Why you should explore Jordan beyond the Golden Triangle

Get the Journey Insider e-newsletter for ideas, offers, and inspiration from our world journey editor

Get impressed with our free Journey Insider e-newsletter

Get impressed with our free Journey Insider e-newsletter

I watch headlights slowly strategy the border checkpoint on the hillside reverse. “Once we got here from Syria, every considered one of us had a backpack and a pair of underwear,” Maher Kiwan laughs, a broad smile lighting up his eyes. He waves his cigarette as he gestures, his different arm is draped affectionately on his spouse Rufaida’s shoulder.

“We got here with nothing. We’re pleased with ourselves that we’ve labored laborious to construct our lives, our dwelling, our enterprise,” provides Rufaida as she raises each palms and gestures for us to start out consuming. She’s been cooking all day. Us, we’re her enterprise. And tourism has develop into central to the life that her and her household have constructed for themselves.

I’m in Jordan. However I’m not in Petra. I’m not driving jeeps and staying in a desert camp in Wadi Rum. And I’m not floating within the Lifeless Sea. I’m in Umm Qais, a tiny village in northern Jordan, proper on the border of Syria, Israel, and Lebanon.

As a scorching breeze sweeps the balcony of the Kiwans’ dwelling the place we’re sat, the decision to prayer begins to reverberate throughout the slender valley. The households’ happiness, their heat, fills up the house.

Upon a glittery brown tablecloth sits a feast of baba ganoush with pomegranate molasses, together with tahini and bamia (a stew with okra and tomato, hen and rice); all meals from these cross-culture border lands. From right here, I look immediately into Israel and what was as soon as Syria, now a DMZ (demilitarised zone).

Learn extra: 12 of one of the best issues to do in Jordan

A cockerel crows. “New neighbours,” says Rufaida. They already had a hen, so she gave them a duck. I nod alongside. “Sounds smart,” I agree.

I’ll discover out over the approaching days simply what makes this space so extremely particular. However wanting round this household dwelling whereas being enveloped by such unbelievable heat, the influence of tourism on each the household and guests like me it apparent. And it feels each intimate and profound.

When guests come to Jordan – only a five-hour flight from the UK – they often head to its “Golden Triangle” websites. As they need to, they’re great. However not too long ago, guests haven’t been coming to Jordan.

Following the onset of battle in Iran and wider area, Jordan was positioned underneath an FCDO journey advisory “towards all however important journey”. That advisory has now been lifted.

But previous to that, tourism throughout the nation had already been massively impacted. In “regular” occasions, Jordan’s key websites entice massive numbers. In 2023, for instance, Petra acquired 1.15 million guests, and Wadi Rum over half one million. However these aren’t regular occasions, and Jordan’s tourism trade has been hit laborious by the nation’s proximity to Gaza and Israel. Petra acquired simply 457,215 guests in 2024. From January to August 2025, there have been 291,169.

Although the newest figures, as much as February 2026, present an enchancment – from February 2025 to February 2026, there was a 3 per cent enhance in guests from the UK, in keeping with the Jordan Tourism Board – the influence of that downturn has been stark.

I see for myself – from the handful of tourists strolling Petra’s gorge, to the reward store proprietor at my resort who has seen no clients for weeks, and shuttered lodging – how this extreme discount in numbers is hurting a rustic that depends on guests. Tourism is the quantity two overseas forex earner, and accounts for 11 per cent of the workforce. It’s surreal to face in entrance of the Treasury and take an image with not a single different particular person in it.

Predating latest occasions throughout the area, new routes, new excursions and a concerted effort by each the nation’s tourism board and journey operators is trying to push travellers out into new areas. And for good cause.

“We wish to deal with the idea of overtourism, and unfold the wealth of journey to extra communities,” says Yves Marceau, VP Product at small-group escorted tour G Adventures, whose model new Final Energetic Jordan itinerary I’m on.

In truth, the corporate has launched 12 new journeys in as many months overlaying Jordan, with a dedication to venturing into new areas and experiences. “Once we checked out Jordan, we had a chance with the slowdown in journey, to essentially take the time to rethink the place we needed to go.”

The ten-day Jordan Energetic Journey visits the capital, Amman, the Lifeless Sea, Petra and Wadi Rum. However company additionally head to lesser-visited areas, together with the Dana Biosphere Reserve (Jordan’s first and largest), Wadi Dana (recognized for its dramatic desert, mountains, and canyons), and Umm Qais, stopping at community-run tasks en route reminiscent of Beit Khayrat Souf.

The feminine-owned and managed cafe in Souf – a 20-minute drive from the Roman ruins in Jerash – employs greater than 25 native ladies, providing monetary independence in a rural space. Within the courtyard of a stone-built historic dwelling, I eat amid dancing and singing, and the sharing of recipes.

“You are going to these extremely lovely locations that folks do not find out about,” provides Yves. “The conversations you might need are completely different than while you go to locations like Umm Qais.”

