Petra 6 Day Itinerary (No Tourist Traps)

Six days buys you something the 5-day plan has to choose between: the Jabal Haroun trek and a genuine slow day, instead of picking one. This isn’t an itinerary that fills the extra time with filler; every day here earns its place inside the Petra-Wadi Musa corridor. For the version that forces the choice, see the 5-day Petra itinerary .

Book these before you go:

Day 1: Arrival and Wadi Musa

Land at King Hussein International near Aqaba or Queen Alia in Amman and head to Wadi Musa, the town at Petra’s entrance, roughly two to three and a half hours by taxi or rental car. Check current rates and book near the gate before you land. Dinner locally, mansaf or mezze at a restaurant near the strip, and rest; tomorrow is a full day on your feet.

Day 2: Petra, First Pass

Be at the gate for opening. Walk the 1.2km Siq while it’s cool and quiet and let the Treasury (Al-Khazneh) reveal itself properly. It’s a carved Nabataean tomb facade, worth saying plainly since the name misleads people: no rooms, no gold, just a legend about the urn on top. Continue through the Street of Facades and the Royal Tombs, then the Roman Theatre in the afternoon.

Day 3: The Monastery, Then the High Place

Get to the gate early and go straight for the Monastery (Ad-Deir): over 800 steps, 45 minutes to an hour up, and a facade bigger than the Treasury with a fraction of the crowd if you’re there before mid-morning. Coming down, the High Place of Sacrifice via the Attuf Ridge is the best panoramic view on the site. Spend the hottest part of the afternoon in the small Petra Museum near the Visitor Center. Confirm today’s opening and closing times on visitpetra.jo , they shift slightly between summer and winter.

Day 4: Little Petra and the Back Route

Drive 15-20 minutes to Little Petra (Siq al-Barid) in the morning for a couple of quiet, mostly free hours among smaller Nabataean facades. In the afternoon, take the Wadi Muthlim back route into the main site, a narrower entrance most day visitors never learn exists, and revisit the Treasury at a quieter hour. Skip the animal-ride touts working both routes; walking is faster and doesn’t end with a tip argument.

Day 5: Jabal Haroun

This is the day the 4-day and 5-day-with-a-choice versions of this trip don’t fully get. Jabal Haroun (Mount Aaron), traditionally held as the prophet Aaron’s burial place, is a full-day trek from the main valley to the small shrine at the summit, six-plus hours round trip, and worth arranging a licensed local guide for. It’s the part of Petra almost no standard trip sees, with views back over the whole archaeological zone from ground most tour groups never reach.

Day 6: A Slow Day, Then Departure

Treat this as a genuine buffer, not a scramble to fit in one more site. A Petra Kitchen cooking class in Wadi Musa in the early evening (around 25 JOD, book ahead) is a good use of a free afternoon, or browse the souvenir stalls and souqs properly instead of rushing past them between sites. If you didn’t get the empty-Siq shot on day two, revisit the Treasury at a quiet hour now. Dinner at the Cave Bar, a 2,000-year-old Nabataean tomb turned into a bar near the entrance, makes a decent last-evening stop.

What to Know

Buy the Jordan Pass online before you land, it only waives the roughly 40 JD visa fee with a pre-arrival purchase and at least two nights in the country, and the Expert tier covers your Petra days here with room to spare. Wear proper walking shoes, the ground is uneven sandstone the entire way, and carry more water than feels necessary since shade all but disappears past the Treasury. Winter travelers should treat rain near the Siq as a signal to leave, not linger for photos; it’s a flash-flood channel and closures can happen fast. For the fuller case on what’s worth doing at the site itself, see our Petra guide .