I watch headlights slowly approach the border checkpoint on the hillside opposite. “When we came from Syria, each one of us had a backpack and a pair of underwear,” Maher Kiwan laughs, a broad smile lighting up his eyes. He waves his cigarette as he gestures, his other arm is draped affectionately on his wife Rufaida’s shoulder.
“We came with nothing. We’re proud of ourselves that we’ve worked hard to build our lives, our home, our business,” adds Rufaida as she raises both hands and gestures for us to start eating. She’s been cooking all day. Us, we’re her business. And tourism has become central to the life that her and her family have built for themselves.
I’m in Jordan. But I’m not in in Petra. I’m not riding jeeps and staying in a desert camp in Wadi Rum. And I’m not floating in the Dead Sea. I’m in Umm Qais, a tiny village in northern Jordan, right on the border of Syria, Israel, and Lebanon.
As a hot breeze sweeps the balcony of the Kiwans’ home where we’re sat, the call to prayer begins to reverberate across the narrow valley. The families’ happiness, their warmth, fills up the space.
Upon a sparkly brown tablecloth sits a feast of baba ganoush with pomegranate molasses, along with tahini and bamia (a stew with okra and tomato, chicken and rice); all food from these cross-culture border lands. From here, I look directly into Israel and what once was Syria, now a DMZ (demilitarised zone).
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A cockerel crows. “New neighbours,” says Rufaida. They already had a chicken, so she gave them a duck. I nod along. “Sounds sensible,” I agree.
I’ll find out over the coming days just what makes this area so incredibly special. But looking around this family home while being enveloped by such incredible warmth, the impact of tourism on both the family and visitors like me it obvious. And it feels both intimate and profound.
When visitors come to Jordan – just a five-hour flight from the UK – they usually head to its “Golden Triangle” sites. As they should, they’re wonderful. But recently, visitors haven’t been coming to Jordan.
Following the onset of conflict in Iran and wider region, Jordan was placed under a FCDO travel advisory “against all but essential travel”. That advisory has now been lifted.
Yet prior to that, tourism across the country had already been massively impacted. In “normal” times, Jordan’s key sites attract large numbers. In 2023 for example, Petra received 1.15 million visitors, and Wadi Rum over half a million. But these aren’t normal times, and Jordan’s tourism industry has been hit hard by the nation’s proximity to Gaza and Israel. Petra received just 457,215 visitors in 2024. From January to August 2025, there were 291,169.
Though latest figures up to February 2026 show an improvement – from February 2025 to February 2026, there was a three per cent increase in visitors from the UK, according to the Jordan Tourism Board – the impact of that downturn has been stark.
I see for myself – from the handful of visitors walking Petra’s gorge, to the gift shop owner at my hotel who has seen no customers for weeks, and shuttered accommodation – how this severe reduction in numbers is hurting a country that relies on visitors. Tourism is the number two foreign currency earner, and accounts for 11 per cent of the workforce. It’s surreal to stand in front of the Treasury and take a picture with not a single other person in it.
Predating recent events across the region, new routes, new tours, and a concerted effort by both the country’s tourism board and travel operators has been looking to push travellers out into new regions. And for good reason.
“We want address the concept of overtourism, and spread the wealth of travel to more communities,” says Yves Marceau, VP Product at small-group escorted tour G Adventures, whose brand new Ultimate Active Jordan itinerary I’m on.
In fact, the company has launched 12 new trips in the past 12 months covering Jordan, with a commitment to venturing into new areas and experiences. “When we looked at Jordan, we had an opportunity with the slow down in travel, to really take the time to rethink where we wanted to go.”
The 10-day Jordan Active Adventure, does visit capital Amman, the Dead Sea, Petra and Wadi Rum. But guests also head to lesser-visited regions including the Dana Biosphere Reserve (Jordan’s first and largest), Wadi Dana (known for its dramatic desert, mountains, and canyons), and Umm Qais, stopping at community-run projects en-route such as Beit Khayrat Souf.
The female-owned and managed cafe in Souf – a 20-minute drive from the Roman ruins in Jerash – employs more than 25 local women, offering financial independence in a rural area. In the courtyard of a stone-built historic home, I eat amid dancing and singing, and the sharing of recipes.
“You’re going to these incredibly beautiful places that people don’t know about,” adds Yves. “The conversations you might have are different than when you go to places like Umm Qais.”
