part-way to get past a police checkpoint; the driver explains he holds a booking document. Nothing came of it.
• Safety: his driver’s summary — Jordan is a safe country and the people are kind — is the first of many times he is told this, and it is what the rest of the cluster tests.
• Culture and people: his strongest first impression is how friendly people are, which he says on camera he is not exaggerating.
• Food: manakish with za’atar is the first thing he eats and the first thing he recommends. Turkish coffee is taken with sugar.
• Amman has a Roman theatre in the middle of the modern city, covered by the pass, with licensed guides offering tours at the gate.

From $20 Fake Jacket in AMMAN, JORDAN 🇯🇴

• What to pack: it gets genuinely cold in the evenings in Amman and colder in the desert. Neither Harry nor Mac brought a jacket and both had to buy one.
• Money and costs: a market jacket 20 JOD after being asked 25; a second 16 JOD; a restaurant lunch for two with sides and drinks about 32 JOD, roughly £32 (all from video – unverified). A guide at the Amman citadel was offered at 30 JOD.
• Markets: the souk is organised by trade, with whole quarters given to guns or to pets. Sellers withhold the price until the item is on you.
• Honesty: handed a 50 for a 16-dinar jacket after a mis-hearing, the seller returned the change unprompted.
• Food: a baked cheese-filled bread dish neither of them can name, rated 9 out of 10 against manakish.
• Culture: the call to prayer arrives from many mosques at once and echoes across the city — the thing Harry rates highest in the capital.

From $100 LUXURY Dead Sea Hotel🇯🇴

• Getting around: the Dead Sea shore has essentially no public transport, and Harry’s recommendation after paying for two taxis is to rent a car for anywhere outside the cities.
• Money and costs: a Dead Sea hotel room about 70 JOD a night for two; a restaurant meal for two about 20 JOD; two hours of taxi 30 JOD (all from video – unverified).
• Overcharging: a drinks seller asked 10 JOD for two Cokes and corrected the price as soon as it was questioned. Worth querying anything that sounds wrong.
• Domestic tourism: the Dead Sea is where Jordanian families holiday, which makes it feel different from Amman.
• Climate: about 10°C hotter at the Dead Sea than in Amman (from video – unverified), because of how far below sea level it is.
• Security: the border is visible across the water and patrolled — drones need care.

From Secret tour guide in JERASH, JORDAN🇯🇴

• Culture and people: the cluster’s clearest run of hospitality. At Jerash a stranger guides them round the ruins and refuses payment, offers to give them things, and takes photographs for nothing; Harry says he was not expecting anyone to give anything away free and that this is simply what people are like here.
• Sites: Jerash was the Roman capital of the region and one of its largest cities. Entry is covered by the Jordan Pass, as is much else — Harry restates the case for it, including the visa on arrival.
• Getting around: about half an hour from Amman, which he recommends as a day trip.
• Food: an Arabic spread — spicy rice, beans and rice, chicken, lamb kebab with sesame sauce, hummus, warm flatbread — found by asking their taxi driver where to eat. The Jordanian white sauce appears at every meal of the trip and nobody in any video names it. Restaurants may pause service at prayer time.
• Tourism: busy with visitors, which Harry notes as a change worth being glad about after two pandemic years of empty sites.

From We Rented a car and took a PETRA ROAD TRIP 🇯🇴

• Getting around, settled: rent a car. A hire car from Amman costs 20 JOD a day against about $30 quoted online, and Harry says outright they should have done it on day one instead of taking taxis everywhere (from video – unverified). See rent a car instead of taxis.
• Driving: not easy, on his account, even having driven in Dubai before. Many cars run with hazard lights on. Photograph the hire car for scratches and check the fuel gauge — theirs was handed over empty and the first fill-up cost 24 JOD.
• Distances: Amman to Petra is about three hours.
• Money and costs: Wadi Musa is the most expensive place Harry eats in the country — 78 JOD for dinner and drinks for two, roughly £85 — and he says to expect that there. A hotel for two nights about £100. Half a litre of local beer around $10 (all from video – unverified).
• Alcohol is hard to find in Wadi Musa; the bar they are sent to is inside a museum. Jordanian beers are sweet and ale-like.

From $200 Luxury Jordan Resort 🇯🇴

• Culture and people, qualified for the first time: Aqaba is the one place in the cluster where Harry says the locals felt different from the rest of Jordan — specifically that Sofia, travelling with them, was stared at persistently. Her own account is the bundle’s only first-hand one from a woman: hold your ground, dress appropriately, she would tell no woman to stay away, and the people they actually dealt with were kind. See cover up in conservative countries.
• Climate: the desert at Wadi Rum gets very cold at night — bring a coat. Aqaba, one to two hours away, is noticeably hot.
• Money and costs: a three-bedroom beachfront apartment in Aqaba about $200 a night, split three ways and sleeping four; dinner and drinks for the table about $28 (from video – unverified). Desert pods at Wadi Rum come with a jeep tour, dinner and breakfast included.
• Food: kanafeh — pastry with soft cheese and pistachio — is the dessert Harry rates highest in the country. Jordanian tea is served with sage, cinnamon and cardamom, and the leaves go in after the water.
• Tourism: Aqaba is the most Western-touristed place he sees in Jordan, and still cheaper to eat in than Wadi Musa.

