Wadi Rum Tour from Aqaba Port - Private Jeep Excursion

Forty minutes from the cruise port, the landscape changes completely.

Wadi Rum is a protected desert of sandstone mountains rising sheer from red sand — the place Lawrence of Arabia called "vast, echoing and god-like," and the phrase has stuck because nothing else quite covers it.

Your tour manager meets you at the cruise exit door in Aqaba Port, and you'll travel by private air-conditioned vehicle for around 40 minutes to the protected area of Wadi Rum. There you transfer to a 4x4 jeep for roughly two hours in the desert.

This Wadi Rum jeep tour takes you through rugged sandstone mountains and across sand that runs from pale gold to deep red depending on where the sun sits. You'll stop at narrow canyons, at rock inscriptions carved by Nabataean and earlier travellers thousands of years ago, and at a natural rock bridge shaped by centuries of wind erosion.

After your time in the desert, you'll be driven back to your ship in Aqaba Port — six hours port to port, with your own vehicle and driver throughout.

If you're weighing this against Petra: the drive here is 40 minutes each way rather than 90, which means far more time in the desert and far less in a vehicle. It's also considerably easier underfoot — Petra involves several kilometres of walking, while Wadi Rum is mostly seen from the jeep. Worth considering if time in port is tight or if long walks aren't ideal.