This is why Oman is the best place to travel in the Middle East

Four days into our journey through Oman, and it was time to head to Muscat – the country’s capital city. Sitting on the Gulf of Oman, Muscat is a place where there’s an incredible amount of history as a trading port between the west and the east, and the cultural influences here – from being ruled by the Persians, the Portuguese Empire and the Ottoman Empire throughout different points in history – are around every corner. This is the place to really get a feel for life in Oman. The place to really connect with the locals, and experience the culture firsthand.

Exploring City Life in Muscat

I tend to always want to check out a country’s capital city when I first visit the country. In my mind it gives me a real feel for the place, and the people. And that’s exactly why heading to Muscat after spending four days in the remotest part of the country in the Musandam Peninsula, was the perfect follow up stop.

To get there from Musandam, you’ll have to drive back to Dubai and take a flight. An inconvenience I deemed better than taking the five hour drive, which would have meant crossing the border back into the UAE, and then back into Oman.

And from what my research and the good people on the internet told me, the Chedi Muscat was the best hotel in the city. So that was where we’d call home for four more days. And again, we were not disappointed.

The hotel is a quiet little oasis tucked back from the hustle and bustle of the city. The pool, the longest in the Gulf, was quite the spot to spend a few hours, and staying in one of their beautiful suites meant perks like afternoon tea service, a free daily laundry service, and complimentary vodka, gin, whiskey, and beer (even though you are in a Muslim country, it’s acceptable to drink on hotel properties), with small snacks such as almonds, pistachios and dried apricots, and a mini-fridge stocked daily. Again, another hotel that spoils the way you travel. Again, embrace it.

Arranging tours through the hotel was extremely easy, the hard part was deciding what to do. We decided on the day trip to Wadi Shab as our first adventure, and a half day tour of Muscat as our next. The day trip to Wadi Shab was anything but boring – from a two hour drive, both ways, with our more than wonderful (and talkative) guide eventually leading us on a 45 minute hike to an oasis tucked between the cliffs, everything about this adventure was memorable. Including the impromptu off-roading to get to the Bimmah Sinkhole, when we missed the exit from the highway and didn’t want to double back. Why waste time when you can just cut across the barren landscape!