Oman | GlobalSalsa: travel writer Belinda Jackson

Nov

Belinda Jackson wins Travel Writer of the Year 2025-26

I am so pleased to announce that I’m the Australian Society of Travel Writers’ new Travel Writer of the Year!

The awards were announced at a gala celebration hosted by the City of Greater Bendigo, and I couldn’t be more proud. It is the second time I’ve won this prestigious award, the last time was two years ago.

The three stories in my portfolio were drawn from Saudi Arabia, Oman and southern Spain, places I love equally, and were published in the Traveller section of the The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and in Luxury Escapes‘ glossy Dream magazine.

Traveller: AlUla, Saudi Arabia with The Royal Commission for AlUla Read the story here
Traveller: Southern Spain train odyssey with InnTravel Read the story here
Luxury Escapes: Heaven Scent in Oman, with Emirates, Anantara Hotels & Resorts and Shangri-La Group

The very generous prize is two business class tickets on Virgin Australia‘s domestic and short-haul international network – I reckon they’ll be easy to use!

Thank you to the Australian Society of Travel Writers, to the editors including Paul Chai, Craig Platt, Anthony Dennis, Jane Reddy and Trudi Jenkins, and to the tourism companies that continue to help travel journalists and writers produce detailed, quality (fact-checked) features, and to the public relations professionals who support and back us, even as budgets tighten and soundbites shorten. Huge thanks to Barking Owl Communications, Julia Spence PR, Lara McCabe at Burson, Nick Flynn, Zoe Shurgold and of course the sponsors, Virgin Australia

And a shout out to the team at Niyama Private Islands Maldives where I’m currently working on my next story (yep, it’s as tough as it sounds), who baked me the most beautiful cake when they heard the news.

Oct

Shortlisted for Australian Travel Writer of the Year 2025

I’m very, very pleased to announce that I’ve been shortlisted again for Travel Writer of the Year in the Australian Society of Travel Writers 2025 awards!

I titled my collection of three features The Underrated and the Understated, reporting on a train journey in southern Spain, AlUla in Saudi Arabia and Oman (that’s me, stopping to smell the roses, after being trapped in flooded Dubai on the way to that mountain of fragrance).

Thanks to ASTW and to the companies who continue to support travel journalism, including InnTravel, Saudi Tourism, Emirates, Shangri-La Muscat in Oman and Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar, and their PR representatives

And thanks also to the editors at the Traveller section of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers and Luxury Escapes’ Dream magazine, who commission features from these adventures, which sometimes (Ok, often) slip away from the conventional path.

The competition is daunting – my friends Justin Meneguzzi and Kate Henessey complete the trio shortlisted for the TWOTY (best acronym, right?) Luckily, they are both great humans as well as extremely talented writers.

@hh_510 thank you so much, once again, for this photo from Al Jebel Al Akhdar It’s one of my favourite travel photos.

Jul

New hotels, cruises and a Qantas tie-in: why you should holiday in Oman, Australian Financial Review

I first visited Oman way back at the beginning of my crush on the Middle East – at the time, the country was little known to Australians, and to beat an impending group of journalists visiting, two of us opted to go early. Which is how I came to be sitting in a desert, looking at the thermometer touch 50 on our Toyota 4WD.

My most recent visit was not in the height of summer – happily, it was in the relative cool of spring, and this time, I was high up in the mountains to watch the country’s brief and beautiful rose harvest.

You can read more about it in this story for the Australian Financial Review, where I get to rave about my love of desert fortresses, rose terraces and frankincense.

I’m heading off to the Middle East again shortly; everyone asks if it’s a good time. The problem with the ME is that when there’s trouble in one area, the whole region is tainted with the same brush. No-one ever avoided London if there was a crisis in Romania (or even, say, Paris). Oman is the standout in the region as stable, peaceful and neutral; I’m always calling it the Switzerland of the Middle East. If that’s not a reason to holiday in Oman…

Click the link below to read my latest story on Oman:

https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/travel/new-hotels-cruises-and-a-qantas-tie-in-why-you-should-holiday-in-oman-20250410-p5lqpq

And you can always search back through this blog to read more about this fragrant, happily overlooked jewel of the Middle East.

