Wadi Rum

DesertsAqaba,Jordan

A Jordanian desert of rock islands rising out of rust-red sand, crossed by pickup and camel, slept in under the stars, and Hollywood's stand-in Mars.

September·Quiet month

Jun–Sep

Fierce heat: measured highs near 35°C at neighbouring Ma'an, hotter on the sand and into the low 40s in a heatwave, so touring shifts to dawn and dusk. Nothing shuts and the dark skies stay, but midday belongs to the shade.

Year-round Wadi Rum's constant draw is there every day of the year: red sand, island mountains of sandstone and granite, some 12,000 years of rock carvings, and one of the world's darkest, most star-filled skies.

Wadi Rum is a 720-square-kilometre desert in southern Jordan, an hour inland from the Red Sea, where sandstone mountains rise straight off a flat floor of red sand like islands in a sea. Many of them go up 300 metres in a single unbroken face, and you don't grasp the size until a jeep parked at the bottom of one turns out to be the size of a fingernail. The sand is red because the rock is full of iron, and the colour will not sit still: pale apricot in the morning, hard orange at noon, deep red in the last half hour of light. The Bedouin call it Wadi al-Qamar, the Valley of the Moon, and it has never been empty ground. The rock carries some 25,000 carvings and 20,000 inscriptions left over 12,000 years, the reason the whole area became a World Heritage Site in 2011. T. E. Lawrence rode through in 1917, which put this desert in Lawrence of Arabia, and later in The Martian, Dune and two Star Wars films. You cannot drive into the reserve on your own: everything starts at Rum village, where the Bedouin families who live here run every jeep, camel and camp. A day out is four to six hours in the open back of a pickup, with no fixed route — your driver reads the sand and picks the stops. You squeeze into Khazali, a canyon narrow enough to touch both walls, scratched with inscriptions two thousand years old. Switch the engine off and the silence is total. Almost everyone stays the night, in a goat-hair tent or a dome with a clear roof, after a dinner of zarb cooked slowly in a covered sand pit. With no town for tens of kilometres, the Milky Way comes out as a solid band from one horizon to the other. Spring and autumn are the months for it: summer days pass 45°C and winter nights drop below freezing. The last light and the stars both come after the day trips have driven home.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Spring and autumn are the sweet spot — summer days top 45°C and winter nights drop below freezing, and a wet spring can send sudden flash floods down the narrow canyons.
You can't explore in your own car — the reserve is entered through Rum village, where licensed Bedouin camps run every 4x4, camel trek and overnight stay.
Pick a night near the new moon — a full moon washes out the stars, and walking a few minutes from the camp's lanterns brings the full Milky Way overhead.
Carry far more water than you think — shade is almost nonexistent and the sun punishing, and phone signal drops the moment you leave the village.

Things to do

1
Ride an open Bedouin pickup deep into the sand
You ride in the open back rather than a cabin, and there is no road under the wheels: the driver picks his own line across the flats between the jebels and changes it as the day goes. Wind and fine red dust come with it, so anything you do not want sanded travels closed in a bag. The stopping places are the point — springs and side canyons no track reaches, chosen by someone who grew up reading this ground.
2
Cross the red sand by camel
Sway across the red sand on camelback the way the Bedouin and their caravans always crossed it — slow and near-silent, with only the creak of the saddle and the soft tread of the animals. A camel walks at barely more than human pace, so an hour covers just a few kilometres and the same rock tower stays beside you most of the way. That is the speed at which people actually crossed this desert before engines arrived.
3
Scramble a wind-carved rock bridge
Haul yourself up to a natural arch like Burdah or Umm Fruth, cut clean through the sandstone by centuries of wind. From the span the valley falls away on both sides, and the exposure makes the crossing feel earned.
4
Climb a red dune for the last of the light
Kick off your shoes and climb one of the wind-combed dunes banked against the cliffs; the sand is fine and iron-red, and it slides away underfoot on the way down. From the crest the sea of sand and stone runs unbroken to the skyline. Hold the spot through the last hour, facing west, as the rock deepens through orange to red and then cools to violet in a few short minutes. Pack a warm layer for the walk back — the heat drains out of the desert the moment the colour goes.
5
Sleep out under the Milky Way
Stay the night at a desert camp and share zarb, meat and vegetables slow-baked in a covered sand pit, then walk out past the last lantern into full dark. With no town for miles the stars reach all the way to the horizon.

Watch

Nearby

82 km