Best time to visit Petra

Jordan · Middle East

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Petra

Tap a month for its page

Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Go in Apr–Sep — these months score within a whisker of each other; 30C max, 0 rainy days. Mar is the next best.

Plan this trip

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Flights

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Where to stay

Things to do

Car hire

Travel insurance

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Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.

Things to do in Petra

Treasury Upon exiting the Siq, visitors can view this jaw-dropping grandeur.
Wadi Musa This is the city next to Petra…
Monastery The largest carved monument in Petra, dates back to the 1st century AD.
Siq The entrance to Petra is a long, winding sandstone canyon (about 2 km).
Byzantine Church Church building in Petra, Jordan

Tours and tickets in Petra

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Petra), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.

Month by month

No fare history for this route yet, so this ranking is climate and crowds only — the price column will fill in as the scanner collects.

Month	Max °C	Rain days	Humidity	Sun h/day	Verdict	Why
Jan	11°	6d	65%	9.2h	ok	11C max, 6 rainy days
Feb	12°	5d	64%	9.6h	good	12C max, 5 rainy days
Mar	16°	5d	55%	10.7h	good	16C max, 5 rainy days
Apr	21°	2d	43%	11.9h	sweet spot	21C max, 2 rainy days
May	26°	0d	36%	12.7h	sweet spot	26C max, 0 rainy days
Jun	29°	0d	37%	13.1h	sweet spot	29C max, 0 rainy days
Jul	30°	0d	38%	13.2h	sweet spot	30C max, 0 rainy days
Aug	30°	0d	42%	12.8h	sweet spot	30C max, 0 rainy days
Sep	28°	0d	46%	11.5h	sweet spot	28C max, 0 rainy days
Oct	24°	1d	51%	10.7h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Nov	18°	3d	57%	9.9h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Dec	14°	4d	64%	9.1h	okbusy	busier than usual

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at Wadi Musa, at the gate: ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.

A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.

How busy it gets

Busiest in October and November; quietest in July and August.

Then and now

No month in Petra is clearly warmer than in 1981–1990: the differences are inside the ordinary spread between one year and the next.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	12.4°	13.4°	17.0°	23.1°	27.1°	30.0°	31.5°	31.6°	29.9°	24.7°	18.7°	14.7°
2017–26	11.3°	12.4°	15.9°	21.4°	25.8°	28.6°	30.2°	30.2°	28.1°	23.7°	18.4°	13.7°
Change	-1.1°	-1.0°	-1.0°	-1.7°	-1.2°	-1.4°	-1.2°	-1.4°	-1.8°	-1.0°	-0.3°	-1.0°

The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.

Getting there

Fly into Amman (AMM), then drive. The flights under Where to book are to Amman.

Amman (AMM)	the drive is not measured yet
Aqaba (AQJ)	the drive is not measured yet

The drive from each airport is the road's, from openrouteservice.org by HeiGIT: typical, not a schedule.

How far Petra is, and what it costs, depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Cost of living	cheap — prices run about 42% of the United States' (World Bank, 2025)
Currency	Jordanian dinar
Languages	Arabic
Plugs	Type B and C and F and G, 230 V
Driving	On the right
Calling code	+962
Travel advice	avoid all travel to parts — UK Foreign Office, updated 2026-09-10
Health	UK Foreign Office health advice

Facts from Wikidata (CC0), the UK Foreign Office (Open Government Licence) and the World Bank, refreshed 2026-10-07. The advisory is written for British travellers; entry rules depend on your passport.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — Hotels, restaurants and larger shops take Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Diners Club cards, but smaller shops and the souks want cash in dinars; ATMs are common in Amman and the bigger towns but scarce elsewhere. Prices are often written in fils: 4,750 is 4 dinars 750 fils.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — About 10% for waiters, unless a service charge is already on the bill; taxi drivers do not expect a tip, but round the fare up.

Getting around Petra

JETT buses leave Amman for Petra at 6:30am every day from the Abdali terminal, also picking up at 7th Circle, and take about four hours; the bus back leaves the Petra visitor centre at 5pm. A seat costs 10 JOD: book on jett.com.jo or in the JETT app, and be there half an hour before departure.

Apps — Rides: Careem, Jeeny, Petra Ride, Uber. Maps: Google Maps. Messages: WhatsApp. Uber serves only Amman; for a taxi elsewhere, ask your hotel to call a licensed one (it has a government sticker on the windscreen) and agree the fare first, as meters are not always used.

Many hotels organise free transport to and from the entrance to Petra. Otherwise you can either walk downhill along Tourist Rd. for about 15 minutes, or take a taxi for 1-2 JD. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Petra, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Open in Google MapsPetra on the map

Help

Emergency — 911 (any emergency).
TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.

Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (21)

Petra in pictures

Great Temple of Petra Upper Temenos — i

Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Petra Jordan BW 31 — i

Berthold Werner, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Petra Jordan BW 36 — i

Berthold Werner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Garden Temple, Petra 01 — i

Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Camels in front of the tombs, Petra, Jordan — i

Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What Petra is like

Petra (Arabic: البتراء, Al-Batrāʾ), the fabled "rose red city, half as old as time", is a well known ancient Nabataean city in the south of Jordan. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: Guides can be hired from about JD and up (depending on what you want to see) at the Visitors Center. Many of them were born and raised in Petra, and will gladly share their knowledge with you. More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing: For the terminally energetic, there are a number of popular hikes around Petra. Most hikes last about 1-3 hr round-trip. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: Petra is open to visits 06:00-17:00 in winter, and 06:00-18:00 in summer, daily throughout the year. What may be one of the most expensive admissions to any archaeological site in the world. More on Wikivoyage
Staying safe: The park is populated by a significant number of Bedouins, living in caves, tents, and buildings off the main tourist trail. More on Wikivoyage
Staying healthy: The most cold and rainy months to visit Petra are December and January. In this time it is warm during the day and very cold in the evenings and at nights. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Petra, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.

Around Petra

Nearby

Kind of place

Petra is in Jordan, Middle East. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

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