TRIP OVERVIEW
Day 1 – Roman Theatre · Amman Citadel · Rainbow Street · Jordan Museum
Day 2 – King Abdullah I Mosque · Royal Automobile Museum · Abu Darwish Mosque
Day 3 – Petra
Day 4 – Jerash · Ajloun Castle
Day 5 – Mount Nebo · Madaba · Dead Sea
Day 1
1.Roman Theatre~1 hr
A steeply raked 2nd-century Roman theatre cut into the hillside below the Citadel, seating 6,000 spectators on stone tiers and still in active use for concerts, festivals, and open-air performances today.
Daily 8:00am - 6:30pm
2.Amman Citadel~1 hr 30 min
A fortified hilltop above the old city, inhabited since the Bronze Age and crowned by the Roman Temple of Hercules, a Byzantine basilica, and the Umayyad Palace overlooking downtown Amman.
Daily 8:00am - 7:00pm
3.Rainbow Street~1 hr
A pedestrian-friendly strip of restored 1920s townhouses in Jabal Amman, lined with cafés, galleries, and the Wild Jordan nature centre, and one of the city's best sunset viewpoints.
Open 24/7
4.Jordan Museum~1 hr 30 min
The kingdom's largest museum, holding fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the 9,000-year-old 'Ain Ghazal statues among the oldest large-scale human statues ever found.
Sunday - Monday 9:00am - 5:00pm · Wednesday - Thursday 9:00am - 5:00pm · Friday 2:00pm - 6:00pm · Saturday 9:00am - 4:00pm
Closed Tuesday
Day 2
1.King Abdullah I Mosque~45 min
Amman's largest mosque, capped by a vast blue mosaic dome that can hold 7,000 worshippers, and one of the few mosques in the city open to non-Muslim visitors outside prayer times.
Saturday - Thursday 8:00am - 2:00pm
Closed Friday
2.Royal Automobile Museum~1 hr
King Hussein's personal collection of over 70 classic cars and motorbikes, from his father's 1916 vehicles to the Mars rover prop built in Jordan for the film The Martian.
Sunday - Monday 10:00am - 7:00pm · Wednesday - Thursday 10:00am - 7:00pm · Friday 11:00am - 7:00pm · Saturday 10:00am - 7:00pm
Closed Tuesday
3.Abu Darwish Mosque~30 min
A striking black-and-white checkerboard mosque built in 1961 on Jabal al-Ashrafiyeh, one of Amman's seven original hills, with panoramic views over the whole capital from its plaza. The interior is closed to non-Muslim visitors, but the plaza and exterior are open at any hour.
Open 24/7
Day 3
1.Petra~4 hr
Jordan's rock-cut Nabataean capital, reached on foot through the narrow Siq to the famous Treasury facade and a sprawling valley of tombs, temples, and a Roman-style theatre carved from the sandstone.
Daily 6:00am - 4:00pm
Day 4
1.Jerash~3 hr
One of the best-preserved Greco-Roman provincial cities in the world, its colonnaded Cardo, oval forum, and twin Roman theatres barely touched since antiquity, roughly 50 km north of Amman.
Daily 8:00am - 6:30pm
2.Ajloun Castle~1 hr
An intact 12th-century Ayyubid fortress built by a nephew of Saladin to watch three valleys and block Crusader advances, reached by a switchback road up Mount 'Auf.
Daily 8:00am - 6:00pm
Day 5
1.Mount Nebo~1 hr
The mountain where Moses is said to have viewed the Promised Land before his death, its Memorial Church holding 6th-century mosaics and a terrace looking out over the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea.
2.St. George's Church · Madaba~45 min
A 6th-century Byzantine floor mosaic covering the sanctuary of a working Greek Orthodox church, the oldest surviving depiction of the Holy Land, plotting Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley in two million tesserae.
Saturday - Thursday 8:00am - 6:00pm
Closed Friday
3.Dead Sea~2 hr
The lowest point on Earth's land surface and roughly ten times saltier than the ocean, where floating is effortless and the shoreline mud is famously mineral-rich.
Weekly Closures
Museums · Closed Tuesday
Mosques · Closed Friday
Tours
Viator
A private full day out to Petra with driver and park entry, then time to walk the Siq to the Treasury and beyond — the way almost every visitor reaches the site from Amman.
10 hr · Private
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A private day covering the Madaba mosaic, the Mount Nebo viewpoint, and a Dead Sea float, with door-to-door transport included.
