Istanbul to Petra

From reading your post I am understanding you are flying to Jordan in the morning, driving to Petra and then sightsee in Petra. Stay overnight. drive back to Amman and fly back to Istanbul. If this is incorrect, please correct me.

The drive down is on a very good highway and will give you no issues. 3 hours is accurate.

Sightseeing in Petra, I believe 1 & 1/2 days to 2 full days is best. If you only have half a day, you will most likely only get to see the Treasury and a few other very near sites.

Wadi Musa does not have any bars to hop to. It is still fairly quiet in comparison.

Practical, I do not think so. But doable, yes.

I agree with the posters above.

We plan to stay overnight in Jordan and fly back to Istanbul the next day. Practical?

Insanely impractical. Not at all "impossible," mind you, but going all the way from Istanbul to Jordan just for one night is just plain nuts--the very quintessence of "impractical." And #1 is correct: you can't "see Petra" in half a day. At best, you'd see a few of the highlights near the entrance. And doing this on the same day as a long flight and a long drive? Sounds absolutely miserable to me.

Even if you're on the tightest of tight schedules, it would be far more sensible to spend at least two nights in Jordan. And it'd really be far wiser to stay at least a few days and see a few of the sights besides Petra. Even one more day would allow you to see Madaba, the Dead Sea and a crusader castle or two (the one in Kerak is impressive).

I suspect, too, that you haven't priced tickets from Istanbul to Amman yet. It can be very difficult to find cheap flights to Amman (during high season, especially) and that once you see the price of tickets you'll be thinking twice about any plan to fly down for a madcap and exhausting 24 hours in which you'd pretend to see Petra, but not really see much of it.

As above. IMO you need at the very least a full day ie staying over two nights. It is a massive site. We were there for three days - 6am to 6pm each day (and walking 20+ km a day) and still didn't see all there was to see. If you arrive in the afternoon you'll only just have time to walk down the Siq, have a look at the Treasury and walk back before dusk.

It would be like flying to Paris, getting a cab from the airport to the Eiffel Tower and heading straight back to the airport.

If that's all the time you can spare then leave it for another trip. I suspect you feel you're short of time in which case think carefully about spending two full days of your trip in transit (not to mention a small fortune on flights, car hire and entry fees) for the sake of an hour or two's sight seeing. Come back for a week or more, do Petra justice and visit Wadi Rum, Madaba, the Dead Sea ...

Like others said it's a waste of time and money to see Petra for a few hours you'll need at least a full day.

If I only had that little time I would check for flights to Aqaba you're only approx. 1 1/2 hours away from Wadi Musa/Petra, as far as I know you don't have to pay for a visa (depending on nationality), at least we wouldn't have to if arriving in Aqaba, go from there, surely that depends on flight schedules, but worse checking out.

Dear profgarcia ,

let me i give you suggestion for your trip

you can use Turkish airline go direct to aqaba from Istanbul please check this link below for book
http://www.turkishairlines.com/en-int/?ref=1&mainlink=cd-homepage&gclid=CLXi9NHm2bYCFUJa3godlhsAIg

then you can get taxi from King Hussein International Airport aqaba direct to Petra ( 2 hours one way )

i hope for you a nice trip

johnrege

Hi,

It's unrealistic…
You need to stay more longer.
Petra is huge and even if you have a private car, you need to reach it from Queen Alia…and move around.
With a such limited time, a flying carpet will be more useful…

Michel

Gerard, Thank you so much for replying. We can fit two nights into our IT for Petra, so we will, based on your advice. And yes, we would fly from Istanbul to Amman and get the car. Good to know the drive is okay.

An alternative IT (we're still checking flights) is to fly directly to Amman (from NYC), stay two nights and then go on to Istanbul and Eastern Anatolia.

Thank you for replying, Itchy. We can get in two nights, and yes, we have had this frustration with sites like this. We generally like to do what you did, stay awhile, but it is not the focus of our vacation. In this case, seeing part of it will have to be enough. We can always go back, as you say, on another vacation.

Zashibis: Thank you for replying. We'll stay two nights. We looked at the other sites you mention, and we don't have much interest in them. We will be driving the coast road of the Black Sea, so while I realize the Dead Sea is different, the focus of our trip is Turkey. Thank you for your advice.