For many travellers, Oman is still a blank spot on the map.
Overshadowed by its flashier Gulf neighbours, the Middle Eastern nation rarely appears on mainstream bucket lists in the same way as Dubai or Europe’s well worn tourist trail. Yet those who do make it there often speak about it with a kind of quiet amazement, describing dramatic desert landscapes, warm hospitality and a sense of calm that feels increasingly rare in modern travel.
For author and professional speaker Catherine DeVrye, Oman became one of those unexpected places that stayed with her long after she returned home.
And that is saying something for someone who has travelled to more than 150 countries.
Canadian born but Australian by choice, Catherine has spent decades combining work and travel, living in places including Tokyo and Hong Kong while building a career as a bestselling author and international speaker. These days, Manly Beach is home, though her passport is rarely left untouched for long.
Choosing a favourite trip, she admits, is almost impossible.
After narrowing down destinations ranging from Brazil and Vietnam to Uzbekistan and Ecuador, Catherine ultimately landed on Oman, a country she first visited in 2012 during a brief stopover on the way home from Europe.
At the time, she had very few plans.
Originally intending to meet a friend there, Catherine suddenly found herself travelling solo after those arrangements fell through. With little organised beyond a hotel stay, she contacted a local speakers bureau and a friend-of-a-friend from New York at the last minute, a decision that unexpectedly opened the door to a country she would return to many times over.
From the moment she arrived in Muscat, Oman’s capital, she sensed something different about the place.
The airport felt calm and orderly, while outside, the city unfolded in a sea of white buildings, part of a longstanding bylaw designed to preserve Muscat’s traditional appearance. Men moved through the streets wearing flowing white robes, while rugged mountains rose dramatically behind the city.
What surprised Catherine most, however, was how quickly her assumptions about travelling solo in a Gulf nation disappeared.
Before arriving, she had expected to feel the need to be ultra conservative and cautious as a woman alone. Instead, she found herself completely comfortable exploring the country independently, eventually hiring a car and driving solo through desert roads, mountain regions and remote villages.
One of the moments she remembers most vividly happened at the famous Nizwa goat market, where traders gather before dawn in a tradition that has existed for generations.
Catherine arrived early enough to find herself the only tourist and the only woman there.
“It felt like stepping onto a movie set from centuries past,” she said.
“That was until a mobile phone ringtone snapped me back to the present.”
The deeper she travelled through Oman, the more the country surprised her.
Beyond Muscat’s clean white streets were beaches, dramatic mountain ranges and hidden wadis, natural pools where locals and travellers swim beneath towering cliffs in the middle of the desert. Catherine spent time hiking through remote regions and driving across landscapes she admits she had never associated with the Middle East before arriving.
Food also became part of the experience.
As a vegetarian at the time, Catherine gravitated towards falafels, hummus, spicy rice dishes and salads, though one of her strongest food memories came during a Christmas stopover in Muscat when she skipped the hotel’s traditional festive lunch entirely.
Instead, she created her own eclectic holiday feast from a shopping centre food court, piecing together Omani dates, Persian orange juice, Belgian waffles, Chinese stir fry and Italian coffee before finishing the day with a Thai massage.
“It was a long way from the white Christmases of my childhood in Canada,” she said.
“And yet somehow I felt completely at home.”
For Catherine, much of Oman’s appeal came not from major tourist attractions, but from the feeling the country gave her.
She describes it as “an oasis of optimism” in a region often misunderstood by outsiders, something reinforced repeatedly through small interactions with locals during her travels.
One moment in particular still makes her laugh.
Driving alone through the desert one day with country music blasting through the car stereo and the air conditioning working overtime, Catherine suddenly spotted two camels hurtling past her at extraordinary speed.
For a split second, she wondered if dehydration had caused hallucinations before realising the camels were travelling in the back of a speeding ute.
Laughing at herself afterwards, she realised something had shifted in the way she viewed the country.
“I now knew deep down that the cultural gulf I once imagined didn’t really exist,” she said.
“Just people. Human, kind, funny and complex.”
That feeling of trust and openness remained one of her strongest lasting impressions of Oman.
Even now, one of the moments she would most happily relive involves handing her phone to a young stranger at the crowded goat market to take a photograph, without a second thought about whether she would get it back.
For Catherine, that small act captured something much larger about the country and the people she met there.
While Oman has become increasingly popular with travellers in recent years, particularly as a stopover destination between Australia and Europe, Catherine believes it still retains much of the authenticity that first drew her in over a decade ago.
Her advice for older Australians considering the destination is simple: travel respectfully, avoid the hottest months and don’t be afraid to go beyond Muscat.
“You don’t need to wear a head covering,” she said.
“But dressing respectfully is appreciated and I never once felt uncomfortable travelling solo.”
As for where she is headed next, Catherine insists there are currently no concrete plans, though with a new book, Beyond Timbuktu: Journeys of Hope & Humanity, releasing later this year, she admits all it would take is one unexpected invitation to send her packing another suitcase.