Sugar Dunes
Sugar Dunes is a truly fascinating place: as the name suggests, the sand dunes look like they are made of white sugar! Fine powder sugar, to be precise. It is a nice long stretch of whimsical dunes running along the coastline - the white dunes against the blue water is quite a sight. If you type Sugar Dunes in Google Maps you will get the right location - it is almost 400km from Muscat, which makes it more suitable for a long weekend but it is certainly worth the drive and you can combine your visit with other attractions as well (we have some suggestions at the end of the post). There is nothing inside Sugar Dunes - no shops or petrol - so make sure you stock and fuel up. Also there are no hotels at the moment, so you need to camp if you want to stay over (what you certainly should) - this probably will change soon as we saw at least one hotel under construction.
Our suggestion is to drive in from Al Khaluf (20.4710, 58.0654) - Al Khaluf is a sleepy little fishing village and the drive to the village is quite scenic already. There are a few shops here in case you need it. What is special about the place is the beach - you can find hidden caves (the most famous one is here: 20.4523, 58.0499), white beaches, pink beaches, rocky beaches etc. And all undeveloped and empty as long as you can see - just stunning. You can easily spend a day or two just to discover this area. To explore the cave and the beaches right around the villages you do not need 4WD.
For the drive into Sugar Dunes is best to follow the guidance of the Oman Off-road book - the road is not paved and by large running along the coastline and it requires a 4WD. Basically anywhere along the coast you can camp - if it is windy, probably it is best to camp behind the first line of dunes. The sand here is super fine and usually there is wind which makes the dunes constantly move - which means the sand is very loose. It is so much easier to get stuck here than anywhere else! We have driven in deserts in UAE, Qatar and elsewhere in Oman and while in UAE and Qatar we never got stuck we did it twice here in Oman. Here in the Sugar Dunes it was so bad, that Finn had to climb out of the window as the car sunk that much that he could not open the door. Eventually with the help of the guys from the construction we did dig the car out and escaped - but it was certainly a scary experience at first. Never the less the camping was sublime - the color of the dunes were changing with the light and at some point they were indeed super white! Besides the dunes the other main attractions are the sunset and sunrise - they were both magical!
Main coordinates for the coastal track: 20.4560,58.0474 is the entry point, you will see the track. Stay on it. 20.4329,57.9949 - this is where you will drive away from the beach, follow the track - you will shortly come back . Drive on the beach. You can camp anywhere. 20.3803,57.9421 is where you leave the Sugar Dunes beach and 20.3444,57.7826 wher you connect back to the paved road.
If you want to combine this trip with other stops, here are our suggestions:
2. You can camp here on the way to Salalah - this is what we did.
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