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Private Day Trip to Jerash, Umm Qais and Ajloun Castle from Amman

Name: Private Day Trip to Jerash, Umm Qais and Ajloun Castle from Amman
Brand: Jordan Private Tours and Travel
SKU: 18249P4
Price: 118.00 USD
Rating: 5.0 (50 reviews)

Amman, Jordan

Jerash City and Umm Qais Full Day Private Tour

10 hours
Pickup offered
Mobile ticket
Offered in: English

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Overview

Explore Roman ruins and a hilltop fortress on a 10-hour private tour from Amman to Umm Qais, Ajloun Castle, and Jerash that includes round-trip transport in an air-conditioned vehicle. Learn about Jordan’s ancient history and culture as you visit the sites, and enjoy the flexibility to customize the day to your interests and schedule.

10-hour day trip to Jerash, Umm Qais, and Ajloun Castle with a private driver-guide
Visit Umm Qais, Aljoun, and Jerash
Round-trip hotel transport from Amman included
Flexibility to customize to your interests
Private tour is operated with just your party and a driver-guide
Entrance fees not included

What's Included

English-speaking driver
Hotel pickup and drop-off from Amman city.
Transport by private air-conditioned vehicle

Entry frees to sites and Tour guides are NOT included.
Food and drinks, unless specified
Gratuities (recommended around 5-10% of total charges)
Extra charges will apply for Pick up or Drop off from elsewhere other than Amman City.

Meeting and Pickup

Pickup points

Select a pickup point

Start time

08:00 AM

Pickup details

We will pick you up from your provided hotel address at Amman city - hotel bobby area .

What To Expect

Begin with pickup at your Amman hotel, then travel to Umm Qais (also known as Gadara) in a private vehicle. You’ll find an amphitheater and lines of chipped stone columns, but the Roman ruins true drama comes from their stunning setting: the Sea of Galilee, Mt. Tabor, and the Golan Heights are visible in the distance, and the ruins are surrounded by bright wildflowers in the spring.

Continue to Ajloun Castle, a 12th-century Muslim castle built on the remains of a historic monastery. Hear how this fortress helped defend against Crusader attacks, fell to Mongol invaders, then was finally rebuilt by the Mamluks. Climb into a tower for views of the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea.

Make a final stop at the ancient city of Jerash, a Bronze Age settlement where you’ll find Hadrian’s Arch, the Temple of Artemis, and the Forum, a sprawling oval plaza surrounded by 160 Ionic columns. Learn how the city rose alongside a Greek federation of 10 cities, then lived through Christian and Muslim rule before falling during the Crusades. After visiting Jerash, make the return trip to Amman, where this tour concludes with drop-off at your hotel.

Jerash Ruins

2 hours • Admission Ticket Not Included

Archaeological Museum of Umm Qais

1 hour • Admission Ticket Not Included

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking
Not wheelchair accessible

Travelers should have a moderate physical fitness level
This is a private tour/activity. Only your group will participate

Operated by Jordan Private Tours and Travel

Cancellation Policy

You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.

Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.
Cut-off times are based on the experience’s local time.

Traveler Photos

Featured review

Licen_X

We had a wonderful trip with Saad, our guide. The itinerary is great. This is the second trip we had with him. He is knowledgeable and very friendly - he bought local fruits and cucumbers for us to taste. When we were passing his mother-in-law’s house on our way, we had the pleasure to stop for a tea break and chat with the family. What a beautiful family and wonderful people! Thank you so much!! Saad also helped us booking and accompanied us the last day trip for baptism and city tour. The Jordan trip is so memorable filled with history learning and great experience of hospitality.

Reviews

5.0

50 reviews

Total review count and overall rating based on Viator and Tripadvisor reviews

Reviews by Viator travelers.

We perform checks on reviews

Showing 1-10 of 50 reviews

Great Private Trip.

Rangaswamy_S, Jun 2023

The trip commenced as per schedule. Driver Mr.Ahmed Habibi was punctual and picked us up from our place well on time. He was soft spoken and drove around to all the listed places safely. Not only that, he also offered refreshments time to time. Time spent at each place was adequate. Overall, We had a wonderful experience and highly recommend this tour to everyone.

The northern Jordan experience

Colin_D, May 2023

All the sites were fascinating! I especially loved the Jerash and imaging life in that era. Also loved the drive to the northern part of Jordan.

Think three times

ANDREW_S, May 2023

Guide was taxi driver. Never guided. Nice guy. Answered our ?’s when we had them. Dialogue, not! Never got out of car. Dropped off and waited. I have hard time walking. Worst was JERASH. Dropped us off at entrance and waited, so we had to walk thru park and then do return walk same way to meet him instead of driving around and meeting us at rear entrance. Good driver. Very friendly.

