Lawrence of Arabia and Wadi Rum: the real desert and the film one

T. E. Lawrence passed through Wadi Rum several times during the Arab Revolt of 1917-18. He was working with the Arab forces fighting the Ottoman Empire, and the desert here was part of the operating area rather than a backdrop he admired from afar. Rum was not one dramatic set piece for him.

It was terrain he moved through, watered at and wrote about.

His book Seven Pillars of Wisdom gives the written record. Lawrence described the entrance to Rum as an avenue of red cliffs rising a thousand feet above him. He also described a spring, Ain Shalaaleh, with Nabataean inscriptions on the rock above it.

Those two descriptions are the core of the Lawrence connection. The Lawrence Spring stop on today's jeep routes is listed by one operator as Ain Abu Aineh.

The military event people ask about is Aqaba. In 1917, during the Arab Revolt, forces led by Sherif Nasir and Auda abu Tayi, with Lawrence advising, defeated the Ottoman defenders of the Red Sea port. Aqaba sits about 60 km (37 mi) from Wadi Rum.

That victory is real history, separate from the film that later dramatized it.

The tall rock formation facing the Rum valley is called the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and it is one of the first sights travellers photograph. The name is younger than most people assume. In the 1980s the formation, once called Jabal al-Mazmar, was renamed after Lawrence's book.

The renaming created a confusion worth clearing up now. The seven pillars in the book's title have no connection with Rum at all, according to the reference sources. So the mountain is a tribute to the book, not the book's subject.

Visit it as a striking landmark at the valley entrance, and treat the link as an honorific from the 1980s rather than something Lawrence himself named.

The valley also holds a much older record of human presence. Khazali Canyon carries petroglyphs of humans and antelopes from Thamudic times, and a Nabataean temple near the Rest House was discovered in 1933. The desert Lawrence crossed was already layered with inscriptions and ruins.

David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia had principal photography from May 1961 to September 1962. The film was meant to be shot entirely in Jordan, and King Hussein's government helped with logistics, scouting, transport and extras. Desert scenes were shot on location in Jordan, with Wadi Rum among the main locations.

The film is credited with kick-starting tourism in Jordan.

Not everything happened in Jordan. Production moved to Spain, to Almería and Doñana, because of cost and illness before some scenes were shot. Morocco also appears in the film's desert locations.

The famous attack on Aqaba was rebuilt in a dry riverbed at Playa del Algarrobico in southern Spain, so the film's most celebrated charge was never filmed at Aqaba itself. Lean's biographer noted a likeness between Wadi Rum and Monument Valley in the American Southwest, which says something about how cinematic this valley reads on screen.

The practical takeaway for visitors is simple. Wadi Rum gave the film its sweeping desert identity, so the landscapes you tour are the ones the camera made famous. Specific individual shots are hard to pin to exact coordinates, and this guide does not claim any exact filming spot the sources do not give.

Wadi Rum has become one of the world's busiest stand-in landscapes, playing Mars, alien moons and desert planets. The list below covers the productions the reference sources confirm, with the year where the sources give one and what the valley played. The Jordanian Royal Film Commission won the Location Managers Guild award for Outstanding Film Commission in 2017 for its work on Rogue One, and had been nominated for The Martian.

Two patterns stand out. First, Wadi Rum is repeatedly cast as Mars or an alien planet. Second, several of the films pair Rum with work elsewhere: The Martian built its sets in Budapest, and Lawrence of Arabia finished in Spain.

The valley contributes exteriors and scale, not always whole scenes.

Film list and history: Wikipedia article on Wadi Rum and Lawrence of Arabia (film)).

Tour operators in Wadi Rum sell three stops under the film and Lawrence banner: the red sand dune, Lawrence's House and Lawrence Spring. All three sit on the standard jeep circuit, which is why they appear on almost every tour in the catalogue. Here is what each stop is and which trips reach it.

