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

Harry and Mac hire a car in Amman and drive three hours south to Petra, where they check in for two nights.

It opens with the admission that gives the video its point: they should have done this on day one, and have instead been taking taxis everywhere at considerable expense. It is the second half of an argument the Dead Sea video started two days earlier, and it promotes the habit to a page — rent a car instead of taxis. Twenty dinars a day, against 30 dinars for two hours of taxi at the Dead Sea.

Two mistakes get made inside the first hour, and both are useful: Harry photographs the car for scratches before setting off, and neither of them checks the fuel gauge, which was on empty.

The evening in Wadi Musa is the priciest of the trip — 78 dinars for dinner and drinks for two — and includes the detail that the only place selling beer in town is inside a museum.

Key moments

• [00:00] The premise: taxis everywhere have been expensive, so they’re renting. Online quotes about $30 a day.
• [00:30] Five days, and the counter price is 20 JOD a day.
• [01:00] A Nissan Sunny — and photographs and video taken of every scratch before they drive off.
• [01:31] Three hours to Petra, and his first time driving in the Middle East outside Dubai. He says it isn’t easy.
• [02:03] Cars running with hazard lights on, which neither of them can explain.
• [02:03] They pass a Jordanian wedding convoy with a man filming out of a window.
• [02:33] The tank was handed over empty and nobody checked. A fill-up costs 24 JOD, and he calls it their own fault.
• [03:38] Halfway; the hotel is booked in Wadi Musa for two nights, with Wadi Rum after.
• [04:08] The last stretch, in the dark, on full beam and low battery.
• [04:38] Arriving: quiet, hotels and restaurants, and a town whose main use is Petra tourism.
• [04:38] The reputation he arrives with — reviews saying this is the scammy, less hospitable corner of Jordan — and his intention to find out.
• [05:13] Asking the hotel where to go at night.
• [05:47] About £100 for two nights; a desk for Mac to work at, tea and coffee, a television, and a view of the road.
• [06:47] The recommended bar turns out to be inside a museum — which he notes is the only place in town selling beer.
• [07:19] Very minty tea.
• [07:49] A half-litre of Petra beer for about $10.
• [08:19] The local beers are sweet, closer to an ale, and they joke about a Petra brewery tour.
• [08:50] Chicken breast with peppercorn sauce, chips and vegetables; another dish with peanuts that reminds him of pad thai.
• [10:54] The bill: 78 JOD, roughly £85 or $100 — expensive, and he says to expect that here, and that it is as pricey as Jordan gets.

Extracted pages

• Jordan
• Petra
• Amman
• Mac
• Rent a car instead of taxis