Response from Host, May 2023

We are really sorry for the bad experince but We have never said that the driver is a guide; he is not for sure; and they are not allowed to go into the sites as well as every site have local tour guides on each visitors center. Tourists pick up and drop of is from the designated parks and areas so they can not pickup from anywhere ! yes there is a lot of walking involved but this is how things are organized by the traffic police and minestery of tourism; you could have requested a tour guide all over the trip and we could provided one with the driver for sure; but we have never received such request.

Well-paced tour to see attractions!

Danny_N, Apr 2023

This was a well-paced tour which allowed us plenty of time to see the attractions without feeling rushed. Alaa our driver made the travel time very comfortable and even gave us a pocket wifi device so that we could stay connected throughout the day. All went to according to plan! Highly recommended for solo, couples or travellers in a small group.

Excellent day overall!

Devan_P, Mar 2023

Our trip with Yousef Jaber was really good! Yousef was really friendly, chatty and funny the whole time. He kept giving us snippets of information in between driving us to the various sights. We stopped for some lovely coffee and snacks mid morning, and he took us to a fruit shop that had excellent, yummy produce. He also took us to a brilliant restaurant in Jerash called Lebanese House for lunch (make sure to look them up - they’re really good!). Please note that although we cannot fault Yousef for anything, the trip itself is not a fully guided tour. Yousef walked us through the initial bits of Jerash and gave us a bit of a tour, but only licensed tour guides are allowed to come in for a good majority of Jerash. If you need a tour of Ajloun Castle, Umm Qais and Jerash, you need to get separate licensed tour guides as well.

Amazing day trip northern area of Jordan

Rachel_L, Dec 2022

Excellent day exploring the northern part of Jordan with our expert and hospitable driver, Majd. Jerash is incredible and well worth the last stop of the tour.

Great itinerary

Nikki_G, Dec 2022

This tour company put together a great itinerary of these historic sites. Our driver, Ibrahim, contacted us the morning of the tour to let us know he was on the way. He was responsive, polite, funny, helpful, and exactly what you want in a driver/guide. The tour company is also responsive - I had a question for the company that I sent when I woke up at 2am and could not go back to sleep. I feel bad that someone responded within a few minutes as a assumed they would reply much later that morning but they are very responsive and helpful. The drive from Amman to the north is beautiful. We enjoyed exploring the pristine Ajloun Castle and the pictures of us dressed up as Sultan and Sultana are our favorite from the vacation. We also enjoyed chatting with the Bedouin over tea and coffee afterwards. The ruins at Umm Qais are impressive, especially since most of the area was constucted using black Basalt. The black basalt theater is the only one in the world. The local guide onsite was informative and funny. Jerash is huge and Ibrahim advised us on how to see the site. We had a productive day sightseeing and appreciate our driver and tour company facilitating this excursion.

Exploring Jordan

Evelyn_S, Nov 2022

We had a wonderful time visiting all these sites in Jordan but my favorite of the three was Jerash. Our driver was very helpful, friendly and informative.

Awesome!

QuinnEugenia_T, Nov 2022

Great and excellent service! I was assigned to Driver Murad from Jordan private tour. He was flexible with the tour, very hospitable, went on an extra mile and took me to explore amman old town. Introduced me to their local famous dessert and their traditional food. Out of goodwill he had also arranged a driver to take me back to the airport. Thank you so much for the kind gesture, awesome service and great recommendations! You made my Jordan trip a memorable one.

Reliable

Victoria_B, Oct 2022

Omar was great! He switched our tour to the castle, Jerash, and the then the citadel instead of umm Qais. We wanted more time in Amman.

We had the most amazing...

Erin_C, Sep 2022

We had the most amazing time with Hazem. He was charming and funny and loves his country which makes him an amazing guide. He adjusted the trip to fit our wants and needs, and we got to experience all of north Jordan without feeling rushed. Will share a ride with him anytime.

Excellent day trip!

Michael_S, Sep 2022

Raed, the driver, organized a terrific day trip from Amman to these three historic sites. Bader was gracious and thoughtful and shared interesting perspectives on Jordanian history and society along the way. The tour ran about 8 hours or so with plenty of flexibility for the traveler to spend more time in one place than the other. Highly recommended!

