---
type: Tip
title: Rent a car instead of taxis
description: Once a trip involves more than a couple of journeys outside a city, Harry's arithmetic favours hiring a car — and in Jordan he says outright he should have done it on day one.
tags: [transport, driving, budget, planning, jordan]
timestamp: 2026-08-07T16:00:00Z
---

# Rent a car instead of taxis

Harry's default is taxis, and [Jordan](/countries/jordan.md) is where he stops
and does the sum. **Two consecutive videos make the case, the second of them
retrospectively.**

The argument is not that taxis are dear per journey — it's that outside cities
they price *per journey*, and the places worth going to are strung out. A hire
car turns a fixed set of expensive point-to-point trips into an unlimited number
of cheap ones, and buys the ability to stop.

## How Harry applies it

**At the [Dead Sea](/places/dead-sea.md), stated as a mistake already made.**
The shore has essentially no public transport at all. They arrive by taxi, and
then find that reaching the salt flats at the southern end means booking a second
taxi for **two hours at 30 JOD**. His recommendation, delivered on camera and
unprompted: rent a car, because it is far better value and lets you go wherever
you want.

**On the road to [Petra](/places/petra.md), two days later, acted on.** The
opening line of that video is that they should have done this at the start,
because they have been taking taxis everywhere and it has been very expensive. A
car from [Amman](/places/amman.md) costs **20 JOD a day** — against about $30 a
day quoted online — and they take it for five days.

**The numbers are what make it obvious.** One two-hour taxi ride cost 30 JOD. A
whole day of car costs 20.

## The two things that go wrong, both avoidable

Both happen inside the first hour and both are recorded because they are the
practical content of the tip:

- **Photograph and video the car for existing scratches before driving off.**
  Harry does this immediately and says so, which is the version to copy.
- **Check the fuel gauge before you leave.** They don't, it was handed over
  empty, and the first stop of a three-hour drive is a **24 JOD** fill-up. He is
  clear it's their own fault and shrugs it off as the sort of mistake you make
  when everything is happening at once.

## And it isn't free of friction

He is honest that driving in the region is not like driving at home — he has done
it in Dubai before and still calls it not easy, and notes conventions he can't
read, like the number of cars running with hazard lights on. The tip is about
cost and freedom, not about it being restful.

## Demonstrated in

- [$100 LUXURY Dead Sea Hotel🇯🇴](/videos/bKUDAYXlw-o.md) — the case made from
  the wrong side of it, after paying 30 JOD for two hours of taxi on a shore with
  no public transport.
- [We Rented a car and took a PETRA ROAD TRIP 🇯🇴](/videos/X01ujS2bxmk.md) — the
  car taken at 20 JOD a day, the scratch check, and the empty tank.

## Related

- [Ask someone who drives for a living](/tips/ask-someone-who-drives-for-a-living.md)
- [Ride out past the tourist strip](/tips/ride-out-past-the-tourist-strip.md) —
  what having your own vehicle is actually for.