They’re. Rufaida and Maher share a harrowing story of fleeing Syria in 2013, and subsequently constructing a life in a neighborhood that welcomed them. Jordan’s inhabitants stood underneath a million within the Fifties, but is just below 12 million in the present day, reflective of waves of migration from Syrian and Palestinian refugees, amongst others.

Umm Qais’ historical past and sweetness are additionally a draw. The village clings to hillsides overlooking the Sea of Galilee, surrounded by olive groves, steep valleys, and historical past.

Behind the buildings of the unique Ottoman village, which residents had been pressured to go away in 1984 to protect the location, sit sprawling Greco-Roman ruins. Based within the third century BC, the town – one of many Decapolis cities – was a hub for poets and philosophy. There’s only a handful of tourists as I stroll the cart-worn grooves within the preserved paved highway, previous standing basalt columns, and an amphitheatre with warrens of stone entrance corridors nonetheless standing.

Learn extra: Exploring Jordan’s little-known hip-hop scene by its road artwork

From the ruins, I set off with native information Eisa Dweekat, down a steep, arid gully that shortly turns into a cliff edge. We’re strolling the primary part of the Jordan Path, a 650km, 40-day route ranging from Um Qais within the north to Aqaba within the south. Eisa, a board member of the Jordan Path Group, helped create the route. “So, we’re heading largely downhill?” I ask tentatively.

“That is the way you uncover what the actual Jordan is,” he says as we pause at a spring. We’re not alone. Tons of of goats immediately strut down sheer rock to a refrain of bleats and bells, pause for a drink, after which, inspired by canines and a donkey, perch on the shaded hillside reverse. They watch on as their shepherd units alight a cluster of twigs and units down a teapot. I side-step stragglers on the cliff path.

Our four-hour hike takes us to the valley flooring, looking for shade amid the tents of a Bedouin household, earlier than now we have a picnic on a cliff at Tall Zira’a overlooking the Al Arab Dam. A kitten that has adopted us up from the valley flooring mews and watches as stews of hen and greens are cooked over an open hearth, and our cooks snicker at me for the peculiar shade of pink I’ve turned. My Celtic pores and skin by no means stood an opportunity.

As nightfall units in, on a hillside immediately overlooking the Golan Heights – as soon as part of Syria, now occupied by Israel – beekeeper Yousef Sayyah welcomes us. We have a tendency the hives, smoke out the queen, and style the variations between his seasonal honey, as Yousef tells us how he constructed his enterprise Yousef’s Honey along with his spouse Rima, providing honey-based meals and sweetness merchandise to guests. The view out throughout the hills is stark for its magnificence and stillness.

The following morning, I take a espresso to the roof of the six-bedroom visitor home, Beit Al Baraka. I wish to watch the dawn, forward of a breakfast cooked by native ladies from the village. I meet Muna Haddad, CEO of Baraka Locations, which has partnered with G Adventures for these nights within the village.

“It’s a conflict zone,” she says, pointing to the Heights, which is seen from the roof. “However the birds are chirping, it is an attractive day. This, for me, breaks the notion of security that’s always fearmongered within the information.”

Learn extra: This boho Cairo neighbourhood is an escape from the hustle of the town

Noting that tourism right here used to incorporate the ruins and little else, Muna has been working with the villagers for a decade to develop a extra significant tourism providing. Partnering with locals right here and in Pella to develop particular person enterprise fashions, the organisation now has 44 experiences from stone masonry to beekeeping, and has co-founded 17 micro-enterprises – together with Yousef’s Honey, Rufaida’s Kitchen, and Beit Na’ela, the home of sisters Naela and Nawal Akash the place I head to for a cooking lesson. The micro-enterprises had been developed and funded by Baraka Locations and now function independently underneath the Baraka Locations umbrella.

The main focus is on sustainability and on tourism that doesn’t change, however advantages and preserves genuine tradition. Some 73 per cent of the income is retained inside the two villages the organisation operates in. However the influence, in fact, is not only financial. It by no means could possibly be.

“We do not inform a narrative that vacationers wish to hear,” provides Muna as we discuss how a lot Rufaida Maher’s story of fleeing conflict and being separated from relations in Syria has caught with me. “We inform the story locations wish to inform.

“That is very a lot a part of the gentle energy of tourism. By listening to anyone’s story, you are validating them. You make room for them. I am right here. I matter.

“Gaza has been a wake-up name for everyone. No household is similar. No family is similar. We’re decolonising our minds. It is on us now, and we won’t depend on anyone else to return and inform our story.”

Claire was a visitor of G Adventures.

do it

The ten-day Final Energetic Jordan itinerary with G Adventures has departures from September 2026, priced from £1,529 per particular person, excluding worldwide flights.

Royal Jordanian flies from London Heathrow to Amman. Flight time is round 5 hours.