Picturing Jordan

Jordan’s Dead Sea coast is the perfect place to get away from the hustle and bustle of Amman. If you’re looking for something a little more wholesome and minimalistic — not to mention cheaper — than an elegant five-star resort, look no further than Wild Jordan’s chalets at Wadi Mujib.

Wild Jordan has an ingenious day trip where you pay them to take you to pick olives on a farm in Ajloun — the family who owns the farm even comes out to watch you and give you tips! Like I said: genius. Jokes aside, it was actually a lot of fun, and the point is to educate you about the olive harvest and its importance to people in the region.

There’s an amazing wetland nature preserve an hour and a half from Amman — in thirty minutes of walking around, I saw birds, snakes, crabs, fish, and even water buffaloes! For thousands of years it was a massive, thriving oasis whose ecological diversity supported human settlements, but in the past few decades it has come dangerously close to drying up due to increased water usage from surrounding cities.