Oman Travel Budget: How Much Does It Cost To Travel Oman?

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Oman is a beautiful country in the Middle East, overlooking by most travelers. I spent 2 weeks in Oman and can say from experience: Oman is stunning!

Perhaps one of the reasons not many people visit Oman is they are deterred by the Oman travel cost.

You may be wondering: is Oman expensive? The answer to this question isn’t a simple yes or no, but an ‘it depends’.

In this Oman travel budget post I’ll share everything you need to know about traveling Oman on a budget.

Oman on a budget

Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these links, I may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you!). I’m very grateful when you use my links to make a purchase:-).

How expensive is Oman: Oman travel budget

Several people have asked me about the daily travel budget for Oman as there isn’t much information on the internet about the cost to travel Oman.

Since I always (obsessively) keep check of every euro, dollar, dong, rupee, or in this case Omani Rial we spend, I am happy to share our expenses in Oman.

Oman daily travel budget (for a 2-week road trip)

The infographic shows the expenses for accommodation (campsites and hotels), transport (car rental and petrol), food, and the visa charges for a 2-week road trip around Oman.

Oman travel budget: facts and figures

I collaborated with several companies during our Oman trip which reduced our Oman travel costs.

Nevertheless, I have done my utmost to calculate a realistic budget for a 2-week road trip in Oman.

I researched the prices of our sponsored hotel stays as well as car rental options and included everything in my calculations to properly answer the question: is Oman expensive to visit?

Oman road trip budget: 4WD or 2WD

I wrote down the costs for 2 road trip scenarios:

• Option 1: hire a 4WD car. I strongly recommend this option because off-road driving in Oman is the best!
• Option 2: hire a 2WD (saloon) car. A saloon car is considerably cheaper, so if you want to visit Oman but have a very strict budget a saloon car would be a very suitable alternative. However, and I want to stress this one more time, off-road driving in Oman is awesome so I highly recommend option 1!

I traveled Oman with my husband and for this budget post also assume you are traveling with a partner. Therefore, all expenses mentioned are the sum of the costs for two people.

I quote prices in €. The Omani Rial (OMR) – Euro exchange rate is approximately 1 OMR = €2,5. However, as the exchange rate varies please check the current rates here.

I spent 3 weeks in Oman but only 2 of those weeks were spent on the road. The other days I was in Muscat and Sohar, without a car.

Therefore I excluded those costs from the budget breakdown as the purpose of this post is to give insight into the costs of a 2-week road trip in Oman.

Is Oman expensive to travel?

For option number 1 (with the 4×4 car) you can manage an average daily budget of €123 for a couple.

For option number 2 (with the saloon car) your are looking at an average daily budget of €65 for a couple.

Oman travel budget: expenses per category

1. Accommodation costs in Oman – free campsites and hotels

Assuming you’ll stay in budget hotels and camp for 3 nights in a row before checking into a hotel you’ll spend €150 on hotels in 14 days, which comes down to an average of €11 per night for accommodation.

Camping in Oman

A great way to cut the costs of your Oman trip is to go camping.

Wild camping is legal and as long as you don’t camp near villages or in wadi beds (risk of flash floods), you can pitch your tent anywhere you want!

During our 2-week self-drive road trip we camped for 11 nights and stayed at hotels for only 3 nights.

You can find all the campsites we stayed at (including maps and directions) in this post. We camped for 3 nights, then checked into a hotel for a night to shower and charge our electronics.

Hotels in Oman

During our 3-week Oman trip, we stayed at five hotels in three different budget classes.

It’s definitely possible to find a suitable hotel for every budget in Oman. I usually check hotels on Agoda and Booking and book at the site which offers the best price.

In the table below you can find the five hotels we stayed at during our trip in Oman.

Hotel	Stars	Rating	Price	Agoda	Booking
Mutrah Hotel	☆☆	7.9	US$40	Click here	Click here
Bahla Hotel Apartments	☆☆☆	7.7	US$45	Click here	Click here
Al Ayjah Plaza Hotel	☆☆	7.3	US$51	Click here	Click here
Desert Nights Camp	☆☆☆☆☆	8.8	US$171	Click here	Click here
Radisson Blu Sohar	☆☆☆☆☆	7.9	US$143	Click here	Click here

Note: in Oman, hotel rates vary considerably throughout the year. During high season, from November until the end of March, hotel prices are much higher than during the low (because scorching hot) season, which runs from April until October.

