We would like to have an excellent guide for an afternoon in Petra. I understand that some of the guides I might find at the visitors center would be very good, but some might not be.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a particularly good guide, and information on how to contact them?

Thank you very much.

Is there a reason you feel you need a guide? I would recommend having a map of Petra and perhaps a book telling you the main locations and then exploring on your own. We were very glad NOT to have a guide at Petra. You can take your time and explore all the smaller areas that might not be one of the main locations, but are still wonderful.

I agree, why do you want a guide? I had a great time for two days without a guide. Lonely Planet has a reasonable map.

Thanks for the feedback. We don't normally love to have guides, and I would be delighted to save the money. But I got the sense from other posts that a good guide for part of the time we were there would add considerably to what we got out of the visit.

Does anyone want to make the case for a guide?

Thanks,

Len

Len,

We had a guide for half of the day and the rest to ourselves.

We were lucky in getting a guide who was one of the two lead archeologists for the project directly under the Treasury building. His name is Sami Nawafleh, and he is available at the Visitors Center there.

He was just full of info and we would have had to have had our noses buried in a book to get nearly as much as he was telling is.

I have photos from the walk at
http://bit.ly/petraphotos
and you can choose to use the slideshow as it's easier.

Press Function key F11 if you have a PC, to get rid of toolbars until you press F11 again.

In a short videoclip
at http://bitly/petratreasury
he is at a table with us across from the Treasury shortly after we arrived after the gorgeous walk. You can hear him talk a bit there.

- Andrys
http://www.pbase.com/andrys/petra

If you have a guide you can always tell them to "go over there and wait" so that you can meander off by yourself. Then, if you need him, call him over.

We had a lovely guide (don't recall name), but he gave us wide berth when we wanted to wander on our own. Time spent with him was great as he was a wealth of knowledge, excellent English, sense of humor. Was he better or worse than others, I can't say, but he fit our personalities and needs perfectly. Certainly worth the tip we gave when we departed.

The Rough Guide to Jordan says "there are still plenty of places in Petra where you shouldn't venture without a guide."If you only stay along the main routes when visiting Petra then you should do ok without a guide. If you plan on venturing beyond the main routes then a guide is probably a wise idea since it can be easy to lose the path.