Introduction to Jordan
I went to Jordan myself in may 2004 and it was an absolutely marvellous trip, probably one of the best trips I ever made. I made this trip as a tour leader for Joker Toerisme, a Belgian travel agent offering adventurous trips, so you will see that this report is a bit different from the other reports. I can give a description of what we did, but I will not give details on practicalities and local contacts (like in the other reports).
For me, it was my first trip as a tour leader, and I must admit that in the past, I was not a big fan of organised trips. Nevertheless, I think that the Joker trip in Jordan contradicts this. It was an extremely active trip, we had a marvellous group of people, and above all, a lot of the trips we did cannot be done by individual travellers, because you always need a local guide, and it would be too costly to do it with just 2 people. Indeed, Jordanian guides are not really cheap contrary to other countries like Morocco or plenty of Asian countries. Also, for many trips, you’ll need your own transport with driver for drop off and pick-up, and this is of course much cheaper in a group.
This is the trip we did:
1: Amman – walk in Wadi Yabis – Um Qais
2: Um Qais – Abila – Jerash – Mount Nebo – Madaba – Faqu’a
3: Wadi Mujib trekking
4: Kerak – Wadi ibn Hammad trekking
5: Dana – Rummana campsite
6-7: Walk Mansourah – Feinan – Al Foron
8-9-10: Little Petra – Petra
11-12: Wadi Rum
13: Aqaba
14: Amman
Travel guides
The best travelguide to Jordan is undoubtedly the Rough Guide. It has more then 400 pages of info (compared to a bit more then 200 for LP), and it is really very reliable and detailed. The main advantage compared to LP is that it has much more info on trekkings, as this part was written by Tony Howard, the man who wrote “Walking in Jordan”, the bible on trekking in Jordan.
For those of you speaking dutch, it is definitely worth considering becoming member of “Wegwijzer”. This is a non-commercial organisation based in Bruges, Belgium. They have an incredible amount of info coming from guidebooks, leaflets but also reports from members. Since 2001 you can now get a lot of these reports online!! Membership is only 25 Euro a year, and this includes a good magazine they publish every 2 months.
An interesting site, especially if you plan to tour the Middle East with your own car, is this one. The site has a lot of practical info on how to prepare your trip, insurance, visa etc… No practical info on sights though. It also has an impressive number of links.
