High in the mountains of Oman and along its pounding shoreline, I stumbled onto an unexpected slice of heaven thanks to a friend’s recommendation. I even sprang for a few extra amenities for a mash-up of pauper meets paradise.
I first visited Oman in 2018 after regularly making one- or -two-day stopovers in Abu Dhabi, Dubai or Qatar to break up long flights between Europe and Asia. And although it is about a one-hour flight from those bustling and scorching cities, Oman can feel almost removed from time, whether you are in the Hajar Mountains that cut a swath across the country’s northern edge or dipping into the roiling waves of the Arabian Sea farther south.
I had read about the country’s wild and often empty coastline that stretches nearly 2,000 miles, but mountain hiking in the Gulf region was a new experience for me. What I discovered was a cinematic, “Dune”-like landscape of deserts, mountains and rugged canyons punctuated by centuries-old terrace farming. The scenery then plunged into the vast wasteland of the Rub’ al-Khali desert (“the empty quarter” in Arabic) and rivaled anything I’d ever seen.
Bordered by Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, this country of nearly 4.7 million was transformed over the decades by Sultan Qaboos bin Said, who died in 2020. He had ousted his father in a bloodless coup, backed by the British, to embrace modernism — and scads of oil and natural gas deposits — in 1970.
The country has a fascinating maritime history — the Omani empire once stretched as far south as Zanzibar in the late 17th century — and a relaxed and accepting vibe rooted in Ibadism, which is often seen as a more moderate branch of Islam.
