Best things to do in Petra, including free and rainy-day options

Petra is one site with several different days inside it. Match the plan to your legs, your hours and the weather rather than trying to tick everything.

If you have one day, do the classic line: Siq, Treasury, Street of Facades, Royal Tombs, then out. If you have two, add the Monastery and the High Place of Sacrifice on the second morning, when the light in the site is best and the crowds are thinnest.

Start at the visitor centre and walk the Siq, the 1.2 km slot canyon that opens onto the Treasury. Go at opening if you can: the coach groups arrive mid-morning and the Siq becomes a single-file queue. The Treasury is the postcard, but the walk there is the point — look up at the water channels cut into the rock walls.

Past the Treasury the site opens into a basin. The Street of Facades and the Royal Tombs line the south side; the theatre and the colonnaded street sit in the middle. The Monastery is the long climb: roughly 800 steps up from the basin, and the reward is a facade bigger than the Treasury with a fraction of the people. Donkeys and mules wait at the bottom and will offer to carry you; agree a price first or walk.

The High Place of Sacrifice is the other climb, shorter and steeper, with the best view over the whole basin. Little Petra, about 15 minutes north of Wadi Musa by car, is a smaller Nabataean site with its own siq and painted house; it is free to enter and a good half-day when the main site is crowded or wet.

Petra by Night runs on selected evenings: a candlelit walk through the Siq to the Treasury with Bedouin music. It is a separate ticket from day entry and the schedule changes by season, so check before you build an evening around it.

The Jordan Pass bundles the Petra entry ticket with the visa fee waiver and other sites, and is usually the cheapest route if you are visiting more than Petra. Buy it online before you arrive. Day tickets bought at the gate cost more and do not include the visa waiver.

Inside the site, the extras are transport and food: donkey or camel rides, the golf-cart shuttle from the visitor centre to the Treasury, and the cafés near the basin. Agree any ride price before you get on.

Two nights in Wadi Musa is the minimum that does Petra justice, and the parent Jordan plan says the same. Sleep in town, not in Amman: Petra is not a same-day trip from the airport.

Spring and autumn are the comfortable months. Summer afternoons in the basin are hot and exposed, so split the day — early start, long lunch, late afternoon back in. Winter brings rain and occasional snow, and the Siq can flood; the authorities close the site when that happens. Keep one spare day in winter for weather.

Buy water and snacks in Wadi Musa before you enter; prices inside are higher. If you are continuing south, Petra pairs naturally with Wadi Rum and Aqaba.

When it rains, the site can close at short notice because of flash flooding in the Siq. Have a backup: the small Petra Museum near the visitor centre, a cooking class at Petra Kitchen in Wadi Musa, or a long lunch in town. Little Petra is usually still walkable in light rain, but check locally before driving out.

Free things in and around Petra: Little Petra, the viewpoints above Wadi Musa, the town's own market streets, and the walk to the visitor centre at dawn. The main site itself is ticketed, so there is no free way into the Siq and Treasury.