Wadi Rum Protected Area

Four Films Have Used Wadi Rum to Represent Mars. The Landscape Persuades You Why.

The Martian, Dune, Rogue One, and Lawrence of Arabia all used this desert. The sandstone and granite formations – towers, arches, narrow canyons, open plains of red sand – create a landscape so geologically alien that it becomes the default choice when directors need a planet that is not Earth. What you actually get when you arrive is not a film set but 720 square kilometres of desert sculpted over millions of years, the colours shifting through amber, crimson, and ochre as the light changes through the day. Nothing else in Jordan looks like it.

Wadi Rum is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to the Zalabia and Zuwaideh Bedouin tribes. Any visit depends on them: they are the jeep drivers, the guides, the camp hosts. T.E. Lawrence used the area as a base during the Arab Revolt and wrote about it extensively in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, noting a quality of isolation that persists despite the growth of tourism.

Getting There

60 kilometres north of Aqaba in southern Jordan. You cannot drive inside independently; the visitor centre at Rum village is where you pay the entrance fee (5 JOD per person) and engage a guide or camp. Taxis from Aqaba run approximately 25 to 35 JOD and take 45 minutes. From Petra, about 90 minutes on the Desert Highway.

What to Do

Jeep tours are the standard approach for covering the main sites: Khazali Canyon (a narrow gorge with Nabataean and Thamudic rock inscriptions dating back 2,000 years), Lawrence’s Spring, the red sand dunes at Hashem al-Daher, and the rock bridge at Um Frouth. A half-day jeep for up to four people costs around 75 JOD at fixed rates set by the protected area management.

Hot air balloon rides operate in the early morning. Rock climbing is well-established; the sandstone towers have dozens of routes at all grades, documented in Tony Howard’s guidebook.

Staying Overnight

The difference between a day trip and an overnight stay is the difference between seeing Wadi Rum as a backdrop and experiencing it as a place. At dusk the towers turn deep red, the temperature drops sharply, and the Milky Way appears without competition from any light for kilometers in every direction.

Camps range from basic Bedouin tents with shared facilities (30 to 40 JOD per person including dinner and breakfast) to the “Martian dome” transparent bubble tents with private bathrooms at USD 150 to 200 per person. Either way, the zarb – the Bedouin underground oven that slow-cooks meat and vegetables buried in sand – produces the best communal meal available in any desert camp format in the region.

When to Go

Spring (March through May) and autumn (September through November): 20 to 30 degrees Celsius by day, cold at night, excellent colours. Summer exceeds 40 degrees. Cash only inside the protected area. Mobile signal disappears about 2 kilometres from the village.