Therefore, the prices mentioned above are a rough indication of the price per night to help you compare the different options. Use ‘click here’ to see the latest prices on Agoda and Booking and book ahead to get the best deal.

2. Car rental and petrol costs in Oman

Car rental in Oman

As mentioned above, you have two options:

1. Rent a 4×4 for approximately €80 per day
2. Rent a saloon car for approximately €22 per day

We received a complimentary car from Mark Tours, an award-winning and well-known tour operator in Oman (check the Lonely Planet of Oman). The car was a white Nissan Xterra, a kick-ass 4×4 jeep that took us everywhere!

I had not driven a 4WD before, but because it was an automatic transmission car, driving couldn’t have been easier.

The dirt roads in Oman are amazing, driving over these adventurous roads for hours without coming across other tourists is what made our trip unforgettable.

That being said, a 4×4 is much more expensive than a saloon car and there are many worthwhile destinations in Oman which can perfectly be reached without a 4×4.

Price of petrol in Oman

Petrol is cheap in Oman, as can be expected from a country which has oil (though not nearly as much as several of its neighbors).

We paid 200 baisa per liter, that’s just €0,50! In the Netherlands the price for petrol is at least 3 times higher so for us this was a pleasant surprise.

Obviously, the amount you’ll spend on fuel depends on how many kilometers you’ll drive but if you follow our itinerary you’re looking at €10 per day for fuel.

In 2 weeks, we drove approximately 2750 kilometers, so ~200 km per day.

3. Costs of food in Oman

Food is not expensive in Oman, in fact, it’s very cheap! Even the smallest villages usually have a coffee shop. And in Oman a coffee shop means food.

These little restaurants are mostly run by people from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan and sell delicious dosas, curries, biryani, rice and more.

Besides the great food in the coffee shops, there are also excellent supermarkets in Oman.

In the bigger cities, you’ll find LuLu and Carrefour hypermarkets, in smaller towns there are local supermarkets which I found surprisingly well stocked!

Average prices for food items in Oman

• Water (6*2 liter) ⇒900 baisa / €2,25
• Coffee ⇒ 200 baisa / €0,50
• Fruit juice ⇒ 500 baisa – 1 OMR / €1,25 – €2,50
• Lunch/dinner ⇒ 500 baisa – 1,5 OMR / €1,25 – €4
• 4-pack of flatbread in the supermarket ⇒ 100 baisa / €0,25

What helped to cut the costs for food even more is that we often made our own breakfast. Many days we camped in the middle of nowhere and there were no coffee shops around (or opened yet, as we usually woke up at the crack of dawn).

We had a compact stove, gas and a small pan to boil water. We used the hot water to make tea, coffee, porridge and noodle soup, very convenient! On average, we spent €15 per day on food.

4. Visa costs for Oman

In my Hatta border post, you can read more about our border crossing experience but long story short: a 10-day visa for Oman costs 5 OMR / €12,50 and a 1 month visa for Oman costs 20 OMR / €50.

Assuming you’ll spend 14 days in the country and therefore need to buy a 1 month visa of 20 OMR per person your average daily visa costs are approximately €7.

5. Cost of activities in Oman

The road trip itself was our main activity but other than that we did several hikes (free) and visited two historic forts (in Nakhal and Bahla).

The entrance fee for both forts was 500 baisa / €1,25 per person. I left this out of the calculations as it’s so little it doesn’t really have an influence on the daily travel budget.

Plan your trip to Oman like a pro with these tools:
✈️ Find the best flight deals on Kiwi.com.
🚙 Get the best 4×4 rental deal for your road trip on Rentalcars.com.
📱 Stay connected with an Oman SIM card.
📖 Plan your journey with the Oman Lonely Planet.
🛏️ Find your dream accommodation on Booking.com or Agoda.
😎 Book the best tours via Get Your Guide or Viator.
🗺️ Travel safely and get reliable travel insurance from Safety Wing.

Oman cost of travel: in conclusion

Now we have all the information to answer the question ‘is Oman cheap or (very)? expensive’?

Adding the costs for accommodation, car rental, petrol, food and visa together this brings the average daily travel budget for the 4×4 (option 1) to €123 and the average daily budget for the saloon car (option 2) to €65 (for a couple).

You can download the budget breakdown infographic below. Feel free to ask any questions by leaving a comment or send me an email!

What do you think of this Oman budget? Is it more or less than you expected?

This post was updated in August 2022.

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