The first time you see Wadi Rum, it does not feel like a real place. The vast expanse of desert stretches out in all directions; large sandstone cliffs jut out of the shifting sands and the quietness is almost disorienting until you suddenly hear a camel walking by, or feel the wind blowing across the dunes, and it begins to make sense why some people refer to Wadi Rum as ‘The Valley of the Moon.’
Many visitors travelling to Jordan expect that Petra will be the highlight of their trip; however Wadi Rum has a way of stealing the show when they arrive. The alien-looking landscape has deep canyons, towering rock formations, and endless fields of red sand with incredibly bright night skies that looks like they have been digitally altered.
What is fascinating about Wadi Rum is how people have been able to survive here for centuries despite the apparent lack of resources. Prior to tourism, the nomadic Bedouins developed methods for navigating this extremely arid environment; they used a combination of identifying hidden water supplies, traveling by stars, identifying edible plants native to the area & long-standing oral traditions passed down through their cultural heritage.
Wadi Rum is characterized by amazing scenery that has changed significantly over time as well as unique outdoor activities available. Wadi Rum also offers tourists a choice of how they want to explore the area, whether it’s on foot, by jeep, or by horse. Wadi Rum is located in southern Jordan, near the Red Sea and close enough to both Petra and Aqaba that visitors often come here as part of their overall trip.
This means that half of the fun is getting to the end of the trip. The drive into Wadi Rum is pretty straightforward. However, once at the visitor centre and traveling further into Wadi Rum, the ambiance quickly transitions to that of the desert, and the city and dense traffics are left behind. There are many great ways to enjoy Wadi Rum, including; 4×4 adventures, dune hikes, rock climbing/ rappelling in narrow canyons, horseback riding and having tea with a local Bedouin guide around a campfire.
The view from here at sundown is almost intimidatingly stunning. The colour of the desert shifts from orange to burgundy to purple until, finally, the stars fill up the sky, becoming a canvas for an entirely new universe. People who usually never stop what they are doing to take pictures or just sit silently watching sunsets will take their cameras and be speechless as if it is their last opportunity to experience a sunset.
The main event may actually take place at night in Wadi Rum. Due to the lack of artificial light in this area, the stars are absolutely amazing. On clear evenings, the sky appears full of stars from one horizon to the next. The stars can be identified easily without a telescope, and using a telescope provides an even more fantastic experience.
For many of the Bedouin communities in the Wadi Rum area, the stars have never only been used for their beauty but have been used as guides for survival and navigation through the desert. Learning about the night sky in Wadi Rum combines education, science, and the awareness of how far removed us from our natural surroundings have become.
Another of the major reasons many travelers enjoy visiting this area is that they often fall in love with desert camping. Desert camps can vary from simple traditional ones with carpets and tents, where people gather to dine together over an open fire, to extremely luxurious glamping-style camps with large domes that have spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. Regardless of which type of tent you sleep in, waking up in complete silence, surrounded by massive, red cliffs is an experience you will likely remember forever.
The use of food as an experience while you are in the desert is also prevalent. One of the best-known traditional meals to experience is “zarb”. In the zarb cooking process, meat and vegetables are cooked in a pit beneath the ground and sand for several hours. As a result, zarb is extremely smoky when finished, and combined with the fact that you will have spent the entire day exploring the desert means that the food will taste exceptional.
In addition to being a popular tourist destination for adventure tourism, Wadi Rum has a historical significance as well. There are numerous examples of ancient cave art, such as petroglyphs that are etched into the rocks throughout the area, that show that people have been traversing this land for thousands of years. More recently, this region was embroiled in one of the most well-known conflicts in the history of the Middle East during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.
Even today, we see remnants from many aspects of that history when we go on the old Hijaz Railway reenactment rides. On these rides, travelers are able to board retrofitted/renovated/repurposed original trains and enjoy a reenactment with actors of some of the same type of attack scenarios as had been executed during the campaigns where Lawrence of Arabia was involved. The riders feel as if they have joined a film set (as in, movie), an actual historical event, and/or are watching an action movie as they see the actors perform their stunts in the middle of the desert.
Wadi Rum has a unique energy in that it can be peaceful and calming, with the deserts feeling everlasting and stupendous during the day, while also being quiet and serene at night, with the expansive view of the night sky. It is a unique/rare place where experiencing almost nothing is something that you will never forget.
While there are many amazing places to visit in Jordan, Wadi Rum visits differently from all other places. While there are beautiful sights to see, Wadi Rum will provide you with an overwhelming feeling of how insignificant you are as you stand in the middle of a vast and ancient landscape that has mostly been left in its natural state.
