Guides

Yamaan Safady, our trekking guide and the trailblazer of this backdoor trek to Petra, is an engineer by education. With a passion for Jordan’s wild natural sites, Yamaan started organizing one and two day hiking excursions for friends, both local Jordanians and ex-pats working in Amman. After the hikes became increasingly popular, he started guiding longer hikes and exploring new trails farther afield. Eventually, he decided to turn his love for sharing Jordan’s natural beauty and historical treasures into a new career as a certified tour guide. The Trek to Petra was designed to give a truly authentic view of Jordan’s landscape and local community. To ensure this, Yamaan lived with members of the local community for 3 months to follow their off-road migratory, shepherding and hunting paths and develop strong relationships and mutual respect with the local tribes. Yamaan received the Paul Morrison Top Guide Award in the Royal Geographical Society of London in 2009. He is certified in Mountain Search and Rescue and Remote First Aid by the Jordan Civil Defense and Adventure First Aid in the UK. In addition to guiding, he worked as a project manager and consultant to the Royal Society for Conservation of Nature (RSCN), spearheading the development of ecotourism projects throughout Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. This included designing hiking, 4x4 and mountain biking trails around the Feynan Ecolodge as well as the Petra Trek route.