From $180 Boat Scam in AQABA, JORDAN 🇯🇴

Harry’s verdict on the country, given at the end of this video: Jordan is one of the best countries he has ever been to, if not the best. His two reasons are the people — free food, tea and gifts given by people who don’t have much and who expect nothing back, which he says he does not see in the Western world — and the landscapes. Within the country, Amman is the city he rates and Aqaba his least favourite.

• Money and haggling: the one attempt on him in ten videos. An extra 20 JOD was requested at the end of a boat trip whose price had been agreed by phone; refusing on the spot settled it. Harry attributes it to not having paid upfront and does not generalise from it, saying the captain did nothing wrong and that a visitor wouldn’t normally meet this.
• Language: a handful of Arabic words reliably converts staring into friendliness. Harry states it as a sequence and it works every time he runs it.
• Women travellers: on a local beach in Aqaba, Sofia covers up, having been warned in advance that this is what to expect there.
• Daylight: in November the sun sets around 4–5 p.m.
• The Red Sea: good snorkelling rather than world-class, and sea urchins dense enough to be a genuine hazard.
• Food and drink: mint tea, za’atar with oil. About 18 JOD for a snack and drinks for a group at a marina restaurant (from video – unverified).

From Trying DELICIOUS Jordanian food🇯🇴

• Money and costs, stated as a general point: of the Middle Eastern countries, Jordan is one of the more expensive. Harry says so directly after a 13 JOD lunch — and immediately qualifies it: he was in an upmarket district and could have walked ten minutes for less. Everywhere has both.
• Amman is cheap to get around: an Uber into the centre about 2 JOD, roughly $2.50. An Airbnb about $28 per person per night (all from video – unverified).
• Safety: his strongest statement on it. Walking Amman he never feels in danger, even down dark streets, and he says that is not something he gets in many countries — while flagging that it might be his own ignorance.
• Infrastructure: good café wi-fi, a modern business district, international chains, and a Christmas tree going up in a mall in November.
• Food: the white sauce turns up again and he notes it is in everything. Bread arrives in quantity with every meal.
• Culture and people: approached at the market by a man with something to sell who recommends somewhere instead, Harry offers it as the country in miniature — friendly first, selling second, and the advice worth taking.

From The Best Haircut In JORDAN🇯🇴

• Climate: Jordan in winter is not as warm as visitors expect. Around 15°C and raining in Amman in late November, which locals confirm is cold for the region and that the rain is unusual.
• Religion: Friday is the holy day. Harry assumed shops would close and found them open.
• Money and costs: a full barbershop hour — cut, beard, straight-razor shave, face and nose waxing, head massage — 20 JOD, which he notes is the same as he pays in the UK (from video – unverified). Shops keep long hours, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Culture and people: the hospitality extends into ordinary commerce — jackets taken, tea and coffee served before anything begins. His comparison: in England they tell you to sit down and be quiet.

From DISCOVER JORDAN - Cinematic 4K Travel Film 🇯🇴

The closing film of the series, and where the verdict is set down in writing. Ten days in the country, and Harry says he was truly overwhelmed by it; that he would go as far as to say it is his favourite country he has ever travelled to; and that he cannot remember one bad encounter with a local. He credits the hospitality and the landscapes, and says he will remember the selflessness of Jordanians for the rest of his life.

Obs: the whole of that comes from the video’s written description — the film is music and visuals with no narration.

He lists the regions covered as Amman, Jerash, the Dead Sea, Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba, and says he will be back for the rest of the country. He and Mac fly to Pakistan the same day.

From Incredible PETRA tour by LOCAL BEDOUINS 🇯🇴

• Money and costs: the Jordan Pass covers Petra entry, which alone would cost around 40–50 for a day ticket (from video – unverified). A guided viewpoint climb in Petra was 15 JD for two; a buffet lunch 17 with drinks (from video – unverified).
• Culture and people: touts around Petra are persistent, but the Bedouins Harry met were extremely hospitable — offering tea and coffee and inviting him and Mac to stay the night in their camp; one woman gave Harry a small camel figure for free after he gave her change.
• Food: Jordanian buffet with dishes like makloubeh (rice with nuts, raisins, and chicken) and umm ali, a bread-pudding-like dessert Harry particularly liked.
• Base: Harry stayed in Wadi Musa, the town next to Petra.

From UK tourist travels to KARACHI, PAKISTAN 🇵🇰

Jordan seen on the way out, at the end of the trip.

• Safety and security: leaving from Amman, Harry’s read on why Jordan feels so safe is that the effort is visible — airport and pre-flight security were the most thorough he had met, to the point that he expected everywhere else to be looser by comparison. He leaves calling it one of his favourite countries and says he will be back.

Places

• Amman
• Dead Sea
• Jerash
• Wadi Rum
• Aqaba
• Petra