The world wonders tourists are staying away from

ONCE swarming with crowds, these famous sites are now all but deserted. But deciding to go is not that simple.

Alexis (centre) with a few friends but no crowds outside The Treasury in Petra, Jordan. Picture: Alexis Carey.

IT’S 6.30am, and I’m already sweating buckets.

I’ve just forced my travel buddies to wake before dawn to leg it to Petra, Jordan, in an effort to beat the hordes of tourists that I just know will be crawling all over the world wonder in no time.

Only, there are no hordes. As I catch my first glimpse of the famous Treasury, my first thought is that it’s even more impressive in real life than it is in the movies or on Instagram. My second thought is that we basically have the place to ourselves. Besides our group, there are a grand total of three other sightseers there. That’s right — three.

Not the scene I was expecting outside The Treasury in Petra. Picture: Alexis Carey

I found the solitude odd, but I assumed the masses would arrive soon. After all, I’d been to Machu Picchu, The Colosseum, Chichen Itza and Christ the Redeemer before — all fellow new world wonders that notoriously teem with tourists from sunrise to sunset.

But every time we returned to The Treasury throughout that day and the next, it was the same. There was only ever a smattering of visitors, a handful of selfie sticks. As a tourist, it was almost like winning the lottery.

But for the locals, of course, the situation is grim. Jordan has long been a tourist hotspot thanks to attractions like Petra, the Dead Sea and Wadi Rum. But since the Arab Spring in 2011, the war in neighbouring Syria and the rise of global terrorism, the valuable tourism industry has been decimated.

While the government has introduced measures to try and coax nervous tourists back, The Jordan Times reports that only 465,000 tourists visited Petra in 2016, compared to 800,000 in 2014.

And it’s the same story only a few hundred kilometres away in Egypt.

Once a major tourist attraction, the Great Sphinx now hosts just a handful of visitors. Picture: Alexis Carey

Before arriving, I expected the Great Pyramid of Giza, the only remaining Ancient World Wonder, to be absolutely packed. But apart from a small crowd of people gathered around the Sphinx and a few stragglers among the pyramids, the legendary site was almost empty. There were no queues, no pesky tour groups ruining our photos.

According to Capmas, Egypt’s statistics agency, tourism dropped by almost 42 per cent between 2015 and 2016. It’s a disaster for the industry, and I lost count of the times strangers on the street would come up to us and ask why the tourists were staying away.

The answer to that question, of course, is fear. The Smartraveller website urges Australians to “reconsider your need to travel” to Egypt due to the threat of terrorism and kidnapping. While we were there, terrorists boarded a bus and murdered 28 Coptic Christians, and in December 2016, 10 people were killed in a siege in Jordan.

So, yes, there’s no denying the region has serious problems. But if the awful terrorist attacks in Europe have taught us anything, it’s that violence can happen anywhere, anytime. Nowhere is 100 per cent safe — but I can honestly say that I’ve never felt more genuinely welcome by locals than I did in Egypt and Jordan, and I wouldn’t hesitate to go back.

Alexis (left) in Eygpt. “It was almost like winning the lottery.” Picture: Alexis Carey

These beautiful, hospitable countries have never needed the tourism dollar more than they do right now.

So if Petra or the Pyramids are on your bucket list, go now — while you’ve still got these world wonders to yourself.

Alexis Carey is a journalist currently travelling the world with her fiance. You can follow her travels on Instagram @the_gap_year.