Touring flexibility and the human touch

Marc_H, Jul 2022

We took this tour knowing we wanted to concentrate on just two of the three listed destinations (Jerash and Ajlon Castle). The third destination, Umm Qais, would have required something like three or four extra hours traveling to the far north of Jordan. The driver was very accommodating and said we could do a city tour of Amman visiting the Citadel and Amphitheater in old Amman instead of the Umm Qais part of the itinerary. The driver spoke excellent English and told us about life in Jordan and was happy to answer all of our questions. At the two main historical sites we visited we were able to get in easily having purchased the Jordan Go pass prior to arriving in country. The Jordan Go pass covers the admission cost to something like 30 different sites across Jordan. It also covers the cost of the Jordan visa which is another plus. At both main sites that we visited we hired an official tour guide (for a small additional expense) to describe the history and significance of the place. Good guides and well worth the extra cost. The driver waited patiently nearby as we visited the sites and was there at each site entrance when we were ready to go to the next destination. My wife ended up hurting her knee as a result of several days of extensive waking and stair climbing during our several days of visiting sites throughout Jordan. The driver was very caring and accommodating to make my wife comfortable. On our return to Amman he stopped at a local pharmacy so I could buy a knee brace for my wife. We ended up driving past the Citadel and Amphitheater in Amman as we were done touring for the day. We did want to do so gold jewelry shopping though and the driver was able to take us to a part of town with several jewelry stores we could visit. So the day ended a little differently than we perhaps expected at the start, but the driver’s flexibility and kindness throughout the day allowed us to make very good use of our last full day in Jordan. Would readily recommend this tour to all interested in visiting comparatively well preserved historical sites.

Wonderful trip and experience!

Licen_X, Jun 2022

I booked this tour at the...

Stephanie_I, May 2022

I booked this tour at the last minute and I am really glad that I did. When researching places to visit in Jordan Umm Qais and Aljoun Castle never came up. If the only reason you book this tour is for the amazing drive from Amman up through the lush green mountains of northern Jordan than that in of itself is worth it. Umm Qais is an obscure site with amazing well preserved Roman ruins high up in the mountains. The day I went my husband and I had to whole place to ourselves. It was a lovely hike among the ruins with breathtaking views of the Sea of Galilee with Syria to one side and Palestine to the other. There is a lovely open air restaurant at the site which I would recommend eating at since the only dining options at Jerash was a unappealing, over priced touristy buffet. Next we visited Aljoun Castle, a medieval looking castle, complete with a draw bridge and moat! It is a quick look, about an hour. The day my husband and I were there it was raining and very foggy but I am sure the views on a clear day are amazing. I think the fog and gloominess actually added to the spooky vibe of this place. Next to Jerash, which is huge and very crowded. The ruins were well preserved and awesome but it was a little bit overwhelming. I would definitely recommend spending less time at Jerash and seeing Umm Qais and Aljoun Castle within the same tour. Viator does offer tours just to Jerash but I thoroughly enjoyed this tour.

One of the most complete Roman period buildings outside Italy

Derrick_Q, Apr 2022

It’s a long trip between the 3 places. In the end, I only managed to do 2 out of the 3 destination as each places are far away from Amman and takes time to explore the place. I gave Aljoun Castle a missed as I was told it’s very similar to Shoubak ruin castle which I have visited. Jerash is a must as the place was almost a complete city by itself with Roman civic public places with marble and columns still pretty much intact. I spent too much time in Um Quais otherwise I would be able to visit Aljoun Castle. And all thanks to Ramadan period, ticket booth closed one hour earlier than normal time. Otherwise the tour would be fully completed. Thanks to my driver Murad who helped me the right decision to skip Aljoun Castle or else less time for Jerash. You need a good 3 hours in Jerash to explore all the important monuments and temples

Highly Recommend

Bobby_D, Jun 2021

I would highly recommend this tour for anyone wanting to explore Jordan north of Amman. I requested to not visit Ajloun Castle for more time at Umm Qais. The tour company accommodated and gave me plenty of time at both Umm Qais and Jerash. I had plenty of time to explore both locations and did not feel rushed. We stopped outside Jerash and enjoyed some local food. I will be using this company when returning to Jordan.

Response from Host, Jun 2021

Thank you for the nice review, it was our pleasure at Jordan Private Tours and Travel to have you with us.. We are happy to know that you enjoyed your trip. Jordan Private Tours and Travel

Wonderful Day Trip

Relax108905, Jan 2020

We has an excellent time with Mohammed who not only drove us between sites but also helped us get breakfast on the road and showed us the local cuisine over a fantastic lunch. The sites themselves are large and well preserved with Jerash as the real highlight. Make sure you allow enough time (at least couple of hours) to really explore Jerash especially if it's the last stop.

Response from Host, Jul 2021

Thank you, It was our pleasure at Jordan Private Tours and travel to have you with us. We are happy to know that you enjoyed your trip. We hope to be always with your trust and good judgement,, Jordan Private Tours & Travel

Day Trip to Jerash

cmram0s, Sep 2019

Wonderful tour. Our guide Raed Allabadi, was very knowledge of the sites and history of Jordan. Excellent service and attention. We Could not have asked for a better ambassador for the Jordan.

Our drive George was amazing! He was...

Upeksha_P, May 2017

Our drive George was amazing! He was so friendly and sweet. He took us to some of the local spots along the way to eat and shared a lot of great stories!