Holiday in Oman

Middle East/N.Africa — By Bob Riel on April 7, 2008 at 7:11 am

Not many Americans holiday in Oman. In fact, other than Dubai, not much of the Arabian Peninsula gets a whole lot of tourist traffic. But that didn’t stop Spud Hilton and his wife from planning a weeklong, 600-mile driving trip through this desert kingdom. He wrote about their experiences for the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Sultanate of Oman, the cap to the southeastern end of the Arabian Peninsula, is years behind glitzy, fabricated Dubai and its ambitious neighbors in terms of opening the fortress doors to tourism. It is unknown to most atlas-phobic Americans.

But in a plot twist worthy of a Bedouin campfire tale, Oman has much more than its neighbors to see: toothy, towering mountains; old-world forts by the hundreds; postcard-perfect beaches; oases of Arabian culture untouched by oil wells; and mosques of astonishing size and beauty. Coupled with a population friendly to Westerners (most of which practices a particularly tolerant, non-violent branch of Islam) and a few modern comforts, Oman offers an accessible, widely unspoiled slice of Arabia for casual travelers and destination trophy-hunters alike…

Oman is about the size of Kansas, far too big and diverse to capture in a five-day trip. Instead, we planned a 600-mile loop through the country’s northeast end, including the picturesque Batinah Coast, the bustling, expanding capital city of Muscat, and the country’s interior, the domain of Bedouin tribes, palm oases villages and a portion of the infamous expanse of desert known as the Empty Quarter.