This is the day trip that requires the most honesty of any in this guide. The Petra from Sharm El Sheikh circuit exists, operators run it, and people book it. But understanding what you are actually signing up for before you hand over 250–300 USD is essential.
The Gulf of Aqaba separates Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt) from Aqaba (Jordan) by about 25–30 kilometres at the crossing point. A fast ferry makes the crossing in approximately 90 minutes. From Aqaba, Petra is 2 hours by road. The arithmetic is clear — you can physically get from Sharm to Petra and back in a day. What the arithmetic does not capture is what that day actually feels like.
The ferry: Sharm El Sheikh to Aqaba
Two main ferry services connect the Egyptian and Jordanian sides of the Gulf of Aqaba:
Fast ferry: a passenger-only catamaran service running between Sharm El Sheikh (or Nuweiba) and Aqaba. The crossing takes approximately 70–90 minutes. Not all services run daily — schedule reliability has varied over the years, and operators have changed. Verify current schedule and availability before building your trip around this crossing.
Slow car ferry: a car and passenger ferry operating primarily between Nuweiba (100 km north of Sharm on the Egyptian side) and Aqaba. The crossing takes 3–4 hours. Less relevant for a Petra day trip but important for those driving.
For a Petra day trip from Sharm, the fast ferry from Sharm El Sheikh port is the relevant service.
Egyptian exit fees: departure from Egypt requires an exit visa stamp and associated fees. The fees and procedures vary — your tour operator will handle these if you are on an organized tour. If travelling independently, verify the current requirements at the Sharm El Sheikh ferry terminal.
Jordanian entry (Aqaba Special Economic Zone): entering Jordan through Aqaba port qualifies for the free visa under the Aqaba Special Economic Zone provisions. No pre-arranged Jordanian visa is needed for most Western passport holders.
What a Sharm–Petra day tour actually looks like
Operators who offer this day trip are not lying when they describe it as a day trip. They are simply being technically accurate in a way that obscures the human cost. Here is the actual schedule:
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 00:30–1:00 AM | Hotel pickup in Sharm El Sheikh |
| 2:00–3:00 AM | Ferry departure from Sharm |
| 4:00–5:00 AM | Arrive Aqaba, Jordan entry procedures |
| 5:00–6:00 AM | Drive to Petra begins |
| 7:00–8:00 AM | Arrive Wadi Musa / Petra visitor centre |
| 8:00 AM – 1:00 PM | In Petra (5 hours) |
| 1:00–1:30 PM | Return drive to Aqaba |
| 3:30 PM | Ferry back to Sharm El Sheikh |
| 5:00–6:00 PM | Arrive Sharm El Sheikh |
Total time from hotel to hotel: approximately 17–20 hours. Petra itself: 5 hours. Sleep lost: the entire night.
Some tours adjust these times slightly, but the fundamental structure — very early departure, overnight ferry or pre-dawn crossing, full day at Petra, evening return — does not change.
The physical reality: most people who do this trip return exhausted and report that they felt too tired in Petra to fully appreciate it. The Treasury is still the Treasury. The Siq is still the Siq. But you will see them through the fog of sleep deprivation after 3–4 hours without rest.
From Sharm El Sheikh: day tour to Petra by ferry From Sharm El Sheikh: Petra day tourThe honest recommendation
If you are in Sharm El Sheikh and you want to see Petra, the best version of this trip is not the day trip — it is a 2-night Jordan extension. Leave on day one (morning ferry), overnight in Aqaba or Wadi Musa, visit Petra properly on day two, and return to Sharm on day three. This costs more (hotel, two nights of accommodation) but delivers a qualitatively different experience of one of the most important archaeological sites in the world.
The 2-day version also allows you to add Wadi Rum — 60 km from Aqaba, 1 hour by road — to the itinerary. Wadi Rum overnight with a Bedouin camp, combined with a full Petra day, is an extraordinary 48–72 hours.
If 2 nights is impossible because of the trip structure (package holiday at Sharm with fixed dates, specific departure constraints), the day trip is the only option and it is still worth doing. You will see Petra. It will not be your best possible Petra experience, but Petra under difficult circumstances is still Petra.
Cost breakdown for the Sharm–Petra day trip
| Item | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| Organized day tour (all-in) | 250–300 USD |
| Egyptian exit fees | included in most tour prices |
| Jordan visa (Aqaba ZAS) | Free |
| Petra entrance | 50 JOD (~70 USD) — check if included |
| Ferry | included in tour price |
| Guide in Petra | included in most tours |
| Meals | partially included or supplement |
The pricing for these tours is high relative to other Jordan day trips because the logistics are complex: ferry booking, two sets of border fees, Jordanian ground transport and a guide. Operators bear genuine costs here.
