Petra rewards time, and a day trip from Amman gives you less of it than you would
like. That is the whole problem, and every sensible decision about this trip
follows from it.
The drive is roughly 225 km each way, about three hours on the Desert Highway
in each direction. Six hours of a day is therefore spoken for before you have
walked anywhere. What is left — five to seven hours depending on the operator —
is enough for the Siq, the Treasury, the Street of Facades, the theatre and the
Royal Tombs at a civilised pace. It is not enough for the Monastery, which sits
850 rock-cut steps above the valley floor and needs a deliberate early start
of its own.
The ticket is the bigger cost than you expect
Entry is 50 JOD — around $70 — for a one-day ticket, and that rate applies
only if you are spending at least one night in Jordan. Day visitors who arrive
and leave the country the same day pay 90 JOD. Almost no tour includes it by
default, though several let you add it at checkout, which saves queuing at the
gate. If Petra is one of several ticketed sites on your trip, price the
Jordan Pass instead — it
bundles Petra with 40-odd attractions and waives the tourist visa fee.
Private or group
The private options cost more per person for one or two travellers and less for
four, and they buy flexibility that matters here: your own pickup time, your own
pace inside the site, and an airport pickup if you are working around a flight.
The group departures are cheaper and leave from a fixed point at a fixed time —
they will not wait.
Should you add a guide?
Yes, if the history is why you came. A great deal of Petra is not self-evident:
the difference between a tomb and a temple, the water-management system that made
a city possible in a desert, why the facades are Hellenistic rather than
Nabataean in style. A licensed site guide is an add-on on most of these
bookings.
If you have a second day to spare, the two-day and three-day
itineraries add Wadi
Rum and the Dead Sea for less than the cost of doing each separately.
