Walking Jebel Sham’s Wadi Ghul canyon

Nature
The wow factor for nature - does it show nature at its best? Doesn't need to be the wilder-beast migration or diving with hundreds of hammerheads. Rather make you pause as you realise just how awesome the natural world can be
8
Culture
How much does this experience showcase some of the better and finer things that us humans can offer? Sure, it can be ancient ruins and renaissance churches, but it can also be festivals or soaking up some of the great modern cities of the world
3
Fun factor/activity
Very simple - was it fun? This is usually linked in with doing some kind of activity - i mean, walking along some cliffs is nice, but paragliding from them, now that is fun. Its a vastly underrated factor in a truly great experience
6
Avoid the crowds
Big tour groups and being surrounded by loud fellow tourists can sap the life out of even the greatest of travel experiences. This score is to reflect just how much you can avoid this. But. . . The score also takes into account if the crowds actually add to the experience, such as with a party town or a bustling food market
7
World famous
How world famous is the experience?
5
unique
How hard is it to have a similar experience in other places round the world?
7
Overall Score
The highest score of nature or culture, + fun factor, + avoid the crowds, + the highest score of world famous or unique. Then turned into a score out of 100. More details at the bottom of the page
70 *What the scores mean and where do they come from
continent
Middle East
country
Oman
Length of time
1 day or less
Rough cost
Obviously people have different tastes, so this will depend on those tastes, but this is a rough idea of price of the whole experience based on 2 people able to split the accommodation costs and excluding travel there and back
$ 100
Time of year visited
November
Primary Tags
Click on any of the tags to see all travel experiences with the same tag
RANKING
How this travel experience ranks compared to all the other experiences on this site
123rd/372 This travel experience's ranking compared to all the other experiences on this site
Top 40% SUMMARY RATING: Superb

Summary

Jebel Shams is regularly listed as one of the highlights of Oman, and rightly so – the view down into the immense Wadi Ghul is impressive and justifies its tag as the “Grand Canyon of Arabia”.  You’ve also got the drive up there with a spectacular mountain landscape that makes it very hard not to stop regularly for photos 

 

There’s a lot of writing about carpet sellers and that sort of stuff, but they’re really only a very minor part of the experience.  In reality it’s all about looking over the canyon sides and walking deep into the canyon on the gorgeous Balcony Walk and, if you have a spare day, hiking up to the peak of Jebel Shams itself (3009m / 9872ft)

 

Top tip #1 – its all about the Wadi Ghul canyon and the Balcony Walk.  The maps and general tips for the place can be super confusing.  What you are basically looking to do is look over the edge in the Wadi Ghul canyon (Jebel Shams View Point 3 is great for this) and walk the Balcony Walk (aka W6) which is a 1.5-2.5 hour walk (there and back) along a light to moderate slope that starts near the wide point of the canyon (Balcony Walk Guesthouse) and ends at an abandoned village at one of the end points of the canyon (very clearly signposted).  Even if you’re not keen on the full walk, it’s still worth just walking the first 15mins or so as that has some of the best views 

 

Top tip #2 – you can drive up to the Jebel Shams plateau without a 4WD. For sure it’s easier in the 4WD, but as long as you are a confident driver and it isn’t raining you will be fine.  You’ll have maybe 20 / 30mins of unpaved road, with only a couple of sections you’ll need to pay attention to

 

Where to stay – I stayed at the Sama Heights Resort, which was really nice and fit in perfectly with the surroundings.  It’s only a 5min drive or so to the first views of the canyon

highlights

#1 The 2-3 hour Balcony Walk skirting the edge of the immense Wadi Ghul canyon. Even if you only walk the first 20mins or so, the views are insane

#2 The often other-worldly mountain scenery throughout the drive up to the plateau and at the top of the mountain itself

#3 The views from inside the Wadi Ghul canyon - you can see why they call it the Grand Canyon of Arabia

#4 The drive itself up to the plateau - gorgeous winding roads with views that make it hard to stop and gorp every 5mins

#5 The view from the top of the plateau - starring into the canyon with some of your newly acquired goat mates

#6 The beautiful oases villages you see on the drive up from the main valley

#7 Staying in one of the beautifully designed resorts on the top of the plateau

Experiences nearby

The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences

Score Detail

Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"?  That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others.  That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score

This overall experience score is calculated by:  take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10).  Then convert into a score out of 100

Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique".  Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides.  So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique".  But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience).  So, both of these scores are standalone