Doing this independently is theoretically possible (book your own ferry, hire a taxi in Aqaba) but does not save enough money to justify the additional organizational complexity.
What you will see in 5 hours at Petra
A 5-hour Petra visit from Sharm, arriving around 7:00–8:00 AM, can cover:
- Full Siq walk to the Treasury (40 minutes)
- Treasury and immediate viewpoint (30–45 minutes)
- Street of Facades, Royal Tombs (45 minutes)
- Colonnaded Street (20 minutes)
- Basin Restaurant area for a short break
- Optional: Monastery approach (850 steps, 1.5 hours up and back) — only realistic if you have energy after the transit
This covers the essential Petra experience. You will not cover Petra comprehensively. The High Place of Sacrifice, the Byzantine Church, the Petra Back Door, Petra by Night — none of these are compatible with a 5-hour visit that follows an overnight transit.
Practical tips if you do this trip
Sleep on the ferry: whatever sleep you can get on the ferry crossing makes a significant difference to your Petra energy. Bring a pillow or travel neck support.
Eat before Petra: have breakfast in Aqaba during the drive — the Basin Restaurant inside Petra charges premium prices and you will not want to lose time. Carry water (2 litres minimum).
Prioritize: decide in advance whether you want the Monastery or the Royal Tombs. You likely will not have energy and time for both. The Treasury + Siq + Royal Tombs combination covers the most iconic elements. The Monastery is the better choice for those who want something beyond the signature image.
Keep your Jordanian entry document: you will need it at the exit border.
Jordanian currency: the Petra entrance can be paid in JOD or USD. Card payments are unreliable inside the site. Have cash (50 JOD or 70 USD) ready.
The Aqaba to Petra road: what you will see on the drive
The drive from Aqaba to Wadi Musa (the gateway to Petra) takes about 2 hours through some of the most dramatic desert scenery in the region. After leaving Aqaba port, the road heads north on the Desert Highway through the Hisma plateau — a broad desert basin of red and orange sandstone, hemmed by low sandstone cliffs and scattered with basalt boulders. The colours shift through salmon pink, rose, orange and brown depending on the light and the time of day.
At around the 100 km mark, the road turns west and begins the climb into the highlands around Wadi Musa. The vegetation gradually increases — sparse acacia, then some scrub, then the distinctive pink blooms of oleander along the watercourses in spring. The sandstone plateau of Petra’s surroundings comes into view.
Wadi Musa town sits in a narrow valley at an altitude of about 1,000 metres — significantly cooler than Aqaba and, in winter, genuinely cold. In spring (March–May), the surrounding hills have green vegetation and wildflowers that contrast sharply with the red rock. This is a significant reason why spring visits to Petra are so memorable — the combination of wildflowers, mild temperatures and optimal light is not replicated in any other season.
Why Petra is worth any distance
It is worth being explicit about why people make 20-hour round trips from Sharm El Sheikh, or 14-hour days from Eilat, or 12-hour days from Amman to see Petra. The site is not merely impressive — it is one of those rare places where the physical reality is sufficient to produce a genuine psychological effect.
The Siq, with its 80-metre walls and its ancient water channels, builds an anticipation that the Treasury then fulfills in a way that few other monuments anywhere in the world manage. The Treasury is photographed billions of times. You have seen it. And yet the moment you emerge from the Siq’s darkness into the forecourt and see the rose-carved facade above you — at a scale the photographs do not convey — almost everyone stops. The experience is real.
Beyond the Treasury, the scale of the Nabataean city becomes apparent. The Royal Tombs are enormous. The Monastery (Ad Deir) is larger than the Treasury. The Colonnaded Street extends for hundreds of metres. The water system — channels, cisterns, ceramic pipes — runs through 150 kilometres of infrastructure. The Nabataeans did not just carve facades; they built and managed a complete city.
And unlike most major archaeological sites, Petra is still partly mysterious. We know the Nabataeans controlled the incense routes. We know they were wealthy. We know their architecture. We do not know the precise function of most of the tomb facades, or exactly what the Treasury commemorates, or what daily life in the ancient city felt like. This incompleteness makes the site alive in a way that fully documented sites are not.
From Sharm, in a very long day, you will see enough of this to understand why the journey was worth making.
Alternative: can you fly from Sharm to Aqaba?
