---
type: Country
title: Jordan
description: Harry's observations from his Jordan vlog series — the Jordan Pass, Petra, Bedouin hospitality, and local food.
tags: [jordan, middle-east]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T12:00:00Z
---

# Jordan

Harry took a spontaneous trip to Jordan — a country he knew little about —
with his friend [Mac](/people/mac.md), joined for the second half by
[Sofia](/people/sofia.md), 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 🇯🇴](/videos/D9oolIwfonk.md)

- **Entry**: the [Jordan Pass](/tips/get-the-jordan-pass.md) **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](/places/amman.md)** 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 🇯🇴](/videos/RLXimUxNIVM.md)

- **What to pack**: it gets genuinely cold in the evenings in
  [Amman](/places/amman.md) 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🇯🇴](/videos/bKUDAYXlw-o.md)

- **Getting around**: the [Dead Sea](/places/dead-sea.md) 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🇯🇴](/videos/IYzfrPancvA.md)

- **Culture and people**: the cluster's clearest run of hospitality. At
  [Jerash](/places/jerash.md) 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](/places/amman.md), 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 🇯🇴](/videos/X01ujS2bxmk.md)

- **Getting around, settled**: **rent a car.** A hire car from
  [Amman](/places/amman.md) 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](/tips/rent-a-car-instead-of-taxis.md).
- **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](/places/petra.md) 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 🇯🇴](/videos/0hvHNO80GYM.md)

- **Culture and people, qualified for the first time**: [Aqaba](/places/aqaba.md)
  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](/tips/cover-up-in-conservative-countries.md).
- **Climate**: the desert at [Wadi Rum](/places/wadi-rum.md) 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 🇯🇴](/videos/bX-3z2aREZE.md)

**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](/places/amman.md) is the city he
rates and [Aqaba](/places/aqaba.md) 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🇯🇴](/videos/QTR00Vxmr6s.md)

- **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](/places/amman.md) 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🇯🇴](/videos/G0E8VdvRg4s.md)

- **Climate**: **Jordan in winter is not as warm as visitors expect.** Around
  15°C and raining in [Amman](/places/amman.md) 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 🇯🇴](/videos/-Ri2DOnbaoo.md)

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](/places/amman.md),
[Jerash](/places/jerash.md), the [Dead Sea](/places/dead-sea.md),
[Petra](/places/petra.md), [Wadi Rum](/places/wadi-rum.md) and
[Aqaba](/places/aqaba.md), and says he will be back for the rest of the country.
He and [Mac](/people/mac.md) fly to Pakistan the same day.

### From [Incredible PETRA tour by LOCAL BEDOUINS 🇯🇴](/videos/u67ibrN0Tnk.md)

- **Money and costs**: the [Jordan Pass](/tips/get-the-jordan-pass.md) covers
  [Petra](/places/petra.md) 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 🇵🇰](/videos/ux604oVHgZI.md)

*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](/places/amman.md)
- [Dead Sea](/places/dead-sea.md)
- [Jerash](/places/jerash.md)
- [Wadi Rum](/places/wadi-rum.md)
- [Aqaba](/places/aqaba.md)
- [Petra](/places/petra.md)