Petra · Where to stay

The last few hundred metres above the visitor centre. You walk to the gate for opening instead of paying a taxi, and you pay for it in room rates — this is the most expensive strip in Wadi Musa.

Where the cheap hotels, the minibuses and most of the town's own life are, up the hill above the site. It is ten to twenty minutes downhill to the gate and a genuinely steep walk back, or a short taxi.

North of the site: the Bdoul village and the camps out towards Beidha. Closer to the back route in and to Little Petra, further from anywhere to eat, and you will need a car or a lift for everything.

The only quiet Petra is the first hour after the gates open. An extra night here is not really buying another day of sightseeing, it is buying another 6am, which is the thing people who say Petra was crowded never had.