How Much is a Trip to Egypt & Jordan? Full Spending Breakdown

I have just got back from one of the BEST trips I’ve ever been on! 6 nights in Jordan & Egypt ticking off not one, not two but THREE major bucket list items! We floated in the Dead Sea, explored Petra AND saw the Great Pyramids of Egypt plus spent a night in the Wadi Rum desert.

But how much did this trip of a lifetime cost? My initial budget for the trip was £1000 but how much did it actually cost? Let’s break it down…

The Big Things

First of all, let’s look at the costs of the big things we paid for before the trip had even began. I’m talking flights, hotels, transfers and visa fees.

Flights = £300.32

Unsurprisingly, our biggest expense of the trip was the flights. We took four flights in total on this trip, travelling from London to Jordan, 2 flights getting from Jordan to Egypt and then Egypt to London. We flew with Wizz Air from and back to the UK and then took two Royal Jordanian Airline flights to get from the Jordan to Egypt. Let’s break it down…

• London -> Amman = £106.34
• Aqaba -> Amman -> Cairo = £126.50
• Cairo -> London = £67.48

These flight totals include half a 20kg case as we added 2 on for the group of 4 of us and this was more than enough. We did pay for seats on the first flight from London to Amman as it was only £8 each and the flight was almost 6 hours. However, on the way back to the UK we didn’t bother as it would’ve been £25 each.

Hotels = £191.60

We paid a total of £191.60 each for 5 nights in hotels. Whilst at the Dead Sea we stayed at the Hilton resort which cost us a total of £468.02 for two double rooms for three nights. We did book this with my sisters boyfriends friends and family discount as he was a Hilton employee. However, on arrival we found out one of our double rooms had been upgraded to a Junior King Suite due to his gold member status. And when I tell you this room was insane, I mean it! Honestly one of the nicest hotel rooms I’ve ever seen in person!

Whilst in Cairo we stayed at the Spire West Hotel in Giza which cost us a total of £298.36 for two double rooms for two nights. Great value PLUS both rooms had views of the pyramids!!

Both hotels had breakfast included which was a brilliant addition and we really took full advantage each morning. The Hilton staff were even nice enough to provide to-go breakfast boxes when we had an early departure from the dead sea.

Visas = £35.35

For this trip, as British citizens, we had to get tourist visas for both Jordan and Egypt. These were super easy to get. We had to fill in an online application and pay the fees for both.

For Jordan, we decided to pre-purchase the Jordan Pass (the Wanderer one) which included a waived visa fee, 1-day entry to Petra and entry to over 300 other sites. The pass was 70JOD/£76.82 each. We were on a time crunch so only used the pass to get into Petra and to waive the fee to the Wadi Rum desert. These two alone would have been £60.36 hence having the Jordan Pass reduced the visa fee from $40/£29.29 if you paid on arrival to just $22.48/£16.46. Definitely worth getting!

For Egypt, you have two options. You can either apply and pay for the tourist visa in advance or pay $25 USD in cash for a visa on arrival. We decided not to risk it and paid in advance which exchanged to £18.89 each. This made our arrival in Egypt so super smoothly, even if the website was a nightmare to navigate and I almost threw my laptop across the room a few times.

Transfers & Airport Parking = £24.88

We flew from London Luton airport and as our flight to Jordan was at 7am, public transport wasn’t really an option. So we made the decision to drive down and pay for airport parking. We chose a drop & go Airparks carpark not far from the terminal which included a shuttle bus directly to departures. The experience was seemless on arrival and also when we returned to Luton to collect the keys and car. Parking for the 7 days was £23.99 total breaking down to just £6 each. Bargain!

To get to and from the airports whilst on the trip we used booking.com to book all of our transfers. For four adults and two 20kg suitcases this is how much they came to…

• Amman International to Hilton Dead Sea = £41.12
• Cairo International to Spire West Hotel = £17.50
• Spire West Hotel to Sphinx International = £16.92

So in total the three transfers we’d pre-booked with booking.com came to £75.54 or £18.89 each.

On the Ground

The second half of my spending diary will be breaking down the expenses whilst in Jordan and Egypt. Let’s go…

Activities = £267.80

This trip was very activity heavy as we had lots of bucket list moments to tick off in both Jordan and Egypt. In terms of activities we spent a day exploring Petra, floated in the dead sea, had massages in the hotel spa, spent a night in the Wadi Rum desert and explored the Great Pyramids of Egypt plus went inside one and the grand museum. Let’s break down the costs of each activity we did…

Exploring Petra = £68.04

This total includes a 1-day ticket into Petra (£54.87) which we bought through our Jordan Pass and my share of the official tour guide we booked (£13.17). My top tip for visiting Petra is to ignore all the taxi drivers outside the site trying to sell you on a “special” entrance and to go straight to the visitors centre if you want to book a tour guide.

