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Even before the first red peak appears on the horizon, I notice my breath getting slower, my body releasing built-up tension within. On approach to Wadi Rum, a Mars-red desert spanning 280 square miles in the south of Jordan, I know that a unique experience awaits, one with few interruptions, where time stretches according to the rhythm of the desert.
Wadi Rum is my special place. Over the past six years of traveling to Jordan regularly, I’ve returned to this desert nearly a dozen times. I’m drawn to the expansive landscape of limestone and granite mountains arising from the yellow, white, and red sands. I’ve made friends with members of the Bedouin community who call the desert home. I love the excuse of not getting good Wi-Fi service to stop constantly checking my email and social media.
But I mostly travel to Wadi Rum for its special kind of silence. The silence of this desert is not one devoid of sound; it is devoid of noise.
Noise has become the soundtrack of our lives, and it’s getting louder, even in the outdoors: the National Parks Service estimates that auditory noise pollution doubles every 30 years as we build more highways and urban spaces that encroach on natural environments. The National Parks Service also finds that over half of US protected areas are twice as loud as they should be.
But there is more to noise. In their 2022 book Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise, authors Leigh Marz and Justin Zorn explain that noise is “...the unwelcome sound and stimulus, the loudness both inside and out. It’s the unwanted distraction.”
The book distinguishes three levels of noise: auditory noise (think lawn-mowers, commercial trucks, and planes in the sky), information noise, an unceasing stream of notifications taxing our limited attention span, and internal noise, the barrage of inner monologue contributing to the growing rates of stress and anxiety (one estimate in the book mentions that “most of us […] have to listen to something like 320 State of the Union addresses’ worth of inner monologues on any given day.”)
Noting that “at the societal level, noise is our most celebrated addiction,” Marz and Zorn set out to investigate how we can get back to silence, a restorative place in which we’re not distracted by noise and, instead, have the time and space to connect with ourselves, discern what’s important to us, and calibrate our path forward.
And isn’t that why we travel, too?
Beyond being devoid of noise, the restorative silence of quiet places has a presence. You might recognize it in moments of experiencing religious or spiritual awe, getting into a flow while playing the guitar or running, spending time in nature, or going through profound events like taking a life-changing trip. In these moments, you might feel spacious and expansive, akin to floating outside of time and space.
I feel this way when I travel to Wadi Rum. My quiet place is not always without sound: sitting on a dune at dusk, I hear the soft rustling of the wind against the grains of sand. Leaving my tent at sunrise, I notice the bellows of camels as they return from their daily excursions. A crackling of the fire fills the long pauses in the unhurried conversations at night. The presence of this silence is a salve that helps me connect to the core of who I am.
Marz and Zorn agree: “While we both enjoy finding silence in auditorily quiet settings—amid the untrampled snow of the Sangre De Cristo mountains of New Mexico or deep in the wilderness of Alaska—we also find a certain kind of silence in immersive activities where we let go of all ruminative thoughts,” says Marz.
Numerous studies have shown that experiencing silence has real, tangible benefits. It’s been linked to reducing stress and anxiety levels and leading to better sleep, improved focus, and increased creativity. And humans are not the only ones who need silence to thrive: growing noise pollution is disrupting long-established patterns for numerous wildlife species ranging from caterpillars and hummingbirds to dolphins and whales.
It is no surprise then that seeking silence wherever we go is on the rise. This year, it is one of the key trends affecting decisions on how we travel. In a recent Booking.com survey, 40 percent of travelers said they’d be interested in booking a silent retreat. The Quiet Parks movement, dedicated to protecting the remaining quiet places on earth—large pristine areas offering exceptional sonic beauty and extended periods of pure natural quiet—has been gaining momentum since 2019. In addition to recognizing pockets of quiet wilderness, the non-profit has awarded its “quiet” designation to nine urban areas around the world, with eight more (places like Heiðmörk Natural Reserve in Reykjavík and Mt. Tabor Park in Portland, Oregon) under evaluation.
Many travelers have already made silence and tranquility a key consideration when deciding where to go. Kristina Baraba, a London-based project manager, booked a trip to Sicily’s Aeolian Islands last summer because there would be no internet connection. Nomadic photographer Cassandra Jackson-Baker has been returning to Sao Vicente on the northwestern coast of Madeira for the last decade, renting out remote cottages to avoid noise and disruption. “I’m at my most creative when the world is silent and still,” she says. Travel blogger and journalist La Carmina started building peaceful getaways into her itinerary after staying with Buddhist monks at Japan’s Mount Kōya where she went on tranquil nature walks through the forested Okunoin cemetery, the largest in Japan.
The authors have one lasting passionate claim: silence is not a luxury and it shouldn’t be something only some people have access to. Instead, it is an age-old survival mechanism and a human right. Beyond traveling to a quiet place, they offer strategies to look for daily pockets of silence such as getting quick “hits” of nature like paying attention to birdsong.
I try and think about this each time I leave Wadi Rum, back to my desk where obligations, notifications, and stress slowly creep back in. But there is a space inside me where I can tap into that silence. The feeling of the desert is present there, calling me to return as soon as I can.