Jan

Shuwa & chai: the best food in Oman

It’s sunset, and I’m in a taxi, getting a masterclass in how to order tea in Oman.

“You don’t even get out of your car to order karak chai,” says Ali, my taxi driver, wiggling two fingers.

Ali’s lesson occurs on a break on our 150-kilometre journey from the mountains to the sea, from the old capital to the new, from Nizwa to Muscat.

A runner emerges from the shop, sees two fingers for two karak, and disappears back inside, to reappear with two tiny takeaway cups.

Redolent of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger and saffron, the tea is short and sweet – the perfect fuel for the taxi driver and the traveller. After Ali pays – because I am a guest first, and a customer second – we pull back onto the smooth, mountain-lined highway, hot tea carefully balanced in hand, for the descent to the turquoise sea.

One of my great trips of 2024 was a solo trip back to Oman, the Switzerland of the Middle East. Wealthy, calm, no high-rises, welcoming to all travellers. I’m afraid word is out about the reputation of this lovely little country on the eastern edge of the Arabia Peninsula – afraid because I kind of want it all to myself. Muscat has welcomed a brace of new hotels, and the glamping scene in the deserts are a feature on instagrammers’ feeds, but it hasn’t rolled over to change to suit travellers’ needs. That’s what I love about it. You go to Oman, you know you’re in Oman, not a generic version of a Middle Eastern country. It is genuinely warm and welcoming – saying this as a woman travelling alone in the country, and that doesn’t need to change.

I think that while there’s so much turmoil and tragedy in other parts of the region – the escalation of the Palestinian invasion, conflict in Lebanon and now in Iran – so many people are wary of visiting any country in the Middle East. But when there’s a problem in France, do we stop visiting Greece?

In Oman, I stayed at Anantara Jebel al Akhdar, at the Shangri-La Al-Husn (which is the adults-only hotel within this group, on the outskirts of Muscat and in Nizwa. The Anantara and Shangri-La stays were both hosted.

To read my full story written for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age’s Traveller section, click here:
https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/inspiration/peaceful-middle-eastern-country-is-underrated-and-understated-like-its-food-20241111-p5kpi7.html

May

Travelling in Oman: chat with 2GB Sydney radio

I’m recently back from travelling in Oman, the quietest little country in the Middle East. So quiet, you may never have thought of it, or thought to visit.

You’re missing out.

Today, I chatted with radio 2GB Sydney host Michael McLaren about Oman. About walking through the narrow streets of a mudbrick town, where you’ll pass men in the classic Omani dishdasha, a long, white robe topped with a kumar, an embroidered cap worn nowhere else but Oman. It is unmistakably different. It is unmistakably Omani.

Travelling in Oman is easy, safe and the people are welcoming – and this is the most fragrant country, the land of frankincense, myrrh, of cardamon-scented coffee and pure rosewater, which I watched distilled in the hill towns of Al Jabal Al Akhdar.

To listen to my chat with Michael McLaren, click here.

Otherwise, you can tune into my podcast, The World Awaits, where I caught up with co-host Kirstie Bedford on my return, to talk about travelling from Muscat to Nizwa to the mountains and the fjords of the Musandam peninsula as well as the deserts – the lovely, lonely, great sand deserts of Arabia.

2GB interview https://omny.fm/shows/2gb-afternoons/travel-oman

The World Awaits podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/4yGJB2Gu4axrPJJhWgDlhw

Oct

Terminal boredom: free things to do in airports

I don’t mind wandering airports – empty or busy, I find them a fabulous use of time. I love the exotic layers you’ll find in the big, Middle Eastern hubs, as yogawear-clad Australian girls sit alongside men in Oman’s national dress of gleaming white dishdasha, or hikers unlace their heavy boots beside the perfectly manicured Parisian couple. I like finding the local cuisine – often a tricky quest amongst the increasingly globalised food courts found in most airports – and the essential souvenir.

