From the Dead Sea to the most efficient way to see Petra in 2 Days

On this day we drove about 3 hours from the Dead Sea to Petra. On the way out of the Dead Sea region, you will see some beautiful scenery like these salt beaches.

In Petra, we stayed at the Movenpick Petra which is part of Accor. This is the best hotel to stay in Petra for the following reasons:

• clean and nice rooms
• ACROSS THE STREET from the entrance to Petra park. After an exhausting day exploring the ruins, you will be thankful that your hotel is just across the street!
• really good ice cream store inside the hotel

To get an idea of how close you will be to Petra, this was the view from our hotel room balcony, and you can see the entrance to the park in the distance.

Another thing I liked about the hotel is the gorgeous lobby:

…and equally nice bar:

https://videopress.com/v/IwkwEBWo?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

After check in, we went straight to Petra and spent the afternoon there. Here is what you need to know about Day 1 in Petra (really afternoon):

1.After entering the park, you will have a walk along a trail (I dont remember how long but I would guess 15-30 minutes) before reaching the Siq (this the “instagramable” part with the nice wavy walls, see #2 below). Along the way, there are some ruins you can see. Note that it will be HOT!

2. Once you enter the Siq, things will cool down a bit.

3. After walking the Siq for about 20 minutes, you will come to the Treasury, which is what Petra is famous for (but there is so much more to see).

It was surreal to see it live in person. Truly beautiful. There will be a lot of people in the front trying to sell you pics with a camel, take your pics etc. We hired a guy to take our pics and bring us to the elevated area to view Petra. In my opinion, it was highly worth it because he knows the angles and you will get pics like this.

Note that there is a lot of info online about how to get to the top view of Petra. A lot of it is unnecessarily complicated. It takes about 5 minutes, and the “hike” is not difficult. Just pay one of the guys to take your photos and show you the fastest way to the top. Coming all this way and then making things difficult for yourself to save a few $s never made sense to me. Pay the guide.

After getting our fill of the treasury, we continued to explore the trails and checked out the theater, and tombs.

After this, you will of seen about 40-50% of Petra. Total time about 3 hours. Tomorrow, we would come back to see the monastery and go on an amazing hike. I will teach you how to save time and do this efficiently in tomorrow’s post.

After Petra, we went back to the hotel and enjoyed some Mezze in the lobby.

For dinner, we ate at the rooftop restaurant of the hotel. Very nice setting. It was a fixed menu with mezze, kebabs and dessert.

Overall, the food, setting, and service were good, we ended up going back the next day too. Tomorrow, I will show you the best way to see the monastery through a back door route into Petra, and go on an amazing hike at the same time.