Things To Know For Visiting Petra At Night And Little Petra In Jordan - Hand Luggage Only

After our day travelling down to the Dead Sea in Jordan and visiting some of it’s most incredible historical sights along the way, we made it back to Petra just as the sun set.

This was perfect timing as on this evening, we had already booked tickets to go to the ancient lost city of Petra to see it all lit up at night.

There would also be a musical performance there so it was all due to not just look great but also sound great.

Now it is important to note that this doesn’t happen everyday so you need to plan in advance if this is something you want to do while you’re at Petra.

Booking tickets well in advance is also highly recommended so that you can guarantee your entry.

Now I know I covered it already in my first post when we visited Petra during the day but I have to remind you again, the walk from the entry gates at Petra to the Treasury – which is where the whole performance would be, is actually quite long.

During the day, you could use horses and carriages to get around (we didn’t; we just walked the whole thing because the walk there is also pretty impressive) but at night, you won’t have the option for horses and carriages if you don’t fancy walking.

Also, it’s not particularly well-lit – it’s got lanterns on the floors, which, although they look amazing, don’t provide enough lighting for navigating the uneven terrain properly.

Our advice if you’re not the steadiest on your feet would be to just take the walk slowly and carefully and wear sturdy walking shoes.

We did none of these by the way because we just really wanted to be one of the first to arrive there and see if (and also photograph it) before everyone else flooded in.

With that in mind, we arrived at the gates 30 minutes early, just to find a ginormous queue already waiting ahead of us.

We then did the next best thing which was to powerwalk the entire thing and honestly, at some points, I felt almost certain I was gonna just go tumbling.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen, and although it seemed almost impossible at the start, we somehow managed to be one of the first people to arrive at the Treasury, ergo, why these photos exist.😄😄

Now with regards to the performance itself, I had read that in advance that some people didn’t like it (I think it had mixed reviews overall) but honestly, I think it was fantastic.

I guess that’s the thing about not showing up with wild expectations and instead just letting the thing be what it is.

The whole place looked absolutely amazing.

The performers sang and played their instruments.

It was all exactly what they said it was supposed to be.

The next day, we decided to have a bit of lie in and start our day a little later.

The last couple of days had like 5:30am/6am starts so starting our day at 9am felt like a much welcome treat.

We would be visiting Petra again in the afternoon to find a viewpoint that we’d seen so many photos and videos of but didn’t quite know how to find.

We figured we’d get a guide to take us there, but in the interim, we’d also heard of a place called Little Petra and organised a taxi to take us there.

Little Petra is, as the name suggests, like a mini version of Petra but no less impressive.

It doesn’t attract anywhere near the same number of visitors, but thanks to that, it’s free to visit.

Things To Know For Visiting Petra At Night And Little Petra In Jordan

And so we set off exploring every nook and cranny of Little Petra.

For what it’s worth though, you could do this in about 2 hours, so, in some ways, you have no excuse not to visit. 😉

After a walk to the other end of the canyon where it is, we scaled some rocks for a better view of the area and decided to call it an afternoon and go get lunch.

We were however distracted on our walk back by the locals here who had a makeshift coffee shop in one the ruins here and we decided to stick around for a bit longer to chat with them over coffees.

Stopping off for a chat with them actually turned out to be one of our favourite parts of our trip here.

Next, it was time to head over to Petra and one way to do this would be to hike back to the Monastery from here but honestly, in this heat and with no clue where we would be going (or how long it would take), we just decided to hop into a taxi instead to take us back to Petra via the front entrance.

Will share all of the details of that viewpoint in our next post here (and why you should not attempt to find the viewpoint too).