The New York Times recently called Oman the “anti-Dubai,” a slightly left-handed way of contrasting Oman’s touristic solitude and old-fashionedness with Dubai’s lunging embrace of fantastical, money-drenched modernity. You begin your journey to Oman, a bastion of peace and desert beauty, in Muscat, by common assent the most charming city in the Persian Gulf region. You’ll visit the old mountain-girded port and its signature twin-towered forts, the five centuries old Mirani and Jalali. Then along the Arabian Sea coast to the old port and dhow-building town of Sur, then into the vast Wahiba Sands to Nizwa, at the foot of the Jebel Akhdar. Just outside Nizwa, nestled in deep forest-clad gorges, are several stone-built cliff-top villages, old forts straight out of One Thousand and One Nights, which you’ll gaze at from atop nearly 10,000 foot Jebel Shams.

Now north through desert mountains to Al Ain and the United Arab Emirates. You make your way slowly, through thrilling sea and sand sceneries, to Fujairah and the tiny Emirates of Ras Al Khaimah, Umm Al Quwain, and Sharjah, ending dramatically in the Persian Gulf extravaganza of Dubai which has quickly become a kind of enthralling, madly optimistic metropolis-in-the-making.

Day 1: arrive Muscat, Oman • Day 2: Muscat • Day 3: Muscat to Sur via Wadi Shab • Day 4: Sur to Wahiba via Wadi Bani Khalid • Day 5: Wahiba Sands to Nizwa • Day 6: Nizwa and Jebel Shams• Day 7: Nizwa and Al Ain, United Arab Emirates • Day 8: Al Ain to Fujairah via Hatta • Day 9: Fujairah to Dubai • Day 10: Dubai • Day 11: depart.

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