A few honest cautions. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom formation is visible from the valley itself and is listed among the main sights, so you do not need a special stop for it. Exact filming coordinates for individual movie scenes are not given by the sources, and no listing claims a specific Dune or Star Wars shot location.

Treat the three stops above as the film-related circuit, and enjoy the rest of the valley as the shared backdrop all those productions used.

If you want the stops at an easy pace with the fewest other vehicles around, a private format helps. The half-day private jeep tour runs your group only.

The trips compared here all reach at least one of the Lawrence and film stops, and the figures below come from the operator listings on the site. Prices are per person. The Wadi Rum Desert Tours on this page range from a two-hour camel ride to an overnight cave camp, so the choice is mostly about how much desert time you want around the named stops.

For most travellers the full-day jeep tour with the camp night is the natural pick. It is the most reviewed overnight trip here at 4.9 from 383 reviews, and it strings together ten sites including all three film-related stops, with lunch cooked on the fire and sunset at the end. The camp stay at $53 is the lowest rate for a full tour plus a night, in a camp that sleeps 30 to 35 people.

The protected-area entrance fee is not included in any tour price. It is 5 JD ($7.05) per person for foreign visitors, paid at the Visitor Centre, and it is covered by the Jordan Pass. Some listings quote the fee as 7 JD, so carry cash for the higher figure.

Children under 12 enter free. For the fee rules and the pass tiers, see the Wadi Rum entrance fee and Jordan Pass guide.

Build the day around light and order. The red dune earns its name hardest in the low sun, so a sunset option is worth paying attention to, and the half-day private tour ends its sunset version at Um Sabatah. The nine-hour tour spreads its stops across the whole day and drops you at each site to explore on foot, which is how the landscape reads best.

Sandboarding on the dunes is included or optional on several listings.

Three tips from the listings themselves. First, the 9-hour tour runs 9 to 12 sites depending on pace and season, so tell your driver-guide early which stops matter most to you. Second, camel rides are add-ons on several tours, and the standalone ride includes a tea break at the Al Ramal red dune, a slower way onto the same sand the jeeps climb.

Third, the balloon flight depends on wind and can cancel, so if you book it, take the first morning and keep the second as backup.

Give the stops context rather than treating them as photo points. Read Lawrence's description of the cliffs before you go, then stand under them.

A few misconceptions deserve clearing up before you book. The Aqaba attack in the 1962 film was rebuilt in a dry riverbed at Playa del Algarrobico in Spain, so do not go to Aqaba looking for the film's battlefield. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom rock has nothing to do with the seven pillars of the book's title, and the name only dates from the 1980s.

Lawrence's House is a ruined building associated with him, not a preserved home or a museum.

None of the sources pin a specific Dune, Star Wars or The Martian shot to a named coordinate in the valley, so be wary of any operator who claims an exact scene spot. What is certain is bigger anyway: whole productions chose this valley as their Mars, their Jedha and their Arrakis.

Wadi Rum sits about 60 km (37 mi) east of Aqaba, and the Visitor Centre is 21 km from the Desert Highway turnoff with Rum Village a further 7 km on. Most tours meet at the Rest House in the village, where one listing charges 5 JOD for parking and another says parking is easy and free nearby. Getting in from Aqaba, Petra or Amman is covered in detail in the how to get to Wadi Rum guide.

Season shapes the experience more than anything else. July and August average about 34°C (93-94°F) by day, while January averages 14.4°C (58°F) by day and 3.2°C (38°F) at night, so desert nights are cold outside summer. Spring and autumn are the comfortable windows.

The month-by-month detail lives in the best time to visit Wadi Rum guide, and if you are weighing a camp night against a day trip, the how long to spend in Wadi Rum guide breaks down the options.

A word of warning from one listing: touts offering free entry are often from Disah, the camp area outside the protected area, and they take you into the other desert, not the UNESCO area. The Wadi Rum Protected Area has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011, and that is the landscape you are paying to see. Book through a listed operator and meet in Rum Village to be sure.