Oman Discovery Guide

Oman is the Gulf without the glass towers. It has kept its old towns, its forts and its building regulations, and the result is a country that looks like Arabia rather than like a business district.

Muscat is a capital of low white buildings strung between bare mountains and the sea, with a grand mosque, an opera house and a souq rather than a skyline. Inland, the Hajar mountains rise above three thousand metres, with terraced villages, a canyon at Jebel Shams and rose gardens on Jebel Akhdar.

The wadis are the surprise — steep valleys with permanent turquoise pools you swim in, an hour from the desert. So is Dhofar in the far south, which catches the Indian monsoon and turns green in August while the rest of Arabia bakes.

Add the dunes of the Wahiba, turtles nesting at Ras al Jinz, and a reputation for safety and courtesy that is entirely earned.

If you have a week

Two nights in Muscat, then a loop inland — Nizwa’s fort and Friday goat market, Jebel Shams, Misfat al Abriyyin’s terraces — a night in the Wahiba Sands, and the coast at Sur and Ras al Jinz.

If you want the wadis

Wadi Shab is the famous one: a boat across, an hour’s walk up the gorge, then a swim through a slot in the rock into a cave with a waterfall. Wadi Bani Khalid is easier, Wadi Tiwi quieter, and Snake Gorge is a proper canyoning route with a guide.

If you want the mountains

Jebel Shams above Oman’s grand canyon, with the Balcony Walk along a ledge to an abandoned village. Jebel Akhdar for terraced rose gardens, which are distilled into rosewater in April.

If you want Musandam

The detached northern peninsula at the Strait of Hormuz, reached through the UAE or by air, where mountains drop into fjord-like inlets. Dhow trips and dolphins.

If you want Dhofar

Salalah in the khareef, when the hills are green and misty, with frankincense trees, blowholes at Mughsayl and the ruins of the incense port at Sumhuram.

Oman is the most distinct society in the Gulf, and the reasons are religious, historical and deliberate.

Ibadi Islam

Most Omanis follow Ibadism, a school that is neither Sunni nor Shia and survives almost nowhere else. It carries a tradition of consultation, religious restraint and tolerance, and Omanis cite it as the reason their country is calm in a region that often is not. Churches, temples and a synagogue all operate here.

An African inheritance

Oman ruled Zanzibar for more than a century and moved its capital there in the nineteenth century. When the sultanate ended in 1964, tens of thousands returned, and Swahili is still spoken in Omani families — a thread nowhere else in Arabia has.

Before and after 1970

Omanis divide their history at the palace coup that brought Sultan Qaboos to power. Before it there were three schools and almost no roads; after it, universities, hospitals and a national identity assembled deliberately. Living memory spans both.

The khanjar and the dishdasha

The curved dagger appears on the flag and the currency and is worn with formal dress. Omani men wear a white dishdasha with a tassel at the neck and either an embroidered cap or a wound turban, and the style is specifically Omani rather than generically Gulf.

Oman has deliberately grown tourism slowly and regulates its built environment tightly, which is why it looks the way it does. Respecting that is mostly a matter of behaving as though you are in a conservative country, because you are.

Wadis are water supply as well as swimming pools. Villages downstream drink from them. Use no soap or shampoo in them, take everything out that you brought in, and swim modestly — shorts and a T-shirt rather than swimwear, particularly where families are present.

Camping is legal almost anywhere, which is a genuine freedom and depends entirely on people leaving nothing behind. Take out your rubbish, including toilet paper.

At Ras al Jinz, turtle watching is licensed and guided for a reason. No flash, no torches on the beach, keep back from nesting females, and go with the reserve rather than independently.

Buy frankincense, silver and pottery in Salalah, Nizwa and Bahla from the people making it, and hire Omani guides — the government has pushed hard on Omanisation and it works better when visitors go along with it.

October to April is the season for most of the country: days between 25 and 30°C, cool nights, and everything from wadis to dunes comfortable. December to February are the finest months and the busiest.

May to September is severe across the north — above 45°C in the interior, humid on the coast — and travel outside air conditioning becomes genuinely unwise.

Except in Dhofar. The far south runs on the opposite calendar: from late June to early September the khareef monsoon brings mist, drizzle and green hills to Salalah while the rest of Arabia is at its hottest. Gulf visitors come in tens of thousands and it is the one time the south is full.

Ramadan moves through the calendar by about eleven days a year, and during it eating, drinking and smoking in public during daylight are prohibited for everyone including visitors.

Turtles nest year round at Ras al Jinz, with the greatest numbers between June and September.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the country

Oman is cheaper than the UAE or Qatar for most things, and the rial is a strong currency — one rial is worth around two and a half US dollars, which confuses people at first.