Things to do — Wadi Rum

A complete visit to Wadi Rum organises around three main activities over one or two nights.

The core of the experience is the Bedouin 4x4 tour from a half-day to a full day. Driving Toyota Hilux 4x4 pick-ups, your Bedouin guide (speaking often rudimentary but effective English) takes you on 60-100 km of desert tracks to visit the major sites: Lawrence's House (stone remains traditionally attributed to T.E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt), Khazali Canyon (narrow canyon with 2,000-year-old Nabataean petroglyphs), Big Red Dune (30 m red sand dune, 15-minute climb for exceptional panorama), Um Fruth Rock Bridge (15 m natural bridge, walkable), Mushroom Rock and Anfishieh Inscriptions (12,000-year-old petroglyphs depicting hunters and animals), and Burrah Canyon. Count €50-80 per person for a half-day, €80-120 for a full day.

The Bedouin camp night is the other great moment. Camps offer three levels of experience: traditional bivouacs (goat-hair Bedouin tents, shared bathrooms, €40-80/night), permanent tents with private bathrooms (€60-120/night), and bubble tents with transparent canopy over the starscape (€180-400/night, often honeymoon experience). The traditional zarb dinner (lamb and vegetables cooked for 4 hours in the hot sand of a buried oven) is the highlight of the evening, followed by Bedouin tea with sage or cardamom around the fire, and stargazing with the naked eye or with a telescope (some camps offer them). Be sure to get up at 5am for sunrise: a magical moment when the cliffs shift from pale pink to scarlet red in fifteen minutes.

The specialised activities complete the experience for travellers with time: camel trek of one to two hours at sunset (€15-25 per person, an experience more emblematic than pleasant — camels are rough for those unaccustomed); guided climbing by certified Bedouin guides on the routes of Jebel Rum or Jebel Khazali (€50-150 for half-day to full-day, easy to intermediate level); day hike to Burdah Rock Bridge (3-4h round trip, easy but vertiginous climbing, exceptional panorama); 2-3 day trek with bivouacs (€150-300 all-in, for experienced hikers).

For astronomy enthusiasts, several camps offer evenings with telescopes on Mars (visible part of the year), Saturn, Jupiter and nebulae. With light pollution near zero, Wadi Rum ranks among the best astronomical observation sites in the world — an international starry sky reserve project is under way.