**** THIS IS A REPOSTED TRIP. IT HAS MANY MORE PICTURES AND UPDATED COMMENTARY AND CAPTIONS. THE FIRST POST WAS MY FIRST WEBSITE POSTING USING A DIFFERENT PROVIDER. I TRANSFERRED IT AND IT DIDN’T DO WELL. HERE’S THE NEW ON … PLEASE ENJOY.********
Nancy had Petra near the top of her “Must See” list so it was kind of the cornerstone for our trip. We felt as long as we were so close by, we should go and visit Israel and the Holy Land. We checked a number of tours and found they went some of the places we wanted to go and many more we had no interest in. I did some research on driving in Jordan and Israel, VISA requirements, and traveling alone and found it was not all that difficult to do. We could rent cars in both countries but could not take one across the border so we rented one in each country. Both Jordan and Israel allowed us, as U.S. citizens, to buy visitor’s Visa’s at the entry point to the country. There is an exception to that at the Allenby bridge but we didn’t go that way so it was not a problem. We made our plane reservations, worked out a travel plan, booked hotels where we planned to stay, rented cars in each country and we were set.
– Air Travel: We did not want to backtrack so we booked a Multiple city ticket flying into Amman, and departing Tel Aviv to go back to the states. There were a number of selections available so we just picked out the times we wanted to arrive and depart. We usually use an on-line search and booking system like KAYAK to find and buy our tickets, or will book directly with the airline we want to use.
– Visa’s: We flew into Amman and purchased Visitor’s Visa’s at the airport Immigration site. They accept only Jordanian currency or Credit cards so be prepared to either exchange some money right as you get there or use a credit card.
– CARS, Guidance, and Communications: We had booked a rental car through a U.S. rental company. **If you are making a long trip make sure you get unlimited mileage. As we could not take our Jordanian rental across the border we planned to turn it in at our last destination in Jordan, Aqaba. There were rental car counters in both Aqaba and Eilat, Israel so we dropped off the Jordanian car, took a taxi to the border, walked across at the Wadi Araba Border Crossing, brought our Israeli Visa’s at the Israeli immigration point, caught a taxi into Eilat and our rental car company. We picked up our rental in Eilat and drove it for the rest of the trip, leaving it at the airport in Tel Aviv. Be aware there is not a great deal of GPS maps available in Israel so we used a WiFi Hotspot and our iPads for guidance. We were able to purchase a Garman map for our NUVI for Jordan and it worked fine. As always with maps, there is a mix of languages so don’t get confused. We did download a generic map for our NUVI that did work in the GPS for Israel but it was spotty so we backed everything up with the hotspot and google maps. We did not have a telephone during this trip. We relied on WiFi signals along the way in restaurants, coffee shops, malls, and hotels as well as using our rental car Hotspot for updating our email, making adjustments to reservations, etc. … worked well.
**A note about driving. When we rent cars they are usually small compacts that are maneuverable, fuel efficient, and don’t stand out. We very seldom have troubles with local people. On this trip, in Jordan, there were groups of single males, mostly young, that would hang out on corners and watch, or make comments. Once they attempted to stop us by stepping out in front of us. I tried my best but was unable to run any of them over … they are quick little buggers. Bottom line, stay alert, avoid crowds, don’t draw attention to yourself.
Hotels: We try to stay in 4 star type hotels. When we can’t find chains brand hotels we know and like we use Booking.com to find the rest of them. We prefer booking.com as you do not pay until you are eye to eye with the hotel management and you can negotiate problems directly. We seldom have significant problems with hotels as English is spoken in nearly every hotel in the world and by staying with the better brands have avoided unpleasantness.
I have split this post into two subposts to keep it shorter and more manageable. The first sub is our time in Jordon and the second is our time in Israel. Lastly, this post is a reposting of my original post updating the pictures and layout. There are many more pictures … most of the commentary remains the same. Enjy.
** A repeated last note. I encourage you to google or do a web search on any of the places I have mentioned. There are many, many pictures and history of each … all better than mine and my descriptions. We just wanted to share our trip with you and our driving experience. Thanks for reading.**
