Oman is a desert with turquoise running through it.
Half the country is sand and the other half is water you can see the bottom of. These are the days out that reach both — what each one costs, how long it takes, and which are worth the early start.
Four days that between them cover most of Oman.
An offshore reef, a canyon swim, a night in the dunes and a morning in the fjords. What each costs, and what the people who went say about it.
01The offshore dayDaymaniat Islands Snorkeling Trip with BrunchAn hour out to a protected archipelago where the turtles are not a rumour. Brunch is served on the way back in.
02The canyon dayWadi Shab & Bimmah Sinkhole Full-Day TourA short boat across, forty minutes of scrambling, then a swim into a slot cave with a waterfall inside it.
03The desert dayWahiba Desert and Wadi Bani Khalid Guided Group TourDune driving into the Sharqiyah sands, with the palm-shaded pools of Wadi Bani Khalid before the tarmac runs out.
04The fjord morningHalf-Day Dhow Cruise, Dolphin Watching, & SnorkelingA wooden dhow out of Khasab into inlets a thousand feet deep. The dolphins usually find the boat first.
Three ways to spend a day on the Gulf of Oman.
The boats leave early because the sea flattens overnight and the wind gets up by noon. An hour offshore there is a marine reserve; closer in the spinner dolphins turn up most mornings; after dark the dhows run down the coast with dinner on deck.
The Wahiba Sands are two hours from Muscat and a different country.
The Sharqiyah dunes run three hundred kilometres south of the coast road. Most trips make the same three stops: a camp run by the family that owns the ridge, a dune drive at the hour the light turns orange, and the pools of Wadi Bani Khalid on the way home.
Every wadi in Oman is a dry road with a swimming pool at the end of it.
Shab is the famous one: a boat across the inlet, a scramble over boulders, then a swim into a chamber with a waterfall in it. Bani Khalid is the easy one, with pools you can reach in sandals. Bimmah is a collapsed sinkhole beside the coast road, and it costs nothing to look at.
- 1Wadi Shab & Bimmah Sinkhole Full-Day Tourfrom $40
- 2Wahiba Desert and Wadi Bani Khalid Guided Group Tourfrom $130
- 3Wadi Bani Khalid Oasis & Oman Desert Tourfrom $130
What a day out in Oman actually costs.
Oman is not a cheap country and the tour prices show it. Most good days sit between ninety and two hundred dollars a head — here is what each band buys you.
City mornings, dolphin boats, the sinkhole run and the short trips up the coast road.
The full days: Wadi Shab, the Daymaniyat boats, Nizwa and the shared desert tours.
A private 4WD and driver, an overnight camp in the dunes, Jebel Shams or the Empty Quarter.
From June to September, Salalah is the only green place in Arabia.
The southwest monsoon catches Dhofar and nowhere else. The hills behind Salalah turn green, the waterfalls run at Wadi Darbat, and it sits in the mid-twenties while Muscat is pushing forty-five. The rest of the year the logic reverses: the north is at its best from November, and Salalah goes back to being a beach town with frankincense trees.
Musandam is cut off from the rest of the country, and it is all cliff and water.
The peninsula sits the far side of the UAE border, reached by the road through Dubai or a short flight into Khasab. The dhows go out into inlets a thousand feet deep with the cliffs closing overhead, the dolphins come to the bow, and the snorkelling stops have nothing else in the water.
- 1Half-Day Dhow Cruise, Dolphin Watching, & Snorkelingfrom $37
- 2Khasab Musandam Full Day dhow cruise with lunch and Snorkelingfrom $50
- 3Dolphin Watching Day Tour with Snorkeling & Lunchfrom $65
By place — coast, interior and the far south
By kind of day — boat, dune, wadi or fort
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