How to Visit Petra: A Traveler’s Guide to the Ancient Lost City

The lost city of Petra Jordan is one of the best places to visit in the Middle East. It’s relatively safe and affordable, and there are some amazing things to see.

Petra is an incredible ancient city carved into the rocks in southern Jordan, and the ruins can be explored by walking on foot or riding a camel. You could easily spend one or two days here at least.

It’s a bucket list item for sure, and this travel blog will explain how you can visit Petra yourself, with or without a tour, and with a modest budget and minimal planning. Read on!

What Is Petra? What Is The History?

Petra is a lost archaeological city in Jordan where ancient buildings were carved into the rock walls as early as 400 BC.

The most iconic thing at Petra is the Treasury (pictured above), which is known in Arabic as Al-Khazneh. This view is famous because of all the cool photos that appear on Instagram.

But what most people don’t realize is that the Treasury is just one of the buildings. Petra was an actual city, and at one time, it’s thought that almost 20,000 people lived at this hidden city in the rock!

Petra, Jordan was abandoned in the early centuries AD, and became unknown to the world until it was rediscovered by a Swiss explorer in 1812:

Epic, huh? That’s why the monuments at Petra have been featured in Indiana Jones and other adventure movies.

Day Tours To Petra Jordan

First of all, if you’re on a tight schedule and want to skip the extra steps involved in arranging your own trip to Petra, or if you’d rather travel with a vetted tour company, there are options for doing that.

There are a number of companies that offer prearranged day tours to Petra Jordan, with pickup and drop-off at the Amman airport included. They also have a 3-day Petra tour that includes Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea, and more.

If you’d rather make your own arrangements and do everything yourself (which is ultimately a bit cheaper), then I’ll cover that next.

Where Is Petra?

Petra is located in southern Jordan, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of the capital city of Amman.

It’s carved into the rocky walls of a desert canyon just outside the nearest town of Wadi Musa.

How To Get To Petra Jordan

There is no airport at Petra, so international flights to Jordan will generally go to Queen Alia International Airport (AMM) in Amman city. You can shop for flights to Amman at Skyscanner.

The drive from Amman to Petra takes about 3-4 hours, and you can make the journey by car (more convenient) or bus (more affordable). I’ll explain these transport options in more detail below.

It’s also possible to visit Petra overland from Israel, and there are 1-3 day tours starting from Tel Aviv.

• Private Taxi

If you have a hotel booked at Petra, you can ask the hotel to send a driver to pick you up at the Amman airport and bring you there. My Petra hotel arranged this for me for the fairly typical price of 75 JD ($105 USD).

You can also find a taxi driver at the Amman airport to take you to Petra, but the prices will be similar.

Expensive, isn’t it? But this is the quickest and easiest option for getting to/from the lost city of Petra.

• JETT Bus

If you take the JETT bus, it’s 11 JD ($15 USD) for a one way ticket or 22 JD ($30 USD) for a round trip ticket. You can book the trip with them on their website.

Here is the bus schedule on the JETT website. You will also need a taxi driver to take you from the airport to the JETT office in Amman where the bus leaves from. Taxis are expensive in Jordan, so sadly this part may cost upwards of 20 JD ($28 USD).

I only took the JETT bus one way, when I went back to Amman from Petra. The bus was pretty comfy and really not hard to use at all.

Next time I visit Petra, I think I’ll take the JETT bus both ways.

• Rental Car

Another option is to rent a car and drive yourself.

The roads and driving in Jordan are pretty tame compared to other countries in the Middle East, so this is a decent option to consider. Car rental prices are reasonable.

I haven’t driven a car in Jordan yet, but maybe I can cover that in a future Petra travel blog post.