The Middle East is where you go for the contrast: $2,000-a-night hotels next to thousand-year-old souks, Michelin restaurants three blocks from where Marco Polo passed through, and desert resorts that look like they were designed by the people who built the pyramids. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the headline acts — beaches, skyscrapers, shopping, and the most reliable luxury hotel inventory in the world. But Jordan (Petra, Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea), Oman (Muscat, the Musandam fjords), Israel and Palestine (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Galilee), and Saudi Arabia (now open to tourism, with AlUla and the Red Sea) all deliver completely different trips. Winter is the season — October through April, when temperatures are walkable. Summer hits 110°F+ across most of the region. Most countries are passport-and-eVisa friendly for US travelers.