The official rate is 50JOD for a tour guide to take you on the main trail which is around £52.68 but it is possible to explore Petra without one. Our guide was good for keeping the camel and horse drivers at bay and giving us some history about the place but I still think the experience would have been just as good without him.

Floating in the Dead Sea = £0

One of the highlights of the trip was floating in the dead sea and doing a 4-step mud treatment. This involved an initial float in the dead sea, which is a crazy experience as it really is psychically impossible not to float, covering yourself in a mud mask, letting that dry for 10-15 minutes before heading back into the dead sea to wash it off. Once you have washed the mud mask off it’s back out to scrub your body down with a salt soap and then you get hosed off with cold water. This entire experience was included as part of our hotel stay at the Hilton Dead Sea Resort and Spa, winner!

Hotel Massage = £56.96

Now booking this was a spur of the moment decision which worked out perfectly! After a long day exploring Petra, a full-body massage was much needed and the prices at the hotel spa were surprisingly reasonable. I paid 55JOD/£56.96 for a 55-minute full-body massage which was incredible.

A night in the Wadi Rum Desert = £82.43

This was an incredible experience that I would 100% recommend to anyone who is planning a trip to Jordan. We booked a full Wadi Rum Desert experience through Wadi Rum Desert Tours and it was amazing. We paid 55JOD/£57.94 (higher exchange rate as we had to get cash out so I’ve factored in the fee) for 3-meals, a jeep tour of the desert, sand boarding and overnight accommodation in the desert. Such an incredible experience! The additional £24.49 added onto the experience total was part of the tip we left for our excellent guide, Omar, who made our trip great!

Great Pyramids of Giza & Grand Museum = £54.89

Another major bucket list experience on this trip was visiting the Great Pyramids of Giza! We paid around £10.96 for our entrance tickets into the site and then paid an additional £23.49 for tickets into King Khufu’s pyramid. No one warned us how hard the journey into the pyramid actually is but it was worth it for the experience.

After we’d explored the pyramids we headed over to the new Grand Egyptian Museum which is well worth the £20.09 entrance price that we paid.

Eating Out = £162.22

We strategically picked hotels that included breakfast so we could fill up for the day and reduce our food costs. This plan worked really well and most days we only had two meals. We also didn’t spend any extra money on food for the two days we were in the Wadi Rum desert as meals were included in our overnight package.

This food total is for my share of four dinners, one lunch and a travel day mcdonalds. We primarily ate in the hotel restaurants as they were brilliant. We also avoided paying for expensive airport meals or snacks by using our free lounge passes from the Amex Gold Card.

Drinks = £59.96

We drank a lot of yummy cocktails during our stay at the Dead Sea and my share for these came to £59.96. We had one chilled day during our trip and we spent the majority of the day lounging around the pool drinking cocktails. Dream day!

Taxis = £81.59

We primarily used private taxis to get from place to place in Jordan and my share of these came to £81.59. We booked these with the help of our contact, Omar, from the desert and paid reasonable prices for the long journeys. For reference these were the journeys and the prices…

• Dead Sea to Petra and back = 150JOD
• Dead Sea to Wadi Rum = 100JOD
• Wadi Rum to Aqaba Airport = 35JOD

We did end up paying an additional £6 each to our taxi driver from the Wadi Rum to Aqaba airport so he would drop us off in the town, keep our bags and then come back for us later on in the afternoon.

eSim = £9.60

Airalo is my go-to for esims when I’m travelling outside of the EU free roaming network. Their app is super easy to navigate and setting the sim up is very easy. For this trip I purchased a 7-day 5GB esim that was eligible for the Middle East and North Africa so worked perfectly for this trip.

Get £2.50 off your FIRST Airalo eSim with the code JESS6479

Total Spend

Like I mentioned at the start of the post, my budget for the trip was £1000. This figure was kind of pulled out of fresh air as an amount I’d like to keep the trip too but without much information. And low and behold I came in only £133.31 OVER budget which I’m super happy about!

This whole trip cost me £1133.31 which I think this is an incredible figure for the sheer amount of things we did on this trip and we genuinely didn’t scrimp or cut back on anything.

What do you think? Is this total more or less than you’d have thought? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments…