Studying and living in Amman is a fantastic experience, and there are a ton of benefits to sticking to one place while living abroad and really making it feel like home. That being said, it would be crazy not to leave the city for the weekend every so often and explore the rest of the country. While some of my favorite memories have been traveling with friends on our own trips, the Middlebury School in Jordan also arranges a lot of amazing weekend trips for the students to go on.
These include a trip to Wadi Mujib, where we got to hike to the Feynan ecolodge, a small Bedouin run hotel, where there is little to no man mind light. At night, most of us slept on the roof and saw some incredible views of the Milky Way. Words (and phone cameras!) really can’t do it justice, but I can assure you it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. The following day, we hung out at the Dead Sea, which was also so much fun.
More recently, we went on a trip to Wadi Rum, which is hands down one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Also, as a quick bit of trivia, Lawrence of Arabia wrote a great deal on Wadi Rum, as he was moved by its beauty during his travels. During this trip, we rode around the valley in the back of 4X4 trucks, seeing all the incredible sights, views and prehistoric cave etchings.
Finally, to make these trips even better, they are generally heavily subsidized by the program and super affordable!
