← All articles · Jordan · February 2026

Aqaba, Jordan: Riding into Wadi Rum on the back of a Bedouin pickup

From Aqaba into Wadi Rum, the Valley of the Moon: red dunes, 2,000-year-old carvings, the Hejaz Railway and Bedouin tea with a local guide.

Wadi Rum, the Valley of the Moon, became one of the highlights of our whole Jordan trip. The scale of it's genuinely difficult to capture on camera: towering sandstone mountains, endless red sand, and a silence that makes you whisper without noticing.

Exploring Wadi Rum: ancient history, Bedouin culture and red sand desert. Watch on YouTube

We explored the desert with a local Bedouin guide, which is the way to do it, the landscape all looks the same until someone who grew up here starts pointing things out. We visited the historic Hejaz Railway, passed camels and herders living the traditional desert life, and found ancient carvings in the rock dating back around 2,000 years.

Then there was the hospitality. Bedouin tea in the desert is a small ritual that somehow tastes better than any café version, and it came with stories, including why film crews keep coming back here. Wadi Rum has stood in for other worlds in Lawrence of Arabia, The Martian, Dune and Star Wars, and once you’re standing in it, you see why.

Wadi Rum in well under a minute: red sand, sandstone and a great deal of sky. Watch on YouTube

It looks like Mars, and it’s Jordan. Towering sandstone mountains, endless red sand dunes and ancient carvings cut into the rock, which together make Wadi Rum one of the most incredible places we’ve ever set foot in. Thirty-eight seconds is enough to see the problem with photographs of it.

If you’re planning your own trip: Wadi Rum and Petra are usually visited together, we stayed at The Rock Camp Petra and carried straight on to the ancient city. The big decision is your desert night: a traditional Bedouin camp, a luxury desert resort, or a remote night under the stars. We’d struggle to talk you out of any of them.

Photos from Wadi Rum and Aqaba

Two frames from February 2026: the classic way to see the desert, from the padded bench of a Bedouin pickup, and the giant flag waiting for us down on the coast in Aqaba afterwards.

Inga and Dileep sitting on patterned cushions in the open back of a Toyota Hilux in Wadi Rum, with camels and sandstone cliffs behind — The back of the Hilux, the only sensible seat in Wadi Rum. Camels overtaking on the left.

Inga and Dileep standing beneath Aqaba's giant flagpole, the huge flag flying against a deep blue sky with Ramadan decorations on the plaza — Aqaba's giant flagpole, one of the tallest anywhere, with Ramadan decorations going up around the plaza.

A day in the desert

The rest of that day, roughly in order: the turn-off, the railway, the camels, the carvings, and then the drive back down to the sea.

A brown road sign reading Rum in English and Arabic, pointing off a desert highway towards the Wadi Rum village — The turn off the highway towards Rum, complete with pictograms for everything you can do out there.

Inga standing on the running board of a weathered yellow locomotive parked on the Hejaz Railway line in Wadi Rum, open desert behind — Rolling stock parked up on the Hejaz Railway, the line that runs through so many Lawrence of Arabia stories.

View over the bonnet of a white pickup in Wadi Rum, a herder leading a string of camels along the sandy track ahead — Overtaking is complicated out here.

A line of saddled camels walking across the red sand of Wadi Rum with tall sandstone cliffs behind them — Camel traffic, blankets and saddles on, heading somewhere with more purpose than we had.

Inga standing beside a large boulder in Wadi Rum carved with ancient figures, her Bedouin guide in a red checked keffiyeh in the foreground — Our guide pointing out carvings in the rock, roughly two thousand years old and completely unfenced.

Inga standing on a dark rock outcrop in Wadi Rum, looking out over an open plain of red sand towards distant mountains — Wadi Rum handles scale better than any camera does. That's the whole plain behind her.

Inga, Dileep and a third member of their group taking a selfie on the Aqaba waterfront, the Red Sea and the hills of the far shore behind them — Sunglasses, sea breeze and a peace sign on the Aqaba corniche, once the desert had spat us back out.

There’s more from this trip on our YouTube channel, we film the real sights and sounds, no fluff. You’ll also find us on TikTok and Instagram.