Saraya Rum Private Luxury Camp in Jordan’s Wadi Rum Desert

The dancing began shortly after dinner at Saraya Rum Private Luxury Camp, a stylish “glamping” retreat set amid the reddish desert sands of Wadi Rum Protected Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in southern Jordan.

Clad in long white robes, several staff members urged guests to join them as they circled one end of the dining room, arms stretched across each other’s shoulders. While several novice dancers tried to follow their hosts, the rest of us clapped and cheered their valiant, if occasionally clumsy, attempts.

During my recent stay at Saraya Rum, one of many “camps” across the Wadi Rum desert, our small group of travelers journeyed across the sands by jeep, enjoyed traditional foods, dancing, and conversation around the campfire, and settled into our surprisingly posh cottages for a restful night, surrounded by the sands and rock formations of this south Jordan region, where the otherworldy landscape is often called the “Valley of the Moon.”

Here’s the scoop:

Desert Adventures at Saraya Rum

We had arrived at Saraya Rum Private Luxury Camp after a jeep tour across the sands of Wadi Rum, stopping for short hikes to check out ancient petroglyphs and to climb to viewpoints above the unusual rock outcroppings that rose above the desert.

Located about 200 miles (325 kilometers) south of Amman, Jordan’s capital, Saraya Rum has 30 cottages, each draped with striped tent-like fabrics and linked by wooden walkways over the sand, with a communal building for dining and lounging at one end of the property.

One of the staff welcomed us with a traditional coffee service, pouring our coffee into tiny, gold-trimmed cups and offering dates, nuts, and other sweets to nibble.

As the sun sank behind the surrounding desert hills, we assembled in the courtyard behind the dining room to watch our dinner emerge from an underground pit. The staff was preparing zarb, a traditional Bedouin meal — meat and vegetables roasted over coals on racks beneath the ground.

Inside the dining area, where colorful woven fabrics covered both the ceilings and the banquettes, the zarb headlined an ample buffet that started with salads, hummus, mutabal (eggplant dip), and breads, and finished with baklava, crème caramel, petite fruit tarts, and other pastries.

Guest Rooms and Amenities

Each of the 30 cottages at Saraya Rum is outfitted like a luxe desert tent, with a chandelier hanging from the fabric-draped ceiling. On the tiled floors, you could sit on pillows around a low table or relax in the silver leatherette side chairs. There’s a desk with a tea kettle, along with tea bags and packets of instant coffee.

The beds’ modern design would be at home in a New York loft, with black wood headboards and attached silver bolsters. Each unit has air conditioning, heat, electricity, and quick-to-heat hot water in the spacious black-and-white marble private baths with huge walk-in showers.  Wooden blinds provided shelter from the strong afternoon sun, though I appreciated the warm quilt during the chilly desert evening.

The property nominally has wi-fi, although service was mostly nonexistent in the cottages and intermittent in the dining room. Most of us gave up trying to read or respond to emails.

Those messages from the outside world began to seem unimportant anyway, as darkness settled on the desert camp, and staff built a fire in the outdoor “living room,” where after dinner and dancing, we lounged on pillows arrayed on carpets around the campfire.

We knew that the next morning, after a breakfast of cheeses, salads, yogurt, pastries, and more, we’d pile into the jeeps again, crossing the sands to return to the lights and noise of the Jordanian capital, where there would be plenty of time to reconnect with the world.

For now, at Saraya Rum Private Luxury Camp, all that mattered was sitting around the fire with our new friends, laughing about our attempts at dancing and chatting about the adventures that we’d had that day, as the stars came out across the desert sky.

Rates

Rates at Saraya Rum Private Luxury Camp include meals and accommodations, starting at about US$450/night. while this spectacular luxury camp is not available to book on an online hotel booking site, you can explore other properties in the area on Booking.com.

Looking for other unique stays in Jordan? Read our review of Feynan Ecolodge: Off the Grid Adventures in Jordan.

Hotel feature by Vancouver-based travel, food, and feature writer Carolyn B. Heller. Photos © Carolyn B. Heller.  Magic Travels, with support from the Jordan Tourism Board, arranged my stay at Saraya Rum Private Luxury Camp as part of the Adventure Travel Trade Association‘s Elevate Near East event.