The Best Things to Do in Petra

You walk the Siq before you see anything. It is a natural fissure in the rock roughly 1.2km long and, in places, barely wide enough for two camels to pass, its walls rising 80 metres or more overhead. The floor is cool even at midday, and in winter the stone holds a chill through the morning that makes the walk genuinely pleasant rather than something to endure before the good part starts.

Then the gorge narrows, bends, and opens onto the Treasury's facade in a single frame that no photograph quite prepares you for. It was carved in the 1st century BC, most likely as a tomb for the Nabataean king Aretas IV, and the pink-gold sandstone changes tone through the morning as the sun climbs over the eastern cliffs. Arrive by 7:30 if the site is open and you want the square in front of it to yourself; by mid-morning it fills with tour groups and camel handlers offering rides for a few dinars.

Budget 20-30 minutes for the Siq walk itself, plus however long you can bear to sit across from the facade afterward. I'd argue that's the real Petra experience — not the walking past, but the sitting still.

The Monastery sits above the main valley floor, reached by a stepped trail of around 800 rough-hewn stairs that starts near the Basin restaurant area and climbs roughly 45-60 minutes depending on your pace and how often you stop for the Bedouin tea stalls along the way. Winter is the season to do this climb; in summer heat it's genuinely punishing, but at 15-18°C it's simply a good, steady walk.

The facade itself is close to 50 metres wide, larger than the Treasury, and far less crowded because most day-trippers never make the climb. There's a small kiosk near the top selling tea for a dinar or two and a viewpoint a short scramble further on that looks out over Wadi Araba toward the Dead Sea depression on a clear day.

Go in the afternoon if you can. The facade faces roughly west, and the light in the last two hours before the winter closing time gives the carved columns a depth that flattens out at midday.

A steep stepped path climbs from near the Street of Facades up to a flattened summit where two obelisks and a Nabataean altar remain, thought to have been used for ritual sacrifice. The ascent takes about 45 minutes and drops back down through Wadi Farasa past the Garden Tomb and the Roman Soldier's Tomb, so it works well as a loop rather than an out-and-back.

What makes this worth the sweat is the view: the whole basin of Petra laid out below, the Treasury and Royal Tombs reduced to pale rectangles in the rock. In winter's clearer, cooler air the visibility runs further than it does in the summer haze, and you'll likely have the summit to yourself outside the first hour after opening.

This ticketed evening event runs a few nights a week — typically Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, though it's worth confirming the current schedule locally since it shifts with the season — and walks small groups down the candlelit Siq to the Treasury for an hour of traditional music and mint tea under the stars. Tickets run around JOD 17 as of recent seasons and are sold separately from the daytime entrance fee.

It is not a substitute for seeing the Treasury by daylight, and the candles give you a softer, more atmospheric version of the same view rather than a new angle. Arrive by around 20:15 for the roughly 20:30 start; latecomers are turned away at the gate since the gorge is narrow and the walk-in is timed.

The Urn Tomb, Silk Tomb, Corinthian Tomb and Palace Tomb sit carved into the cliff face across the valley from the theatre, a short and mostly flat walk from the main path. The Silk Tomb in particular is worth lingering at — its sandstone shows natural bands of red, yellow and grey that look almost painted, a result of mineral deposits rather than any decoration.

Late afternoon, roughly the hour before the winter closing time, throws warm light directly onto these facades and turns the whole row gold. It's also when the crowds have mostly thinned toward the exit, leaving the terrace in front of the Urn Tomb — itself later used as a Byzantine church — almost empty.

About 15 minutes by car or taxi from the main Petra visitor centre, Little Petra is a compact, cool gorge lined with smaller Nabataean facades and dwellings, generally free to enter and rarely crowded even in high season. It's an easy half-day add-on and a good option if the main site's climbs have worn you out but you still want more Nabataean rock-cutting.

The highlight is a biclinium — a carved dining hall — with faded but visible painted ceiling decoration of vines and figures, one of the few painted interiors surviving anywhere in the Petra region. Bring a torch or your phone light; the chamber is dim even at midday.

Opened in 2019 near the main visitor centre, this modern museum holds artifacts recovered from the site itself — Nabataean pottery, coins, and carved architectural fragments too fragile to leave in the open air. It's a useful stop either before you set out, to give the ruins some grounding, or afterward, when your legs have had enough and you want the story behind what you just walked through.

Entry is typically included with the main Petra ticket, and the museum stays open on the same schedule as the archaeological park. Give it 30-45 minutes; it's compact enough not to feel like a chore.

Carved directly into the hillside opposite the Royal Tombs, the theatre shows the clear imprint of Roman-era remodelling after Petra was absorbed into the Roman province of Arabia in 106 AD, its tiered seating cut to hold several thousand spectators. It sits right on the main path, so there's no detour required — just a reason to slow down rather than walk past.

Just before it, the so-called Street of Facades lines the gorge walls with a dense run of Nabataean tomb entrances, close enough together that it's easy to lose an hour picking out the differences in each doorway's carved crownstep pattern.