However, if shopping for sherry vinegar from southern Spain or 80% chocolate from Ecuador is too boring for you, I offer you my contribution to the Sydney Morning Herald/The Age’s Savvy Traveller section, which lists some of the coolest free things to do in airports around the world.

Top of my list is Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport (AMS), which has a longstanding collaboration with the country’s most important art gallery, the Rijksmuseum – long before art in airports became A Thing.

Too tame? Dress up in hanbok in Seoul, pat a Giant Flemish bunny in San Fran, chase butterflies in Singapore or cruise an archeological museum in Athens.

To read my story in the Traveller section, click here

https://www.traveller.com.au/long-delay-or-layover-find-free-things-to-do-at-the-airport-h26j08

Apr

Glamping in Oman

Warning: gratuitous carpet shot!
Pulled this one out of the archives when thinking about the things I love most about Oman, in prep for my chat with the food & travel radio show @amoveablefeast_3aw this morning. Glamping in style in the Wahiba Sands, on the edge of the mysterious Empty Quarter.

Sep

Ten travel experiences that will change your life

Characters of Egypt. Photo: Belinda Jackson.

If you’ve been living under a rock (or possibly not in Australia), you may have missed the launch of the fabulous new Traveller website, from Fairfax Media. To kick off, a handful of us were asked for 10 travel experiences that changed our lives. I nominated hanging off a glacier on Russia’s Mt Elbrus and watching the cultural puzzle click in India, but also experiencing the absolute inability to communicate (in South Korea) and travelling in the Middle East (oh, there are SO many ways this has changed my life).

Here are my two published experiences below, and you can click here to read the full story, which includes seeing Rome’s Colosseum, going on safari on the Masai Mara and visiting the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.

There are holidays that help you relax and unwind, then there are
travel experiences that change your entire outlook on life. Here, some
of Traveller’s most well-travelled writers name the experiences that
changed their lives – and could change yours, too.

Where: South Korea and beyond

The experience: Finding yourself in a truly foreign culture
How it will change your life:
One
of the great joys of travel is connecting with a local without a tour
guide babying you through the conversation.There are those little
milestones – the first time you buy water, order a meal, score a date in
a foreign language.
I thought I was pretty slick: I could fumble
French, shout Spanish, read Russian. My mime skills were excellent, the
vocabulary list in my travel guides well-studied. But my global
communication skills foundered, profoundly, in South Korea.
I’m
sitting in an empty café in Seoul. According to the photos around us, it
sells noodles. I would like noodles. Every time I suggest a noodle
dish, the waitress shakes her head. So I point. She shakes. Point.
Shake. Point. Shake. I give up, I find a vending machine. (Later, I
learn I was sitting in a closed restaurant.)
Having the complete inability to communicate is a humbling experience. It is a reminder that the world is a far bigger place than just you and your orbit. – Belinda Jackson
More: english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/index.kto

Where: The Middle East

The experience: See life beyond the newsreels
How it will change your life:
They do things big in the Middle East: the Great Pyramid of Gizas,
Iran’s Persepolis, the Sahara desert and the Empty Quarter, to name a
few. Steer clear if you like orderly queues, traffic lights and 10pm
bedtimes.
The standard backdrop for the Middle East in news
bulletins is of tanks, screaming masses and men in epaulettes. The
reality on the ground – save a few war zones – is about traffic jams,
happily shouting friends and men in epaulettes (what’s not to love about
a good uniform?).
Men and women live in different spheres, pork
and booze are largely off the menu and if you’re foreign, you’re rich.
Yes, there are camels and shisha (tobacco water pipes) and you will see
belly dancers. Yet there are also chic beach resorts, the sneaky
late-night bars and saucy cabarets, the deep and abiding love of
football (that’s soccer). And while headscarves can polarise a nation,
from Iran to Oman, the passion for fashion is alive and kicking, with
the same obsession for black.
Let go: travelling in the Middle
East requires sinking deep into a rich, cultural morass. Deep down,
you’ll realise, we all just want the good life. – Belinda Jackson.

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Where: South Korea and beyond

Where: The Middle East