This is the first muscat road trip Video. Few other videos will be following……
The Dubai to Muscat route
The drive from Dubai to Muscat is one of the great road trips of the Gulf — roughly 450 kilometres that can be covered in around four and a half to five hours of actual driving. The classic route leaves Dubai on the E44 towards Hatta, crosses into Oman at the Al Wajajah border post, and then follows the coastal highway south through Sohar before the mountains part and Muscat appears between the rocks and the sea.
The scenery changes three times along the way: first the dunes of the Dubai desert, then the jagged brown ridges of the Hajar Mountains around Hatta, and finally the long green-fringed coast of the Batinah plain, where date plantations run beside the road for kilometre after kilometre.
Border crossing tips
Carry your passport, vehicle registration card and car insurance that explicitly covers Oman — many UAE policies need an inexpensive Oman extension, so check before you leave. There is an exit fee on the UAE side and a visa fee on the Omani side; both are paid at the border and requirements change from time to time, so it is worth a quick check online in the week before you travel. Fill the tank before crossing and keep some cash handy for the fees.
What to see in Muscat
Muscat rewards the drive. The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is the essential first stop — its main prayer hall holds one of the largest hand-woven carpets in the world beneath a chandelier of Swarovski crystal. From there, head to the Mutrah Corniche, where dhows bob in the harbour below old watchtowers, and lose an hour in the lanes of Mutrah Souq with its frankincense, silver and spice stalls. Old Muscat, a short drive further, holds the ceremonial Al Alam Palace flanked by the sixteenth-century Portuguese forts of Jalali and Mirani. Culture lovers should also look at the programme of the Royal Opera House Muscat, a marble landmark of modern Omani architecture.
If you have an extra day
Continue down the coast towards Sur: the Bimmah Sinkhole and the wadi pools of Wadi Shab are two of the most beautiful swimming spots in Arabia, both reachable on an easy day loop from Muscat. Oman is a country that keeps giving the further you drive.
For more road adventures from this journal, see Esfahan, Iran and the ride diaries in Make Life a Ride.
