Dana Biosphere Reserve: 300 km² On The Road To Petra

Dana is not a viewpoint. It is a 29,140-hectare reserve that falls off the edge of the Jordanian plateau into the Rift Valley, from 1,500 m down to 100 m below sea level, and the 1,600 m of drop is the point: the top is Mediterranean scrub and the bottom is desert, within a few hours' walk of each other.

UNESCO put it on the Man and the Biosphere list in 1998. The village at the top is Ottoman-era stone, restored, and most of what people come for starts from there and goes downhill — which means the return is uphill, in the afternoon.

This is the practical reason a Petra site has a Dana page. The 235 km from Amman to Petra runs down the spine of the country, and Dana is on it. Adding the reserve to a southbound trip costs a stop, not a detour — unlike Jerash, which is in the opposite direction entirely.

What it does cost is a day. There is no version of Dana that fits into a Petra day trip: by the time you have walked anywhere worth walking, the coach has gone. On this site it appears on one tour, the four-day loop, and that is the honest shortest version.

The other way to do Dana is to walk out of it. A section of the Jordan Trail runs from Dana to Petra and is sold as a four-day guided trek, camping, arriving at Petra from the back rather than through the visitor centre. It is $616 and it is a different holiday from anything else on this site.

We are not going to print a distance for it, because we have not found one on a source we would stand behind. Four days on foot, guided, with camps — that is what the listing says, and that is what we will say.