Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Tuesday the 6th of August.

And I'm talking once again about official travel advice. I was speaking about the Middle East yesterday

and I must very importantly point out that I misspoke,

saying that Jordan was on the Foreign Office no go list. That's very far from the truth.

There is a thin strip of territory, three kilometres along the border between Jordan and Syria that is off limit,

but apart from that, there is no issue with going there at all.

I want to look today at what the Foreign Office and other governments are saying about places

in the region, and of course, as you might have heard Australia is warning about

the risks associated with a visit to the UK because of the riots that have been going on

saying you've got to avoid areas where protests are occurring due to the potential for disruption and violence.

Well, if the UK is looking just a little bit dangerous from the Australian point of view,

what about the wider region? Let's start in Jordan. And yes, it's a very good time to go there. I wouldn't hesitate to travel to

the capital Amman, a city which I'm actually very fond of. It's a lot more easygoing and friendly

than some of the other capital cities in the region and of course you've got all the great tourist sites

from north to south, I would say Gerash, amazing Roman city to the north of Amman, the Dead Sea to the south.

You're not going to find anything like that anywhere in the world, apart from in Jordan, looking across to Israel. Petra, the

remarkable site there where you have a huge city just hewn out of the rock. Wadi room, very

accessible, very fun bit of desert to explore.

And then Akaba, a seaside resort.

Yes, that's, I think, a fair summary.

A very friendly place.

I love the street art of which you'll see a great deal there.

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