It traces the stunning, extraterrestrial landscape featured in films like Star Wars and Dune, while helping to preserve traditional Bedouin culture.

My Bedouin guide Abdallah led the way up and into the crags of Jebel Umm Ishrin (1,753m), the sheer, eastern wall of Jordan’s most spectacular valley: Wadi Rum. Though it’s considered one of the world’s most breathtaking desert landscapes today, few outsiders had ever heard of Wadi Rum in 1917 when British archaeologist and writer TE Lawrence travelled through, describing this eastern wall as “one massive rampart of redness”.

Forty-five years later, his journey inspired the film Lawrence of Arabia, which effectively introduced Wadi Rum to the outside world.

Long before Lawrence, local Bedouin scrambled to dizzying heights on these cliffs, blazing vertiginous paths to needle the mountains’ narrowest gaps, reaching their innermost fissures and skirting their dome-capped summits on the hunt for ibex.

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As Abdallah and I followed in their footsteps, clambering up the cleft of Umm Ejil (also known as Rakhabat Canyon), the passage narrowed and rock walls popped with weathered niches and delicate natural columns, as if marking the approach to an ancient shrine. Panting, I dropped to a black sandstone bench to rest beside Abdallah. We were deep in the heart of Jebel Umm Ishrin, engulfed in its silence, until a human-like whistle suddenly broke the quiet. I craned my neck to scan the surrounding cliffs. Such high, hidden reaches have long been considered the hideouts of magical jinn (genies).

Abdallah smiled: a starling, he explained. Their two-part whistle is a familiar sound in the surrounding Hisma plateau.

Of the area’s hundreds of miles of red-sand desert, the bulk of which stretches beyond the Saudi border, it’s Jordan’s fortuitous sliver that is by far the best known. It’s this stretch, centred on the Unesco-inscribed Wadi Rum Protected Area, that a bewitched Lawrence described as “magically haunted” and “vast and echoing and God-like”. In recent decades, this extraterrestrial terrain has served as the backdrop of numerous blockbuster films, including Prometheus (2012), The Martian (2015), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and Dune (2021 and 2024).

It was in this mesmerizing setting that, after extensive exploration by a group of Bedouin and British enthusiasts, a new long-distance hiking trail was introduced in February 2023: The Wadi Rum Trail. This 10-day, clockwise journey spans 120km starting from Jebel Umm Ishrin, showcasing the surreal beauty of Wadi Rum’s landscapes, and reaching areas well beyond the common 4×4 routes into the depths of the Protected Area. As described by Ben Hoffler, one of the trail’s originators, the route is a blend of various Bedouin paths including walking, shepherding, camel, hunting, and smuggling paths, along with segments of the ancient darb al-hajj (pilgrimage route) to Mecca.

Hoffler has dedicated over ten years to developing mountain trails across the region, including the Sinai in Egypt and the Red Sea Mountain and Bedouin Trail — an extensive 1,200km path connecting Jordan to Upper Egypt. Yet, Wadi Rum holds a unique charm for Hoffler, resonating with a majestic landscape and a traditional Bedouin culture not found in other parts of the Hisma plateau, creating an enchanting experience.

Similar to the ingenious Nabatean civilization that built Petra centuries ago, the Zalabieh tribe, prominent within the Protected Area, was attracted to Wadi Rum by the perennial springs at the base of Jebel Rum – a magnanimous rock formation opposite Jebel Umm Ishrin. The area is rich in biodiversity and cultural history, featuring springs surrounded by wild mint and rock walls bearing ancient Thamudic and Greek inscriptions along with Nabatean shrines.

Until a few generations back, the Bedouin village at the base of Jebel Rum was merely a cluster of goat-hair tents. Government interventions from the 1930s onwards have facilitated permanent settlements, with modern vehicles replacing camels and 4×4 tourism becoming the economic backbone, predominantly focusing on tours towards the southern parts along a virtual highway of trails.

By contrast, the Wadi Rum Trail climbs east into the twisting bowels of the mountains, losing the crowds from the start. Ten days later, it ends where it began, with increasingly hair-raising abseils down the face of Jebel Rum landing you back at the springs.

Climber and adventurer Tony Howard was first drawn to Wadi Rum in the 1980s and has since played a pivotal role in putting Wadi Rum on the tourism map. In exploring and publishing the region’s first climbing routes, he struck up lasting friendships with Zalabieh members and was deeply impressed by their hospitality and knowledge of the steep terrain.

