Dakhla Oasis

Why go to Dakhla?

Dakhla rewards travellers who want an oasis that still feels like a working farming community, with mud-brick villages, green fields and ruins from pharaonic to Ottoman times, and almost no other visitors. The oasis stretches along the foot of a high escarpment that glows pink and gold in the late afternoon. Mut is the modern administrative town; the most interesting places lie in the villages to the west and east.

Dakhla has been inhabited for many thousands of years, and archaeologists of the long-running Dakhleh Oasis Project have mapped prehistoric camps, Old Kingdom settlements and Roman towns here. Australian archaeologists from Monash University in Melbourne have long led the excavation of Kellis (Ismant el-Kharab), a Roman-period town that yielded remarkable texts on wooden boards and papyrus. Kellis is an excavation site rather than a visitor attraction, but it gives an Australian thread to a visit.

Walking through Al-Qasr

Al-Qasr, about 30 km north-west of Mut, is a medieval town of multi-storey mud-brick houses, narrow covered lanes and carved wooden door lintels, built on Roman foundations and for centuries the capital of the oasis. Walk it with a local guide, as the lanes are a maze and some houses are still lived in.

• The lintels: acacia-wood beams above doorways are carved with verses from the Quran, the names of owners and builders, and dates, many from the Ottoman centuries.
• The Nasr el-Din mosque: its tall mud-brick minaret is one of the town's landmarks and is generally dated to the Ayyubid period, around the 12th century.
• Old crafts: look for the restored madrasa, an olive press, a blacksmith's workshop and a pottery where water jars are still made.
• The view: from the upper streets you can see the town's edge give way to fields and the escarpment beyond.

Come in the morning, when the covered lanes are cool, and allow 1.5–2 hours. Dress modestly and ask before photographing people.

Deir el-Hagar, the Roman temple

Deir el-Hagar, a few kilometres west of Al-Qasr, is a small sandstone temple of the 1st century AD dedicated to the Theban triad of Amun, Mut and Khonsu, decorated under emperors including Nero, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. It was restored in the 1990s by the Dakhleh Oasis Project and stands within the remains of a mud-brick enclosure wall.

Inside, look for the astronomical ceiling and the reliefs of emperors in pharaonic dress making offerings to Egyptian gods, a reminder of how Rome ruled here; our guide to Roman Egypt gives the background. Look too for the names carved by 19th-century European explorers, including members of Gerhard Rohlfs's expedition of 1874. The temple takes 30–45 minutes; late afternoon light on the sandstone is lovely.

What else is worth seeing?

With a second day, add Balat and Bashendi in the east of the oasis, and ask about the painted Roman tombs at Muzawaka.

• Balat: another mud-brick old town with covered lanes, and nearby at Ain Asil the remains of an Old Kingdom settlement and the mastaba tombs of 6th Dynasty governors of the oasis at Qila el-Dabba.
• Bashendi: a tidy village built around Roman-period tombs, including a stone tomb known as the tomb of Kitines.
• Muzawaka: rock-cut Roman tombs with painted scenes; they have often been closed to protect the paintings, so check locally.
• Hot springs: spring-fed pools around Mut, including at lodges, are a pleasant end to the day.

Opening times and which sites are open change, so check egymonuments.gov.eg or ask your guide before planning the day.

Getting there and how long to stay

Dakhla is reached by road, either via Bahariya and Farafra on the "Great Desert Loop" from Cairo, or from the Nile Valley via Assiut and Kharga; either way it is a long day of driving, so two nights is the sensible minimum. From Farafra, south of the White Desert, the road to Mut is about 300 km. From Kharga it is about 190 km, and Kharga is roughly 230 km from Assiut. Dakhla has an airport, but scheduled flights have been infrequent; check before relying on one.

A full loop of Bahariya, Farafra, Dakhla and Kharga takes about a week. Our guide to Egypt's oases compares Dakhla with the others, and we can plan a private desert journey on request through Plan my trip.

Permits, checkpoints and escorts

Travel to Dakhla requires more planning than the Nile Valley: foreigners need permits for some routes, pass frequent police checkpoints, and at times have been required to travel with a police escort. Arrangements change, so a licensed operator should confirm what applies to your dates. Carry your passport at all times.

Government travel advice for the Western Desert, and especially for the southern oases nearer the Libyan and Sudanese borders, can be stricter than for the rest of Egypt. Read the latest from Smartraveller (Australia) or SafeTravel (New Zealand) before you book, and confirm that your travel insurance covers the area.