I know I might catch some flak for this, but Jordan was just okay. I wasn’t blown away by it, but I also didn’t hate it. It was just a middle-of-the-road destination for me.
I’d read so many wonderful things about Jordan and a lot of the travel bloggers that I’m friends with or follow along with have been and have written amazing things about their times in Jordan. I don’t know if I over-hyped it in my mind or if I was just expecting something totally different, but it wasn’t what I wanted.
It was more westernized and commercialized than I’d both wanted and expected. I knew that Petra would be very touristy and that the Dead Sea would also be, but I hadn’t expected the whole trip to just feel sort of like an extension of the United States. The cities were clean and organized, the roads were structured and easily navigable, the prices were very similar to those at home. There was just not enough Middle East in this Middle East for me. I guess I was expecting more Cairo and less Dubai.
My week-long trip to Jordan was good–it really was. I had great food, met some wonderful people, camped in Wadi Rum, floated in the Dead Sea, saw Petra by night, and snorkeled in the Red Sea. Each one of these experiences was something I was glad to have done and they will all, in some way, live on in my memories. But it wasn’t until I’d touched down next door in Egypt that I felt like I found what I was looking for from my trip. Jordan is calm and peaceful, there’s not a lot of commotion or chaos in Amman or any of the places I visited. I’ve found that I look for that now in my travels. I want to be thrown completely out of my comfort zone and into something that’s so far removed from how I grew up that now when I travel to places that are more (unexpectedly) westernized, I feel a bit bummed. And I realize that’s on me and not on the destination. As I said, I’ve known plenty of people who were completely wowed by Jordan, rightfully so.
While Jordan didn’t knock my socks off, I am beyond happy to have visited and to have seen and done the few things I really wanted to do while there. It’s a beautiful country with so much to offer, I just should’ve shifted my expectations a little bit. The US has helped Jordan a lot over the years, and there are a lot of western expats there, so it stands to reason that it would become more westernized in a lot of ways because of that. I didn’t see it mentioned much in my research prior to going, so it wasn’t even on my radar to think about prior to going.
I would say that if it’s your first Middle Eastern or Arab country, it’s a great introduction. I think it’s also very safe for solo female travelers to get their feet wet. (But if you’re looking for more chaos and culture shock, head next door to Egypt.)
