The opulence of the UAE lets a certain type of person overlook its human rights abuses and hostility towards women and queer people to view it as an appealing travel destination. It's probably overlooked because without that opulence, Oman is just another dictatorship actively hostile to over half of the people who might travel there.

It's kinda dusty, slow, traditional, car dependent. It doesn't have much in the way of tourist infrastructure/fun things to do. Even if all you want is to sit on the beach, it doesn't have traditional beach boardwalks/towns like you could get...everywhere else.

I've worked in Dubai and had the opportunity to drive with a local to Muscat. It was interesting, but . . . only because he was local and knew a few cool beaches and inlets to stop into on the drive. If I had been doing that drive alone . . well, you nailed it in your OP. Oman is rather . . sparse. And as for Muscat itself . . well, in a region with Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha & Bahrain . . . its hard to justify as a top 10 tourist destination.

tl;dr: Glad a saw it . . I won't go out of my way to see it again.

We're on lemmy, the one of us loving dictatorship go to North Korea or Russia