The seven
Every place below carries an access score out of five, and every score is justified in plain terms on its page. A truthful 3 is worth more than a flattering 5 — you are planning a real day, not reading a brochure.
A city carved into rose sandstone by the Nabataeans two thousand years ago, reached through a canyon barely three metres wide. The main trail is paved and carriage-served the whole way to the Treasury.
A protected desert of granite and sandstone towers rising 500 metres off a red sand floor. Everything moves by 4×4, camel or on foot — which means a vehicle seat is also a front-row seat.
The lowest dry land on Earth, 430 metres below sea level, with water ten times saltier than the ocean. You do not swim here; you sit on the water and it holds you.
The best-preserved Roman provincial city east of Italy: a complete oval forum, two theatres, and a colonnaded main street still rutted by chariot wheels.
Jordan's 27 kilometres of Red Sea coast, where desert mountains drop straight into coral reef. The diving is world-class and a glass-bottom boat gives the reef to everyone else.
A pale limestone capital spread across nineteen hills, with a Roman theatre for 6,000 sunk into its downtown and the region's best food scene stacked on the slopes above.
Jordan's largest nature reserve falls 1,600 vertical metres from oak woodland to sand desert — four climate zones in one canyon, watched from a 500-year-old stone village on the rim.