Qasr Kharana: a perfectly square Umayyad caravan-meeting-house in the eastern desert
Built before November 24, 710 CE — the inscription is dated to the day. A 35-metre square fortress with 60 rooms around a central courtyard…
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Qusayr Amra: the Umayyad bath house with the only fresco zodiac dome surviving from early Islam
Built between 723 and 743 CE in the Eastern Desert by an Umayyad caliph, Qusayr Amra has the most complete surviving early-Islamic frescoes…
Stargazing at Rummana Campground: the high-altitude alternative to Wadi Rum
1,250 metres above sea level on a Dana ridge, the RSCN-managed Rummana campground gives you Bortle-2 dark skies, cooler nights than Wadi Ru…
Mukawir (Machaerus): the Hasmonean fortress where Salome danced and John the Baptist died
On a 1,100-metre hilltop above the Dead Sea, Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus built a desert fortress in 90 BCE. Herod rebuilt it. Accordi…
Dana Biosphere village: a 500-year-old stone village inside the largest nature reserve in Jordan
On the rim of the Dana valley sits a stone village that has been continuously occupied for 500 years. Below it: 308 km² of nature reserve d…
Bethany Beyond the Jordan: UNESCO baptism site, Byzantine churches, and a river now a stream
Inscribed by UNESCO in 2015 as the eastern-bank baptism site of Jesus, Al-Maghtas now contains five excavated churches, hermit caves, and a…
Floating in the Dead Sea: the lowest point on Earth, the saltiest water, and the mud that does work
Four hundred and forty metres below sea level, 34% salinity, and the mud worth the dirt under your fingernails. How to do the Jordan-side r…
Shore snorkel at Tala Bay: the easiest way to see the Aqaba reef without a boat
If you don't dive, the same reef wall the divers descend is in 1–3 metres of water at the shoreline. Snorkel gear hire on the beach, no boa…
Aqaba Old Town: the souk, the Saraya cinema, and where to drink Bedouin coffee
Beyond the Aqaba beach hotels is a small but lived-in old town — a daily souk, the Mamluk-era fort on the corniche, and a handful of cafés …
The Cedar Pride wreck, Aqaba: a Lebanese cargo ship scuttled at 25 metres
A 74-metre cargo ship that caught fire in 1982, was towed to Aqaba, and scuttled in 1985 as an artificial reef. Now lies on its port side a…