There are occasional charter flights between Sharm El Sheikh and Aqaba (via Aqaba’s King Hussein International Airport). If available, a flight reduces the transit significantly. Check current routes at the time of booking — this is not a fixed scheduled route and availability varies significantly.
Alternatively, several visitors reach Aqaba via Cairo (fly Sharm → Cairo → Aqaba on Royal Jordanian or Egypt Air) — this is a multi-day arrangement, not a day trip.
Sharm El Sheikh and the Sinai: context for the crossing
Sharm El Sheikh sits at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula — a piece of Egyptian territory that juts between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba. The city is almost entirely a beach resort town built around tourism, with diving as its primary draw (the coral reefs around Ras Mohammed National Park at the very tip of the peninsula are among the finest in the world), supplemented by the usual resort economy of hotels, restaurants and excursion operators.
The Sinai has a complex political history. Egypt controlled it from antiquity, lost it to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, and regained it under the Camp David Accords in 1982. Sharm El Sheikh’s rapid growth as a resort city came primarily after the Egyptian return and accelerated sharply in the 1990s and 2000s. The city hosted multiple major international summits and peace negotiations during this period, earning it a prominence disproportionate to its size.
The Aqaba Gulf crossing — Sharm El Sheikh to Aqaba — is thus a crossing from Egyptian to Jordanian territory across a body of water that is simultaneously the Red Sea extension and the boundary between the African and Asian tectonic plates. The Israeli city of Eilat is visible from both Sharm and Aqaba when the air is clear. Saudi Arabia is on the eastern shore, 30 km across the Gulf of Aqaba from Aqaba. Four countries around one body of water — a geographical improbability that reflects the compressed political history of the region.
The ferry crossing encapsulates this complexity in miniature. You board in Egypt, clear Egyptian exit immigration, ride across 25 km of water that four countries claim various interests in, and arrive in the Jordanian Special Economic Zone. In 90 minutes, you have crossed between continents, between two different legal systems, and between two different historical traditions of relationship with the Petra region.
What to know about the Aqaba entry process by ferry
Arriving in Aqaba by ferry from Sharm El Sheikh enters you into the Aqaba Special Economic Zone. The entry process involves:
Jordan entry card: complete the arrival card on the ferry or at the terminal. Standard information — purpose of visit (tourism), length of stay, hotel name.
Visa: free on arrival at Aqaba for most Western, European and many other passport holders. The list of eligible nationalities is long; verify at the Jordanian Ministry of Interior website before travel. Citizens of some countries require a pre-arranged visa; this applies to a relatively small number of nationalities.
Currency: the Jordanian dinar (JOD) is the currency from this point. ATMs at Aqaba port and throughout the city dispense JOD. The rate at ATMs is generally better than money changers at the port.
Transport from Aqaba port: your organized tour will have vehicles waiting. Independent travellers should expect taxi drivers at the terminal — negotiate the rate to your destination before getting in. Aqaba taxi drivers are generally honest but prices to Petra (80–100 JOD one way) are non-negotiable at the port where demand is high.
FAQ
How long is the ferry from Sharm El Sheikh to Aqaba?
The fast passenger ferry takes approximately 70–90 minutes. A slower car ferry (usually departing from Nuweiba rather than Sharm) takes 3–4 hours.
How much does the Sharm–Petra day trip cost?
Organized tours all-in: 250–300 USD per person. Petra entrance (50 JOD) may or may not be included — verify with the operator.
Is the Sharm–Petra day trip worth it?
Petra is always worth seeing. The day trip from Sharm is exhausting — 20 hours door-to-door for 5 hours at the site. If a 2-night Jordan extension is possible, take it. If not, the day trip delivers the essential Petra experience under difficult conditions.
What time does the ferry to Aqaba leave from Sharm?
Ferry schedules vary by season and operator. Day trip tours typically depart Sharm hotels around 1:00–2:00 AM to catch an early ferry. Verify current ferry schedules at Sharm El Sheikh port.
Do you need a Jordan visa from Sharm El Sheikh?
Travellers entering Jordan through Aqaba port receive a free visa on arrival under the Aqaba Special Economic Zone provisions. Most Western passport holders do not need a pre-arranged visa.
Is there a direct flight from Sharm to Petra?
There is no commercial airport at Petra. The nearest airports are Aqaba (King Hussein International, 2 hours from Petra) and Amman (Queen Alia International, 3 hours from Petra). Charter flights between Sharm and Aqaba operate occasionally; check current availability.