With January's ideal weather, the travel year began modestly with the customary drive up to Khasab and a stay at the Atana Musandam, a great new base with a good restaurant. Yet if, like me, you've now done a few dhow cruises with snorkelling, a very different option is to explore the mountains of the interior. I'd done this from Dibba, but, given the military checkpoint blocking the 110-kilometre road from west to east, I'd never seen it from the other side. There's now an upgraded road taking you to the back of the Khasab valley, meaning you can be in the wilderness in no time.
Following the five-hour drive from Abu Dhabi, I reached Khasab at 2.30pm, just in time to get on a half-day 4x4 trip to Jebel Harim, at 2,087 metres the highest point in Musandam, with Khasab Travel & Tours. Despite their barren appearance, the mountains have been inhabited for around 4,000 years, and there are also fascinating fossils from when the land was underwater, before being thrust upwards by plate tectonics.
On the way into the mountains, my excellent guide Hanif, from Kerala, showed me some stone houses built by Jaballi, or mountain tribes. “Bait Al qafl”, or “lock house,” is one that was used as a store room, half-underground. At an elevation of 1,100m, we find a lovely rural sight: donkeys grazing on dry-grass terraces, thick palm groves and a few scattered stone settlements. After passing through a dramatic valley, at 1,400m we get out and explore a plateau filled with fossils embedded into the limestone and calcium carbonate, and exposed through erosion. Clearly visible are large crabs, seahorses, coral, shells and stingrays. Hanif says these are 200 million years old. Towards the summit is a large radar station with a commanding view over the Strait of Hormuz. Looking the other way, a 5pm sunset cuts through mist at lower levels to show off a sea of mountaintops. The colours change from red to yellow to pink to mauve, and fog seeps into the dry wadis below like water. On our way back down a full moon lights the small villages and trees beautifully.
Taiwan
Next, in March, came two very different trips, to Taiwan and Lapland. Taipei, a direct route with Emirates is a surprisingly worthwhile destination, with great food, interesting history, varied architecture and reasonable prices.
Lapland
A winter trip to Finnish Lapland, to stay in a new and upgraded section of Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort, offered sublime winter landscapes, exhilarating activities such as snowmobiling and ice driving, and the genuinely magical appearance of the Northern Lights, impressive to even the most jaded traveller.
This season is said to be the end of a peak period of solar activity, and with November and March being the best months to see the lights, the ideal time to go is next March.
Bahrain
In May I visited Bahrain for the first time, and was excited by the new Four Seasons Bahrain Bay, as bold a hotel design statement as you're likely to see nowadays. I also liked the 15th-century, Unesco-listed fort, the old centre of Muharraq and the modern Manama district of Adliya.
With multiple cheap daily flights from the UAE, and a flight time of under an hour, it’s a great quick break at this time of year. .
Svalbard
Not by any means a quick trip, but an ideal summer getaway are the Arctic islands of Svalbard, where I went on a two-week trip with One Ocean Expeditions, organised by the Dubai-based Lightfoot Travel. After a direct flight with Emirates to Oslo, I boarded a three-hour flight north to Longyearbyen on the main island of Spitsbergen. With 24-hour darkness and extreme cold in winter, summers are relatively mild and have 24-hour daylight – ideal conditions in which to explore the often icy coasts and spot polar bears and other wildlife.
With no internet access, clean air, great food and exciting activities such as kayaking past glaciers and icebergs, this was a full-on experience made easy.
United States
In September, after travelling on Emirates's inaugural flight to Orlando in Florida, I flew to the west coast to look at Portland, Oregon's much-hyped largest city. Despite being chock-full of hipsters, the place exceeded my expectations. Just a couple of hours south of Seattle, its historic, frontier town feel, contemporary edge, fabulous coffee and walkable size, plus its proximity to the outdoor attractions of Mount Hood and Columbia Gorge, meant it resembled a smaller version of San Francisco.
Look out for our in-depth feature in The National's Ultratravel magazine in 2016.
Borneo
After some uncertainty following the forest fires in Indonesia, which caused air pollution all over South East Asia, in November, just as it cleared, I flew direct from Dubai to Brunei with Royal Brunei Airlines on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Despite an unfortunate departure time of 5.35am, it was a gloriously smooth and quiet ride, made even better by the airline's unique business-class cabin configuration of only 18 seats, which gives you a clear view across what feels like a private jet. Flat beds with big pillows and fluffy duvets and a fun cabin crew were a good precursor to an eye-opening juxtaposition of oil wealth and untouristy, rugged jungle. It was the ideal segue into Malaysian Borneo, which starts just a few kilometres away.
In Sabah, from the eastern airport of Lahad Datu, an hour's flight from Kota Kinabalu, I travelled to Borneo Rainforest Lodge in the Danum Valley Conservation Area, a 500-square-kilometre tract of primary rainforest. At once I saw the horrendous effects of logging, which have over the past 50 years stripped massive areas of all of their big trees and animal habitats, and, in the Danum Valley, what it was like before. Nature, when simply left to its own devices, is heartbreaking beautiful, yet the lodge is such a great example of genuine eco-tourism that somehow you leave hopeful.
Zurich
I ended my travel year in Zurich, Switzerland, an underrated city with a beautiful setting, a gorgeous old town, hip new hotels and a trendsetting district called Zurich West. One of the best things about the city is that because many visitors arrive at the airport and take a train directly to other more touristy parts of the country, it still has a local feel. This year it has a large new Christmas market in front of the Opera House, complete with a fondue chalet, an ice rink, and quality food from all over the world, including Tibet, Vietnam and Turkey.
While most of the city is navigable on foot, the Swiss public- transport system is all you need to go farther afield. I took the train up the nearby Uetliberg mountain and enjoyed a two-hour hike through forests and fresh air, with surprisingly dramatic views of the southern mountains. I took the 2.35am direct Etihad flight, which means you can arrive at 7am on a Friday – easily doable in a long weekend. With so much going on and an enduring appeal, it's one of the few places I'd like to go every year, in any season.
rbehan@thenational.ae