“I just wanted to get away from the competitive rat race, that hectic daily grind, the rush,” said a woman, born and raised in London, whom I once met at a funeral at a friend’s home in Muscat. She was explaining why she had moved to Oman from the UK as we sat side by side on a bench.
To our left, our mutual friend, who had just lost her mother, gave a vague smile and fidgeted with her hands, desperate to talk about anything, anything at all, to take her mind off the weight she was carrying, that feeling when grief tells you it is over, yet your heart insists it is not.
The living room was filled with Omani women, and the air was heavy yet loving with the lingering scent of Dhofari frankincense, while a low hum of prayers and quiet conversations about the departed floated around us, offering a kind of spiritual and social comfort amidst all that sorrow.
I recalled my brief conversation with this lady about places that make you feel at home after reading (in this newspaper) that Oman ranked first in Asia and fourth globally on Numbeo’s Quality of Life Index, just behind three European countries. The Index measures a country’s quality of life by combining economic, health, social, and environmental indicators into a single score.
To put Oman’s position on this list in context: Move over, United States, because on the 2025 list this nation now holds the spot America occupied in 2015. Meanwhile, the Netherlands has climbed to number two from fourteenth a decade ago, while the United Kingdom slipped from sixteenth in 2015 to twenty-second in 2025.
I am assuming that by ‘quality of life’ they mean the quality as perceived by the people who live in these countries, reflecting their sense of belonging and satisfaction with life, much like the World Health Organization’s definition, which focuses on an individual’s perception of their place in life within their cultural and value context.
When it comes to defining quality of life, I personally side with the rat race mentioned by the lady whom I met at a local funeral in Muscat. I agree that in European countries like the Netherlands the standard of living is relatively high, but I also always felt that sense that you can never truly sit down without feeling guilty about it; that you need to push yourself even harder to feel you earned it to ‘play hard’.
Do not get me wrong, I love putting in a real effort, and in Oman we also work hard, but Arabs taught me this saying, which translates roughly as: “Go home, be with your family, relax, because work never finishes.” Perhaps this attitude partly contributes to the high quality of life here, making Oman a place that feels like home to locals and others, providing a sense of neighbourliness.
Oman is a country that is modern yet rooted in tradition, developing, diversifying and full of possibilities, while life continues to feel intimate and personal. It is not a cold, soulless landscape of towering skyscrapers, but a land of homey low-rise buildings in warm, earth-coloured tones, set against a diverse landscape that invites an escape from stress. Life here moves at a measured pace, allowing for privacy and quiet reflection, and is carried along by a subtle current of friendliness and togetherness that is impossible to ignore, making you feel as though many brothers and sisters surround you on all sides. It is in these small, familiar moments, a neighbour’s daily greeting, an unexpected helping hand or cup of coffee, that Oman truly feels like home, a place where progress and possibility coexist seamlessly with comfort, community and a profound sense of belonging.
Life in Oman moves with energy, yet retains a relaxed ease, tempered by a gentle calmness.
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