Petra/Wadi Rum
Thanks for all your comments. We just booked this tour for November 2022:
We are interested in skipping Amman and continuing on for a day/night in Wadi Rum (after Petra) and then need to get back to Tel Aviv for our return flight. Did any of you extend to Wadi Rum? If so, I’d love to hear about your experience.
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You can fly non-stop from Amman to Tel Aviv on Royal Jordanian airlines. Any flight from Aqaba (which is closer to Wadi Rum) would not be non-stop to Tel Aviv.
We flew from Amman to Tel Aviv at the end of this tour, but the departure was very early.
I took this trip a few years ago, and it’s a pretty good distance from Petra to Amman. Take into consideration how you’d do that once on your own. This is a fabulous trip. Enjoy and I hope you get to Wadi Rum.
You can land cross into Israel at Elat from Aqaba but you'd still have the same problem of how to get to Tel Aviv. Going from Elat to Tel Aviv might be about the same distance as going from Wadi Rum to Amman (haven't checked the distance). For the cost of the trip from Wadi Rum to Amman and the airfare from Amman to Tel Aviv, you might be able to hire a car to go from Elat to to Tel Aviv.
Mighteven be bus service.
I'm not sure what there is to see and do in Wadi Rum that we didn't see or do in the two or so hours we spent there on the Jordan and Egypt tour last March. Though you would repeat Amman and Petra, I would just consider adding the J&E tour to your wish list. The logistics of doing otherwise, just to see Wadi Rum, are in the "just too hard" and "just not worth it" categories. Something else to research and consider- what happens to your Tauck travel insurance if you leave the tour early.
Wadi Rum does not have a nearby airport. If you want to leave the tour there and stay longer, as has been said, you will need to take a bus to Aqaba or back to Amman. It is 46 mi. from Wadi Rum to the Aqaba airport, but overall I would say it could easily take 1 1/2 hours by bus. I have no idea about the availability of bus service, their schedules, or if you could arrange for a private vehicle. There are no direct flights from Aqaba to Tel Aviv, they all go via Amman, Istanbul, etc.. I have no idea where Tauck would or might drop you off if you left the J&E tour to spend more time in Wadi Rum. Tauck does not go into the Village which is really small, though Wadi Rum is a tourist destination due to its geology, landscape and it being a fixture in modern culture (filming location for movies like Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, the Martian, etc.), it is still out in the boonies.
Wadi Rum is beautiful, intriguing, and photogenic, but it is really just an area filled with red sandstone cliffs and sand dunes. The only other things that I can think of that you might possibly want to do there are rock climbing (for serious climbers), riding a camel (can do elsewhere), or staying overnight in a variety of desert lodgings- tented camps, futuristic dome homes, etc.
I investigated and we did a lot of extra activities on our Jordan & Egypt tour, but did not even think about seeing more of Wadi Rum during our pre-tour planning or after we had visited there.
If you want to leave your I&J tour early, I would consider spending an extra day in Petra! But, again, logistics might make if difficult.
On our J&E last March:
There are (long) day trips to Wadi Rum from Amman. Google "things to do in Amman."
There are flights from Eilat to Tel Aviv, and apparently it's not difficult to get from Aqaba to Eilat: https://www.touristjordan.com/get-aqaba-eilat/
@BKMD - That's probably the best alternative. I only checked flights from Aqaba to Tel Aviv, and not from Elat to Tel Aviv.
I have done a day trip from Eilat crossing over and up to Petra and back, walking across the Southern border crossing referenced in the article. As I recall the border at least at that time had a not particularly late closing time for crossing back into Israel, and if you missed it, you had to be prepared to stay the night in Jordan. Do your research and plan accordingly. We then flew from the pretty new Ramon-Eilat airport to Tel Aviv (saves a lot of time compared to a land journey).
I forgot to mention, getting from Petra (Abu Musa) to Wadi Rum in the first place! Again, I frankly don't think it is worth the hassle.