What a visitor's money does in Jordan: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Jordanian Dinar (JOD) · 1 EUR = 0.81 JOD · 1 USD = 0.71 JOD
Buy the Jordan Pass online before you fly. It bundles the tourist visa fee with entry to Petra and forty other sites, costs 70-80 JD depending on how many days at Petra you want, and pays for itself immediately — but the visa waiver only applies if you stay at least three nights in Jordan. The dinar is pegged to the dollar and is worth more than it looks: 1 JD is about €1.20.
Avoid: exchanging money at the site entrance, relying on cards inside the ruins
Use: Arab Bank, Housing Bank, Cairo Amman Bank — in Wadi Musa
Jordanian machines charge a few dinars a withdrawal. The stalls inside Petra, the tea and the taxis are cash only.
A short ride in Petra: 2–5 JD across town — cheap
From the airport: Amman airport to the centre 22–25 JD, a fixed rate
Cheaper than the yellow taxis once you count the haggle, and outside the cities there is no app at all.
Zarb is the meal here: chicken and vegetables buried in a sand oven for hours and dug up in front of you at the camp. Every camp does it and most do it well. Breakfast is flatbread, labneh, olives and very sweet tea, cooked over a fire.
Mansaf — lamb cooked in fermented dried yoghurt over rice — is the national dish and Wadi Musa is a good place to eat it, ideally somewhere that needs a day’s notice. Inside the site the tea stalls are fine and the food is not; take a packed lunch and buy tea from the Bedouin women who have the best view in Jordan.
This is resort country, so the honest advice is to eat the buffet and go to Madaba for a proper meal — the town half an hour up the hill has good mezze, arak and Jordanian home cooking at a third of the resort price.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
