Staying at a Wadi Rum Camp in the Jordan Desert

One of the best things to do in Jordan is to visit the Wadi Rum desert. Here you can stay at a Wadi Rum camp and experience life with the local Bedouin tribes, and make like Lawrence of Arabia on a Wadi Rum jeep tour.

Wadi Rum Jordan Travel Basics

What is Wadi Rum?

Wadi Rum is a protected desert in Jordan’s south. The Wadi Rum desert has breathtaking landscapes, from rich ochre red sands to dramatic sandstone mountains and rock formations with natural arches.

Wadi Rum is a traditional home to the bedouins, nomadic groups of the Arab deserts, who now make a living as desert guides. In the west, Wadi Rum is famed for being visited by Lawrence of Arabia in the early 1900s, and was the site of the 1962 Lawrence of Arabia movie.

Wadi Rum has an otherworldly feel and is also known by its moniker ‘Valley of the Moon’. Once you visit its mars like landscapes, you won’t be surprised to find that several space and sci-if movies were filmed here, including The Martin (2015) and Rouge One: A Star Wars Story (2017).

The Wadi Rum landscape is without a doubt the star of the show. While the harsh desert is home to a surprising range of birds and animals (including sand cats, ibex and foxes), these animals are (unfortunatley) scarce and shy. Most wildlife spotting is limited to birds and the ubiquitous camel. (Boo who to that, I’d love to see a sand cat!)

Wadi Rum Weather and Best Time to Visit Wadi Rum

Like most of Jordan, the best time to visit Wadi Rum is in the spring (March to May) or Autum (October and November). During these months, days are hot (25-30 degrees Celsius) and nights are comfortable and cool (around 15-20 degrees Celsius).

Come prepared for extremes in temperature if you visit outside these months. Wadi Rum is desert country and can be unbearably hot in the summer (June to August), with temperatures sometimes exceeding 40 degrees Celsius.

Surprising as it may be, the Jordanian desert can also be bitterly cold. If you choose to visit during the winter (December to February), you may avoid the crowds, but you should also expect cool days (around 10-20 degrees Celsius) and freezing nights (on occasion, down to 0 degrees Celsius, brrrrr!).

How to Get to Wadi Rum

Jordan is a small country, and Wadi Rum is easily accessible from pretty much everywhere in the country. Wadi Rum is roughly 4 hours drive from Amman, 2 hours drive from Petra and 1 hour drive from Aqaba.

I recommend hiring a car in Jordan (see my Jordan Travel Tips). If you prefer not to drive, it’s also very easy to organise a driver through your accommodation.

Drop into the Wadi Rum Visitors Centre to pay your entry fee. Continue on for 8km and park your car at the Wadi Rum Village (where it will be very safe). Your camp or guide will pick you up from the Village and take you into the desert (10 minutes plus).

How Long to Spend at Wadi Rum

Many people visit Wadi Rum on a day trip from Petra or another nearby location. I recommend spending at least one night at a Wadi Rum Bedouin camp to soak up some local Bedouin hospitality and have time to relax after your Wadi Rum jeep tour.

Beyond that, how long to spend at Wadi Rum really depends on your interests. We spent two nights in Wadi Rum during our 10 day Jordan itinerary. While this gave us plenty of time to relax around the camp and catch up on reading, in hindsight, one one night in Wadi Rum would have been plenty for us.

We would have instead preferred to spend the extra night hiking in the incredible Dana Biosphere Reserve.

Wadi Rum Entrance Fee and Costs

Entrance Fee: The entrance fee to Wadi Rum is 5JD, or free with the Jordan Pass (a bargain, definitely buy one!).

Additional Costs: Be warned: Costs in the desert can rack up pretty quickly. Jordan is not a budget traveling country by most definitions, and Wadi Rum is no exception. Make sure you check and agree on the prices in advance, and Budget accordingly. It would be a shame to come all the way to the desert and realise you couldn’t afford a jeep tour, which is the highlight of the trip. The cost of our meals and activities well exceeded the accommodation cost. (Benefits of a captive audience!)

Accommodation and Meals: For accommodation, the well reviewed basic camps cost around 20-30JD per night including breakfast. Pretty much everything else is additional. Meals cost from 5-15JD per person for lunch and dinner (somewhat expensive for tasty but basic fare). Some camps also charge 5-10JD for a transfer from the Wadi Rum Village to the camp.

Tours and Activities: The price of Wadi Rum tours can vary a lot between camps and providers. For a Wadi Rum jeep tour, the rates are based on the number of hours and are either charged per person or per jeep. Expect to pay anywhere between 20-40JD per person for a half day jeep tour. Camel tours are around 15JD per person per hour.

The Wadi Rum Camp Experience

Wadi Rum Bedoiun Camps

Beyond Wadi Rum Camp

Wadi Rum is dotted with Bedouin camps throughout the desert. The camps generally consist of small basic tents for accommodation, shared or private bathrooms and a larger tent for communal dining.

I recommend choosing a smaller camp. The larger ones are not intimate, have long dinner lines, and can feel more like a school camp. Beyond that, select one that is well reviewed and within your budget. Most of the camps are relatively basic with similar facilities and a similar price, although there are some higher end luxury camps. If you want a luxury camp, book well in advance.

We stayed at Beyond Wadi Rum Camp. The camp was basic but comfortable, with small powered tents and shared bathrooms. The bedouin hosts were very hospitable and provided an insight into bedouin life, including a traditional dinner cooked below the ground.

While I enjoyed our Wadi Rum experience, the camps weren’t exactly what I was expecting. I had envisaged a vast and remote wilderness, with intimate and personal camps. The camps were more numerous and closer together than I anticipated, and a little more basic.

