Jordan

There is a moment in Jordan that travellers describe the same way decades later: the walk through the Siq at Petra, a narrow canyon of rose-coloured stone, and then the crack of light ahead widening into the carved face of the Treasury. No photograph prepares you. Petra deserves two days, including the climb to the Monastery when the crowds have gone. Then Jordan keeps delivering. Wadi Rum is desert as theatre, where you sleep in luxury camps under cliffs the colour of embers and jeeps race sunset across the sand. The Dead Sea lets you float and laugh at physics. Amman feeds you like family. It is safe, compact and endlessly welcoming. Jordan fits into a week and stays with you far longer.