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Visiting Wadi Rum in December

BySunMed Guide

Visiting Wadi Rum in December

# Wadi Rum in December

Here’s the honest take: December in Wadi Rum is genuinely one of the better months to visit, but not in the way the glossy brochures sell it.

The weather is the thing people worry about most, and fair enough. Daytime temperatures sit somewhere between 10-15°C, which sounds mild until you factor in the wind cutting across open desert. It feels colder than those numbers suggest. Nights are genuinely cold, sometimes dropping close to freezing, and if you’re staying in one of those Bedouin-style tented camps, “cosy” depends entirely on how much they’ve invested in heating. Some are excellent. Some are not. Rainfall is relatively low but not impossible, and a rainstorm in desert terrain can shift plans quickly since some areas become inaccessible when wet.

What you gain is the crowds, or rather the lack of them. Wadi Rum in summer or peak spring can feel surprisingly busy for somewhere so vast. In December you actually get the silence the place promises. Tour groups thin out considerably, and the light in winter is extraordinary, lower in the sky, casting longer shadows across the red sandstone that photographers genuinely love.

Everything is still operating. Jeep tours, camel rides, overnight camps, the lot. Operators don’t close up for winter here. If anything, some camp owners are more attentive when they’re not managing fifty guests at once.

Is it worth it? For hikers and photographers, absolutely yes. For anyone wanting to swim or lounge around in a t-shirt, clearly no, wrong desert experience entirely. Families with young children should think carefully about the cold nights specifically.

One practical tip worth actually using: bring more layers than you think you need, then add one more. The temperature swing between a sunny afternoon walk and sitting outside your tent at nine in the evening is dramatic and catches almost everyone unprepared. A decent sleeping bag liner if you’re camping matters more than most packing lists will tell you.

December suits people who want the landscape, not the weather.

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