Petra at dawn, Dubai after dark, and the sand in between.
Which desert safari leaves before the heat lands. What the Petra day out of Amman really costs. Whether the Dead Sea is better from the Jordanian side or the Israeli one. Reviews of every tour you can book across the region.
Four bookings a first trip through the Middle East gets built around.
A desert night outside Dubai, the walk in to Petra, the reef off Muscat and the Qatari inland sea. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The desert nightDesert Safari, Quad Bike, Camel Ride & Al Khayma CampDune bashing at sunset, a camel, a camp and dinner an hour out of the city. The evening everyone flies home talking about.
02The Jordan run2-Day Tour: Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea from AmmanPetra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea across two days from Amman. Long days, and the only honest way to fit all three in.
03The Oman boat dayDaymaniat Islands Snorkeling Trip with BrunchOut to the Daymaniat Islands off Muscat, where the reef starts a metre under the hull and the turtles are not shy.
04The Qatar half-daySafari, ATV, Camels, Sandboarding and Inland Sea TourDoha to the inland sea at Khor Al Adaid and back, dune bashing in both directions. Home in time for dinner.
Six countries, and the day out that earns the flight into each one.
The Emirates for red dunes and tall glass, Qatar for half a day in the sand, Jordan for a city carved into a cliff, Oman for wadis and reef, Israel for the old walls and the salt, Saudi Arabia for a cliff edge an hour out of Riyadh.
Morning, evening or overnight: pick your desert.
Every Gulf city sells much the same three hours in the sand at four different prices. What separates them is the hour you go out and what is waiting when the driver finally stops.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · Desert Safari, Quad Bike, Camel Ride & Al Khayma Camp
The evening safariDune bashing at sunset, then a camp, dinner and a show.
Quads and buggiesAn hour on the red dunes with a helmet and a throttle.
Camels and sandboardsThe slow version, usually folded into the same afternoon.
A night in Wadi RumJordan's desert, a bedouin camp and no light pollution at all.
All 248 days out in the sand →
The region keeps its best buildings a long way from the coast.
A treasury carved into the end of a canyon, a mosque with a courtyard the size of a parade ground, a fortress on a plateau above the salt, and one tower that simply refuses to stop. These carry more travellers than anything here that is not sand.
What a day out in the Middle East actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The desert comes in cheaper than the towers, and the runs that cross a border are where the money goes.
Desert afternoons, souk walks on the creek, observation decks and the half-day out of Doha.
Full days: Petra from Amman, Abu Dhabi from Dubai, the Daymaniat boat, Masada and the Dead Sea.
Private drivers, overnight camps, balloon flights at first light and the two-day Jordan runs.
Three things the rest of the world cannot copy.
Dune drives and boat days exist everywhere warm. A city cut into a cliff face, water you physically cannot sink in, and a fjord coast in the middle of an Arabian desert do not.
Petra
The Nabataeans cut a trading capital straight into sandstone two thousand years ago, and the only way in is still a kilometre-long crack in the rock called the Siq. The Treasury appears at the end of it without warning, which is the whole point of the walk. Most day tours from Amman give you three hours inside, and the Monastery is 800 steps past where those three hours run out.
- 1Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea 2-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,173 reviews
- 2Petra & Wadi Rum Private or group Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 750 reviews
- 3Petra and Wadi rum Full day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 538 reviews
The Dead Sea
The water sits 430 metres below sea level and holds roughly nine times the salt of the ocean, which is why nobody swims here so much as lies on the surface reading a newspaper. The shoreline drops a metre or so a year as the Jordan river is drawn off upstream, so the resort steps keep getting longer. Both banks are bookable: Israeli day trips pair it with Masada, Jordanian ones with Petra.
- 1Masada & Dead Sea Full Day Tour with Pick Up★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,496 reviews
- 2Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea 2-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,173 reviews
- 3Masada and the Dead Sea Day Trip from Tel Aviv★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,014 reviews
The Musandam Peninsula
Oman owns the tip of the peninsula that pinches the Strait of Hormuz shut, and the Hajar mountains drop straight into the sea there in a run of flooded valleys that look like Norway with the cold taken out. Traditional dhows run half-day loops out of Khasab; dolphins follow the bow most mornings and the snorkelling stop is a village bay with no road to it.
- 1Half-Day Dhow Cruise, Dolphin Watching, & Snorkeling★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 507 reviews
- 2Full-Day Sea Safari to Musandam★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 370 reviews
- 3From Dubai/Sharjah/RAK: Dibba Musandam Trip & Dhow Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 232 reviews
Four bookings here that will not wait.
Most of this region can be arranged from a hotel lobby the night before. These four run on timed slots, prayer times, boat permits and a calendar with no interest at all in when your flight lands.
- 01Burj Khalifa Levels 124 & 125 Entry Ticket + OptionsEntry runs on timed slots and the sunset hour goes weeks ahead. Turn up without one and you take whatever is left in the middle of the day.
- 02Petra, Wadi Rum, and Dead Sea 2-Day TourIt is a long drive from Amman and a much longer one from Tel Aviv, so these leave at dawn and fill first. The two-day runs go earliest of all.
- 03Dubai To Abu Dhabi: Grand Mosque, Royal Palace & Etihad TowersThe mosque closes to visitors on Friday mornings and the dress code is enforced at the gate. Tours are built around both; walk-ups are not.
- 04Daymaniat Islands Snorkeling Trip with BrunchThese boats run on sea state and a permit quota, and the calm months are also the busy ones.
When it is forty-five degrees by ten in the morning.
A Gulf summer does two things to a plan. Anything outdoors is finished by mid-morning and does not start again until the sun drops, and the desert camps quietly move their departures to either end of the day. The answer is the same in every city: go out at first light, then go indoors.
The Gulf is warm, shallow and full of things to do off the end of a jetty.
Dhow evenings on Dubai Creek, a yacht out past the Burj Al Arab, the Musandam fjords under a wooden hull, and a reef an hour off Muscat that starts a metre below the surface.
Everything that leaves from a jetty →
By place — the Gulf, the Levant and the desert
By kind of day — sand, stone, water or souk
Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Amman, Wadi Rum, Muscat: the shape most first trips settle into.
The newest reviews across the region.
Reviews added since →
From Jlm : Masada Dead Sea Small Group Tour INCL. ENTRY FEES
Read our review →
From Jerusalem Small group tour Old&New City ENTRY FEES INCL
Read our review →
