There are deserts you cross. There are deserts you live in. And there are men who are the desert.
Eid Salman Al-Zalabieh is one of them. Born in Wadi Rum, in the heart of the Jordanian desert listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, he grew up between red sandstone cliffs and golden dunes, under the stars and the stories of the Al-Zalabieh tribe. Today the founder of Wadi Rum Best Tours, he guides travellers from all over the world through the landscape he has known since childhood: not as a tour guide, but as a son of the desert.
We sat down with him to hear his story.
A child of the desert: growing up in Wadi Rum
What was your childhood like here in Wadi Rum?
“I was born here. Wadi Rum is my home, my family, everything I have always known. As a child, I spent my days exploring the desert with my brothers and cousins. Every rock, every dune, every canyon, I know them by heart. It is not something you learn from a book. It is something you feel.”
The Wadi Rum desert covers almost 74,000 hectares of moon-like landscapes: pink sand valleys, natural arches carved by the wind, towering cliffs rising above 1,700 metres. For travellers discovering it, it is a visual shock. For Eid, it is simply home.
From shepherd to Bedouin guide: a calling born in the desert
How did you become a guide?
“It wasn’t really a choice. It was natural. The first tourists who came to Wadi Rum needed someone who really knew the desert, not just the official tracks. I knew every passage, every spring, every viewpoint nobody showed them. So I started taking them.”
Before becoming a guide, Eid, like many young men of the Al-Zalabieh tribe, grew up with the rhythm of the herds and the seasons. Knowledge of the land, passed down from generation to generation, turned into something unexpected: a bridge between two worlds, between the Bedouin of the desert and travellers from far away.
How Wadi Rum Best Tours was born
Where did the idea of starting your own company come from?
“I had an old jeep and the wish to do things properly. I wanted people who come to Wadi Rum to live something real, not a bus tour with fifty people and a microphone. I wanted to show them MY desert. The one I love. With time, silence, and the campfire at night.”
That is how Wadi Rum Best Tours was born: a family business run by local Bedouin guides, with a simple but demanding philosophy.
“My ambition was never to be the biggest. It has always been to stay as true as possible to the spirit of the desert and of Bedouin hospitality.”
Today the team has grown. Eid works with members of his tribe, Hussein, Hossam and Rashid: men who share the same intimate knowledge of the land and the same idea of travel: slow, authentic and respectful.
Hussein, Hossam and Rashid, guides from the Al-Zalabieh tribe who make up the Wadi Rum Best Tours team. Men of the desert, born here, who share with every traveller a knowledge of the land passed down through generations.
Jeep tours, nights in the desert and Bedouin night fire: what Wadi Rum Best Tours offers
What Eid and his team offer is not a “tourist product”. It is an immersion.
Their tours range from a full day by jeep with a Bedouin guide to two- or three-day trips that take you into remote areas, to the desert’s most photogenic sites (the Um Fruth arch, Khazali Canyon, the red sand dunes), and to a night under a starry sky like you rarely see.
The nights in the desert with Wadi Rum Best Tours are simple and authentic: cardamom tea by the fire, a traditional dinner cooked in the sand, and a night in our open cave under the stars or at a comfortable Bedouin camp, as you prefer.
“My favourite moment of the day? The evening, around the fire. When everything is quiet and people start to really be there, listening, looking at the sky. At that moment, the desert does its work.”
Why choose a local Bedouin guide in Wadi Rum?
Dozens of agencies offer tours in Wadi Rum. So why choose Wadi Rum Best Tours?
Eid’s answer is straightforward:
“Because we know this desert like our own home. We don’t follow a printed itinerary. We adapt every tour to the people with us. If someone wants to climb, we take them climbing. If someone just wants to sit quietly in front of a sunset, we stop and wait with them. That’s the difference.”
This personal, flexible, deeply local approach shows in travellers’ reviews: Wadi Rum Best Tours is rated 5/5 from 97 Tripadvisor reviews, left by visitors from France, Spain, Italy, Germany and beyond.
Book a Wadi Rum tour with Eid and his team
Whether you are passing through for a day or want to spend several days in Jordan’s desert, Wadi Rum Best Tours has an option for every pace and budget:
- Jeep tour, full day: the desert’s iconic sites with a Bedouin guide, night included, from 45 JOD
- Red & white desert (2 days): jeep tour, a night in the desert and the white sand valleys of the south, from 90 JOD
- Jebel Al-Hash (3 days): a full immersion, a summit hike, two nights in the desert and traditional food, from 135 JOD
For any question or tailor-made booking, contact the team directly through the booking page.
Want to travel with Eid or one of his brothers? Meet the whole team on our Wadi Rum Bedouin guides page.
Wadi Rum: once seen, never forgotten
Before getting up to welcome a group of travellers waiting in Wadi Rum village, Eid shares one last thought:
“The desert is like nothing else on Earth. Those who come once always want to come back. That’s how it works. The desert takes hold of you and never lets go.”
We couldn’t put it better.
