If You Want to Enjoy the Country, Be Sure to Rent a Car in Muscat

Posted by Hridoy Ahmed on January 5th, 2020

There are many destinations that we have visited around the world where we have discovered that renting a car was a better experience. In many others, we realized that we would probably have had a better time if we had wasted our transportation for a few days. But there are some selected destinations where we did not rent a car and we realized that it was a critical error that greatly altered our experience.

Muscat was one of those destinations.

While it is difficult for anyone to completely justify the costs of a rental car, especially when you will have to spend even more for a full SUV with 4-wheel drive, we have some reasons why you should consider it when traveling Muscat.

Infrequent bus schedules

To visit most of the cities in Muscat, we get stuck in a basic bus schedule with departures twice a day. This is as true for day-trip cities only one or two hours away as it is for long-distance buses that reach the most remote corners of the country (although some locals "swear" that others exist with greater frequency

Then, while you may want to take a bus at 10 am after leaving your hotel, you will quickly realize that your only option may be 7 am or 5 pm with nothing in between. Great if you want to leave early, not so much if you are on an excursion and finish your visit in a few hours.

Perhaps the most difficult part of this is that many bus stops are small shacks on the side of a road, or worse, just a sign without a schedule or mile assistant. If a bus is delayed or decomposes as one of ours, it can stand in the sun of Oman for a long time wondering what is happening.

As bus options are limited, we find ourselves using taxis more than we would have liked.

Enter the desert

Hopefully, the above reasons are enough to help you consider rent a car Muscat trip. But there is something else you should consider: you must rent a vehicle with four-wheel drive.

There is a reason for this, and it's simple, you need a four-wheeled vehicle to venture into the desert!

We made our trek to the Wahiba Sands paying for the camp to provide us with a transfer at an extremely high rate (approximately $ 100 round trip). When they asked how we got there, they were surprised that we took the public bus! As almost everyone who stayed at the camp rolled up in his vehicle, we felt strange.

But what do you have to do to get to these camps? There are about 30 kilometers of open desert to cross, some dunes to ascend and, in general, a very hard journey all the way with numerous opportunities to get lost. The camp even tells you how to deflate your tires at the proper pressure to handle subtle changes in the ground. Naturally, you can pay more for a guide, and this could be the best course, since the signs in the desert are almost nonexistent.

As there are many places like this in Oman where it is necessary to get off the road, do not even think about renting a car without a four-wheel-drive when you go!

Although we really enjoyed our time in Muscat Oman, we couldn't help thinking that we made a big mistake by not renting a car to explore further. The cost is expensive, but not being able to see all the main destinations hurts more than spending a little more, and we are sorry after not having a car during our trips in the country.