After Howard and Hoffler hiked the Sinai Trail together in Egypt, the two began collaborating with Howard’s friends in Wadi Rum – among them Zalabieh elders – to create a similar long-distance trail in Jordan.

Like Hoffler’s other projects in Egypt, the Wadi Rum Trail was designed with both hikers and locals in mind. Though tackling the trail on your own is permitted, the creators are convinced that the most rewarding experience is to be had in the company of Bedouin guides.

“The Wadi Rum Trail first and foremost pays homage to the Bedouin of Wadi Rum,” said Howard. “They know the area, its flora and fauna intimately from ancestral knowledge – and they are always good company and good fun!”

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“There are many hearts in this path,” said one Zalabieh elder, Sabbah Eid. “[It’s a] beautiful experience with nature and the life of the Bedouin, far from communication and modern life… it gives a special spirit to the place – complete calm.” As Eid explained, much of the impetus for the trail’s creation was to support the Bedouin community, connecting “a new generation of young people to work on this path – instead of working with tours on cars”.

Hoffler believes that Bedouin-led efforts like the Wadi Rum Trail can help preserve the Bedouin’s natural environment and cultural heritage. “If history have shown us anything it’s that the Bedouin known how to live sustainably in the wilderness,” Hoffler said.

Hiking the trail

While hiking the complete trail takes 10 days, those short on time can tackle it in bite-sized chunks, as I opted to do, beginning with the first of the route’s six sections: the traverse of Umm Ejil. This leads to the spectacular dunes of Wadi Umm Ishrin, where the surrounding cliffs hide a trove of petroglyphs and Nabatean and Thamudic inscriptions. Scrambling over another craggy rise, the sandy expanse of the Khor al-Ajram basin spread to the south. After threading the gorgeous Abu Khashaba Canyon, we scaled Jebel Birda (1,574m) and stood atop its enormous rock arch. The views from Birda’s ridge encompass the greatest of Wadi Rum’s sandstone massifs to the north, west and south.

From here the trail leads east, leaving behind the camps and the sands of Wadi Rum’s classic landscape to enter the desolate Tablelands, among the route’s loneliest sections. It then arches south along an ancient camel trail, passing old burial grounds, further time-worn inscriptions and a valley dotted with traces of long-forgotten caravans.

Jordan’s highest peak is the route’s next landmark, located just 1km from the Saudi border: Umm ad-Dami (1,854m). The clouds burst with colour as I scrambled the final stretch to its stony summit. Salman, my young Bedouin guide for this stretch, explained that the peak’s name is linked to an old Bedouin code of justice and honour. Blood feuds, known as damm (“blood”) have long been resolved by way of this unwritten law. In Bedouin strongholds like Wadi Rum, this code still applies to this day, with tribal sheikhs still tasked as traditional jurists alongside – or in lieu of – civil authorities.

Looking west from the summit to the burnt-orange bluffs, I wondered if the name could perhaps have come from their rusty tinge at this hour. A welcome breeze picked up as I admired the succession of ridges, towering over enormous waves of immaculate sand. Just then, I felt my phone buzz: a message in Arabic welcomed me to Saudi Arabia.

The path does not enter Saudi Arabia, but instead veers northwest towards the Hejaz Hills before reaching the trail’s crowning point: Jebel Rum (1,734m). For generations, the Bedouin have climbed the peaks of Jebel Rum, where wildlife such as rabbits and goats roam the wooded areas. For those hiking the whole route, the climax at Jebel Rum is stunning, requiring the use of ropes, harnesses and intricate rappelling down the western face of the mountain.

After departing the village, I shared with several guides my wish to undertake the entire trail in the future. Unlike the quick, standardized 4×4 tours commonly found in Wadi Rum, which increasingly include stays in deluxe space pods that mimic those in movies like The Martian, the trail’s slow and purposeful wander provides a more profound and sustainable connection to the locale.

Tatiana Haddad, a cultural anthropologist from the American University of Beirut, expressed optimism about the trail’s establishment, viewing it as indicative of increased awareness of Wadi Rum’s ecological vulnerabilities and the critical need for its conservation. She highlighted the misconception that desert ecologies are robust, noting that many Bedouins are now altering their way of life due to the environmental decline of Wadi Rum.

However, the importance of the trail extends beyond ecological preservation, focusing also on protecting the rich cultural heritage of the Bedouin community.

“Bedouin culture stands at a crossroads,” Hoffler said. “If [the ancestral knowledge of this land] is lost, it will be a cultural tragedy for all of humanity.” To live on, he explained, “it needs to actually be used. It needs to be learned. It needs to be practiced. It needs to be passed on to the next generations.”

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