They are. Rufaida and Maher share a harrowing story of fleeing Syria in 2013, and subsequently building a life in a community that welcomed them. Jordan’s population stood under one million in the 1950s, yet is just under 12 million today, reflective of waves of migration from Syrian and Palestinian refugees, among others.
Umm Qais’ history and beauty too are a draw. The village clings to hillsides overlooking the Sea of Galilee, surrounded by olive groves, steep valleys, and history.
Behind the structures of the original Ottoman village, which residents were forced to leave in 1984 to preserve the site, sit sprawling Greco-Roman ruins. Founded in the 3rd century BCE, the city – which is one of the Decapolis cities – was a hub for poets and philosophy. There’s just a handful of visitors as I walk the cart-worn grooves in the preserved paved road, past standing basalt columns, and an amphitheatre with warrens of stone entrance corridors still standing.
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From the ruins, I set off with local guide Eisa Dweekat, down a steep, arid gully that quickly becomes a cliff edge. We’re walking the first section of the Jordan Trail, a 650km, 40-day route starting from Um Qais in the top north, to Aqaba in the very south of Jordan. Eisa, a board member of the Jordan Trail Organization, helped create the route. “So, we’re heading mostly downhill?” I ask tentatively.
“This is how you discover what the real Jordan is,” he says as we pause at a spring. We’re not alone. Hundreds of goats suddenly strut down sheer rock to a chorus of bleets and bells, pause for a drink, and then encouraged by dogs and a donkey, perch on the shaded hillside opposite. They watch on as their shepherd sets alight a cluster of twigs and sets down a teapot. I side-step stragglers on the cliff path.
Our four-or-so-hour hike takes us to the valley floor, seeking shade amid the tents of a Bedouin family, before we have a picnic on a cliff at Tall Zira’a overlooking the Al Arab Dam. A kitten that has followed us up from the valley floor mews and watches as stews of chicken and vegetables are cooked over an open fire, and our cooks laugh at me for the peculiar shade of pink I’ve turned. My Celtic skin never stood a chance.
As dusk sets in, on a hillside directly overlooking the Golan Heights – once a part of Syria, now occupied by Israel – beekeeper Yousef Sayyah welcomes us. We tend the hives, smoke out the queen, and taste the differences between his seasonal honey, as Yousef tells us how he built his business Yousef’s Honey with his wife Rima, offering honey-based food and beauty products to visitors. The view out across the hills is stark for its beauty and stillness.
The next morning, I take a coffee to the roof of the six-bedroom guest house, Beit Al Baraka. I want to watch the sunrise, ahead of a breakfast cooked by local women from the village. I meet Muna Haddad, founding CEO of Baraka Destinations, which has partnered with G Adventures for these nights in the village.
“It’s a war zone,” she says, pointing to the Heights, which is visible from the roof. “But the birds are chirping, it’s a beautiful day. This, for me, breaks the perception of safety that is constantly fear mongered in the news.”
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Noting that tourism here used to include the ruins and little else, Muna has been working with the villagers for a decade to develop a more meaningful tourism offering. Partnering with locals here and in Pella to develop individual business models, the organisation now has 44 experiences from stone masonry to beekeeping, and has co-founded 17 micro-enterprises – including Yousef’s Honey, Rufaida’s Kitchen, and Beit Na’ela, the house of sisters Naela and Nawal Akash where I head to for a cooking lesson. The micro-enterprises were developed and funded by Baraka Destinations and now operate independently under the Baraka Destinations umbrella.
The focus is on sustainability and on tourism that doesn’t change, but benefits and preserves authentic culture. Some 73 per cent of the revenue is retained within the two villages the organisation operates in. But the impact, of course, is not just monetary. It never could be.
“We don’t tell a story that tourists want to hear,” adds Muna as we talk about how much Rufaida Maher’s story of fleeing war and being separated from family members in Syria, has stuck with me. “We tell the story destinations want to tell.
“That’s very much part of the soft power of tourism. By hearing somebody’s story, you’re validating them. You’re making room for them. I’m here. I matter.
“Gaza has been a wake-up call for everybody. No family is the same. No household is the same. We’re decolonizing our minds. It’s on us now, and we can’t rely on anybody else to come and tell our story.”
Claire was a guest of G Adventures.
How to do it
The 10-day Ultimate Active Jordan itinerary with G Adventures has departures from September 2026, priced from £1,529 per person, excluding international flights.
Royal Jordanian flies from London Heathrow to Amman. Flight time is around five hours.
