The sandstone façade of Al-Khazneh, the Treasury at Petra, carved into a rose-coloured cliff with columns and sculpted figures.

Petra

Country JordanRegion Ma’an Governorate, southern Jordan — Wadi Musa (Wadi Mousa)Gateway Wadi Musa (town at the entrance); Amman (AMM) or Aqaba (AQJ) beyond

Al-Khazneh (the Treasury), Petra.Photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg · CC BY 4.0 · Source (Wikimedia Commons)Resized to 480/960/1600 px wide and converted to WebP.

New Seven Wonders of the World

Petra was the capital of the Nabataeans, an Arab trading people who grew rich by controlling caravan routes for incense, spices and other goods across the desert. From roughly the third century BCE they turned a sandstone basin into a city, carving tombs and temples directly into the rock and engineering dams, channels and cisterns that made a desert settlement possible. The entrance is a drama in itself: the Siq, a winding gorge of more than a kilometre, narrows until the sky is a strip of blue before the pink façade of Al-Khazneh, the so-called Treasury, appears. Despite the name, it was almost certainly a royal tomb or monument, with Hellenistic columns and sculpture cut into the cliff. Beyond lie the Street of Façades, a Roman-style colonnaded street, theatre, Royal Tombs and the Monastery, Ad-Deir, reached by a long stair climb. Rome annexed the Nabataean kingdom in 106 CE; earthquakes and shifting trade routes later reduced the city, and it was largely unknown to Europeans until the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt visited in 1812. Petra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a living landscape, with local Bedouin communities still guiding, selling and farming nearby. Plan for long walks on uneven ground, strong sun and big distances; the experience rewards an early start and at least one full day.

How to visit

Surviving archaeological city. Rock-cut monuments survive; most freestanding buildings are ruins.

Gateway
Wadi Musa (town at the entrance); Amman (AMM) or Aqaba (AQJ) beyond. About 3 hours by road from Amman and about 2 hours from Aqaba.
Getting there
From Amman, the Desert Highway is the quickest road route and a daily scheduled bus runs from the capital. From Aqaba there is also a scheduled service. Wadi Musa has hotels within walking or short-taxi distance of the visitor centre.
Access and booking
Entry is through the Petra Visitor Centre. Visitors need a Petra entry ticket or a Jordan Pass that includes Petra. Petra by Night is a separate evening ticket.
Season and conditions
March–May and September–November are most comfortable. Summer midday is very hot; winter can bring cold and, rarely, flash-flood closures of the Siq.
Guides, permits and reservations
No special permit for ordinary visits beyond the ticket. Climbs to high viewpoints and Ad-Deir are on foot or by animal, and guides are optional.
Accessibility and physical demands
The walk to the Treasury is on a gently sloping, uneven path of around 1.2 km each way; the Monastery climb is long and steep. Carriages and animals operate on some stretches. Detailed accessibility facilities are pending verification.
What you can realistically visit today
You can walk the Siq, see the Treasury, Royal Tombs, colonnaded street and theatre, and climb to the Monastery and high viewpoints. Visiting the whole site takes more than a day.

Checked against official sources

  • The official VisitPetra page lists Petra by Night evenings and requires a daytime Petra ticket or Jordan Pass first; the Jordan Tourism Board notes that the Jordan Pass does not cover Petra by Night. — VisitPetra / Jordan Tourism Board

Reviewed 2026-10-23. Official details change; confirm on the official page before you travel.

Pending verification

SATRAM has not verified the following; please check an official source:

  • Current ticket and Petra by Night prices and nights (official pages disagreed on schedule and price when reviewed).
  • Visitor Centre opening hours.
  • Current accessibility provision.

Official and useful links

Sources

Description and visit notes were written by SATRAM from these references. “Opened” means a page was read during the review; “cited” means it is listed as a standard reference and its address has not been machine-checked. Last reviewed .

  1. New7Wonders of the World — official wonders page — New7Wonders Foundation · opened
  2. Petra — UNESCO World Heritage List — UNESCO World Heritage Centre · cited
  3. Petra By Night — VisitPetra — Petra Development & Tourism Region Authority · opened
  4. Petra — Jordan Tourism Board guides — Jordan Tourism Board · opened
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