During my stay in Amman i had many meetings and therefore had to use taxi a lot to move from one place to another. Overall, there was no problem: plenty of taxis, taxi drivers using taxi meters or agreeing on the fee before the ride, reasonable prices, good roads and not too bad traffic. However, every time my taxi journey became a real adventure because in Amman taxi drivers have a car (with petrol), they can drive, some of them can understand and speak some English, but basically they do not know where to go. They can take you wherever you want, as long as you know where it is. It is very helpful if the place you need to get to is a hotel (overall, everyone knew the main hotels, so it was easy), or a major landmark inside or outside Amman (everyone will offer you to take you to the Death Sea). Otherwise, they do not know really street names. 
So, if you have a very good map with you and you make the driver actually listen to you (some drivers were not very happy following my instructions; i recon, it was something to do with my gender), and you have very good topographic thinking and quick understanding of traffic system when arriving to a new city, then you will be ok. If any of these elements are not there, you will have a chance to speak to several random strangers stopped on the road asking for their opinion about the location of the place you want to go. You may also have a chance to miss a meeting or arrive very late because driver could not find the location. Overall, i quickly learned, that every time i sat in the cab, it was a beginning of a new daily adventure.
Price: average from 2-5JOD per ride;
Duration: you need to plan at least 30min for a ride, more if you do not know exactly where you need to go;
Amazingness: looking from a positive side, sense of adventure is amazing.
May 8, 2014
365 ideas for amazing year 