The Best Places in the Middle East to Visit in 2024

Witness the cinematic landscapes of Wadi Rum for yourself and you’ll understand why major Hollywood productions have spent so much time in Jordan over the last decade. This otherworldly desert valley has developed an impressive filmography in recent years – including The Martian (2015), Dune (2021) and various Star Wars projects – and you’ll get to explore its giant dunes, hidden coves and craggy red-rock cliffs on day five of our eight-day Jordan trip. Having bounced around in a 4×4 all day, you’ll wind down for the evening at a luxurious campsite, from which you’ll spend an evening marvelling at the desert night sky. The filmic destinations don’t stop there either, as we also explore Petra – as seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) – and the Red Sea city of Aqaba, which features prominently in Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The trip wraps up with some time to float in the salty waters of the Dead Sea – a place more than worthy of a strange sci-fi epic.

Okay, forgive us for the technicality on this one. Morocco, obviously, isn’t part of the Middle East. In fact it stretches further west than any point of mainland Europe. However, the Maghreb region of North Africa is very much an extension of the Middle East. You can trace this culturally, with Arabic and Islamic heritage dominating much of the region and, as a result, the architecture, local traditions and general ambience of cities in particular is very similar to that of Middle Eastern countries. Geographically, meanwhile, you have the Sahara Desert, which stretches all the way from Egypt in the Middle East to Morocco, the Maghreb’s westernmost nation. That’s our justification for including Morocco in this list, but more importantly we’re talking about the world’s largest (and most famous) hot desert. Our 11-day Epic Morocco itinerary includes a visit to this sprawling sandy landscape, as you visit a rural Gnawa village to learn about Saharan culture, before zooming across dunes to reach our desert campsite. That’s where we’ll spend an evening of wine tasting and stargazing around a campfire in the heart of the Sahara, before waking early the following morning for an unforgettable sunrise camel ride – is there a travel experience more quintessentially Middle Eastern than that?