Perhaps it’s simply a case of you get what you pay for. If I returned, I’d fork out for a luxury camp in a more remote location if possible.

Wadi Rum Tours and Activities

The main reason people visit Wadi Rum is of course to explore the desert wilderness. Wadi Rum camps offer a range of Wadi Rum tours to suit everyone. You can book these tours from the Visitor Centre if you aren’t staying overnight.

Wadi Rum Jeep Tours: The main event is jeep tours for between 2 to 8 hours. The jeep tours take a similar route and visit similar sites. The longer the tour, the more sites and the further into the desert you’ll explore. Read about our four hour jeep tour below.

Camel Rides: Another popular Wadi Rum activity is to tour the desert by camel or horse back. Very romantic, but somewhat uncomfortable! (Tip: Max of an hour or two unless you are used to horseback riding.)

Wadi Rum Hiking: If you’re up for something more active, join a hiking or scrambling (rock hiking) trip. Hikes range from half-day to multi-day.

Wadi Rum Tours – Wadi Rum Jeep Tour

Overview

While you are in Wadi Rum you absolutely must do a Wadi Rum Jeep tour. It’s the best way to explore the Wadi Rum desert, and is pretty much the main reason for visiting Wadi Rum!

We thought that a full day jeep tour might be a little too long. We settled on a four hour jeep tour (25 JD pp with 4 people, 35 JD pp with two people) and a one hour camel ride (15 JD pp). The tour included a picnic lunch, and ended up being around 6 hours door to door, returning to camp at 2pm.

We expected to spend our Wadi Rum tour fanging it around the desert in a jeep and stopping quickly to take photos of sites. To the contrary, we were pleasantly surprised to find that there were plenty of opportunities to get out of the jeep and explore on foot at our own pace.

Over the day, we clocked up around 7-8km walking. If you’re not up for walking, none of it is compulsory. Conversely, if you love hiking and have more time, there’s some longer hikes up larger rocks that take a few hours. Multi-day hikes are also available.

Make sure you wear decent walking shoes and comfy clothing if you plan to scale any of the rocks (which I recommend!). (Although we did see some people chasing Insta-pics in flowing dresses … at your own risk!)

Our Bedouin guide Abdullah was excellent. He explained some history and bedouin traditions (and answered all our questions), but otherwise largely left us to explore the stops on our own which is my preference.

Stop 1 Umm Fruth Rock Bridge

The first stop on our Wadi Rum jeep tour was the Umm Fruth Rock Bridge. For the best views and photos of the rock bridge, simply step out of your jeep and snap away.

While the rock bridge views are best from the bottom (obvs, duh!), it’s much more fun to climb the rock and walk over the top of the bridge. It’s a short and easy climb up with footings built into the rocks.

Stop 2 Abu Kashaba Canyon

After Umm Fruth, we jumped back into the jeep and careened through the deset to our next stop.

At Abu Kashaba Canyon, we again jumped out of the jeep to explore on foot. Our driver dropped us at one side of the canyon and met us on the other. It was a short 20 minute easy and scenic walk through the canyon.

Stop 3 Burdah Rock

Next up was the famous Burdah Rock. Unfortunatley for us, Burdah Rock was a quick photo stop only.

We were keen to climb the rock, until we learnt that it was a tricky 4 hour hike, which we didn’t have the time or legs for.

(Wadi Rum was our hiking ‘break’ in between our big hiking days in Dana and Petra!)

Stop 4 Lawrence of Arabia House

The Lawrence of Arabia House isn’t original, but is from the Lawrence of Arabia movie which was filmed in Wadi Rum in 1962. The house itself is not much to look at (a pile of bricks really … in my opinion).

As well as viewing the ‘house’, you can enjoy a tea at the Bedouin tent next door or climb the rocks behind the Lawrence of Arabia House for panoramic views over the Wadi Rum desert below.

Like many famous travel destinations, the rocky outcrop features random piles of rocks fashioned by travelers. (I think these are meant to be ‘spiritual’, under the guise of in fact being ‘trendy’.)

Time to jump in the jeep again for our next stop! At this point, one of our fellow travellers decided to take over the driving reigns … buckle in!

Stop 5 Lawrence of Arabia Fountain

Lawrence of Arabia Fountain was one of my favourite stops on our Wadi Rum jeep tour. The fountain itself is a bit of a non-event of a trickle. But again, it’s more about the rocky hike and panoramic desert views.

At first glance, the hike looks high and somewhat looooooooong. I was surprised to find that it only took us 15-20 minutes walk to the top, at a fairly slow pace in the late morning heat.

Lawrence of Arabia Fountain is also home to many camels which you can hire for short or long rides. We killed two birds with one stone and took an hour camel ride across the desert to our next stop.

While the camel ride was fun and unique, I have to say it was a rather hot and somewhat uncomfortable experience! I love the idea of a romantic multi-day camel journey across the desert, but would definitely need to work on my ‘camel fitness’ (aka sore butt-ness) before attempting this.

Stop 6 – Khazali Siq 

Our camels dropped us off across the desert at Khazali Siq (siq = canyon). We found a shady spot for lunch before walking through the canyon.

Khazali Siq is one of Wadi Rum’s most famous sites. The inner walls of the canyon feature ancient Nabatean rock drawings and carvings.

Beyond this, the canyon walk gets a bit precipitous fairly quickly. Climb up through the canyon only if you’re confident you can climb back down. (You’ll know the spot when you see it!). We saw a few people clamber up and then realise that getting down is a little more tricky. I stayed at the bottom but my husband (a more confident hiker) got up and down with no problem.

For other incredible desert hiking with similarly otherworldly landscapes, check out Namibia’s Tok Tokkie Trails or the Trans Kalahari Walk.

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