8 hr · Private
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A guided day pairing the Roman ruins at Jerash with the Ayyubid fortress at Ajloun Castle.
8 hr · Private
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A downtown walking tour stopping at family-run kitchens for hummus, falafel, and knafeh with a local guide.
3 hr · 10 people
A private downtown food crawl through the souks and side streets around King Faisal Street.
5 hr · Private
GetYourGuide
A half-day trip to the Jerash ruins with door-to-door transport, for travellers who want Jerash without Ajloun added on.
5 hr · Private
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A private full-day round trip to Petra with driver and guide, one of the platform's most-reviewed Jordan products.
10 hr · Private
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Cappuccino
Books@Cafe · 4.3 · 3000+ reviews
A long-running bookshop café on the walk to Rainbow Street, with strong espresso and a rooftop terrace over the valley.
Daily 8:00am - 1:00am
Restaurants Near Hotel
Burj Al Hamam · 4.5 · 2400+ reviews
A 40-year Lebanese institution on the hotel's garden terrace, praised for mezze and grilled meats.
In the hotel · Garden terrace
Daily 12:00pm - 11:30pm
Fakhreldin Restaurant · 4.4 · 5500+ reviews
Upscale Lebanese and Jordanian cooking in a converted 1950s Jabal Amman villa.
Daily 12:30pm - 11:00pm
Downtown Restaurants
Hashem Restaurant · 4.1 · 24000+ reviews
A 24-hour downtown institution serving only hummus, falafel, and foul on communal tables since the 1950s.
Open 24/7
Cash Only
AlQuds Falafel · 4.4 · 2200+ reviews
A tiny falafel counter on Rainbow Street, often named alongside Hashem as the city's best.
Daily 7:00am - 10:00pm
Local Tastes
Mansaf
Jordan's national dish: lamb simmered in fermented dried yogurt, jameed, over rice, topped with almonds and traditionally eaten by hand.
Knafeh
A hot, syrup-soaked semolina-and-cheese pastry, eaten as a dessert or a breakfast treat straight from the tray.
Falafel & Hummus
Deep-fried chickpea fritters and silky hummus, the city's default breakfast and late-night meal alike.
Food Delivery
Talabat
Foreign number: accepted. — the sign-up form takes a full international number and the SMS code arrives normally on foreign carriers.
Jordan's own delivery app and by far the widest restaurant coverage in Amman, from downtown falafel counters to hotel-district kitchens; delivery fees run JOD 3-7 per order.
Careem Now
Foreign number: not accepted. — registration requires a Jordanian mobile number, +962, and a local SIM or eSIM is needed before the app will send a code.
A strong second catalogue bundled into the same app as Careem's rides, with a flat JOD 2.5 delivery fee, but unusable until a Jordanian number is active.
Shows, Performances & Concerts
Al-Hussein Cultural Center
A municipal theatre and exhibition complex in Ras al-Ain hosting plays, concerts, and dance performances year-round.
Al-Balad Music Festival · Roman Theatre
An annual summer concert series staged inside the 2nd-century Roman Theatre, mixing Jordanian and regional touring acts.
Getting Around
Uber
Foreign number: accepted. — an existing home-country Uber account works as-is, and a new sign-up accepts a foreign number for the SMS code.
Reliable across the hotel district and downtown; the standard way to reach sights that sit too far apart to walk in Amman's hilly, car-oriented layout.
Careem
Foreign number: not accepted. — sign-up requires a Jordanian mobile number, +962, to receive the verification call.
Amman's home-grown ride app, often with wider driver supply than Uber outside peak hours, but only usable once a local SIM is active.
Worth Knowing
Amman rewards a slower pace than its day-trip neighbours suggest.
Friday is the quiet day: government sites keep their usual hours but King Abdullah I Mosque closes to visitors, and much of downtown does not properly open until early afternoon after Friday prayers.
Amman is built across seven hills, now closer to twenty, and street numbering restarts on every hill — a taxi driver navigates by circle number and landmark, not by house number, so give the nearest circle or a well-known building when explaining where you're going.
The city has no metro or tram; Uber and Careem cover the gaps between the numbered circles, and neither costs much by international standards.
Bring cash in small denominations, 1 and 5 JOD notes, for downtown eateries like Hashem, which does not take cards, and for tipping drivers.
Petra and the Dead Sea both make for very long single days from Amman — pack water, sun protection, and comfortable shoes each time, and expect an early start.
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