Sun, sea, sand, and tent, conversation with your good friends around the fire, and sleeping under the moon and stars. What can be more adventurous than wild camping?
The best time for this, in the Middle East, is spring break when the days are not yet sweltering, the sea not freezing but also not hot as tea, and the nights are no longer chilly.
For our first wild camping in this part of the world, we chose a very romantic option – wild beach in Oman—followed by dolphin watching. Being spoiled with the modern life, as well as considering a company of six- and eight-year-old kids, we decided that a one-night stay was going to be more than enough.
It took us a while to get online visas to Oman, according to the new rules, but the rest of preparation was easy. We did a massive shopping for camping equipment and bought even more than enough.
We packed some beach toys and other usual beach stuff, pop-up tents, sleeping bags and mats, cool box with pre-made easy meals and finger foods, and camping table and chairs, and off we went. The trip from Dubai to a beautiful wild beach in Oman took around 3 hours. We chose one of the thirst beaches just after the UAE and Oman border. The view was gorgeous; blue water on the shimmering beach on one side and dramatic rocky mountains on the other. It is hard to describe that beauty, and I think photos say much more.
The next day, after the lazy breakfast, we packed and left our camping site and headed to the new adventure waiting for us in Khasab port on Northern Oman’s Musandam Peninsula – a cruise to watch jellyfish and dolphins. We booked a half-day tour, which was more than enough. During the trip, we saw tremendous amounts of different-sized and colored jellyfish and families of dolphins playing around our ship. We had a snorkeling session near Telegraph island, and slept on the way back to the shore.
That same evening, we went back to Dubai and our usual life and had a refreshing shower, a lovely three-course dinner, and a sweet dream on the pillow that we missed during one night of the wild camping.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
