Wandering around the southern edges of Saudi Arabia’s mountainous Asir province, about 13 kilometers from the Yemeni border, in a village with a prominent sculpture of a rifle, I met a man, Nawab Khan, who was building a mud palace. He was actually rebuilding the structure, restoring it.
Two weeks earlier, on the other side of the country, a fellow traveler pointed on a map, describing the ruined buildings here in Dhahran al-Janub, arranged in a colorful open-air museum.
Finding myself close by, I turned aside to take a look—and there was Khan, at first looking at me curiously, then beckoning me closer. Sensing my interest in the cluster of irregular towers, he stood up, pulled out a large key ring, and began to pick a series of padlocks. When he disappeared through a door, I followed him to the shadowy cube of a staircase.
Traveling alone, a stranger coaxed me into an unlit building in a remote Saudi village, inside a volatile border zone that the U.S. State Department advises Americans to stay away from. But by now, more than halfway through a 5,000-mile road trip, I trusted Khan’s enthusiasm as a genuine expression of pride, not a ruse.
Across Saudi Arabia, I had seen countless projects being built, from simple museums to high-end resorts. These were the first fruits of an $800 billion investment in the travel sector, itself part of a much larger effort, Vision 2030, to remake the kingdom and reduce its dependence on oil. But I had also begun to see the projects as something more: the effort of a country — long hidden from most Westerners — to be seen, reconsidered and accepted. And with the doors swung wide open, visitors like me were finally beginning to witness this new Saudi Arabia, much to the delight of the builders.
Few countries present as challenging a landscape for travelers as Saudi Arabia. Long associated with Islamic extremism, human rights abuses and the oppression of women, the kingdom has made great strides in recent years to reshape its society and reputation abroad.
The religious police, which upheld codes of conduct based on an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam, were stripped of their power.
Public concerts, once banned, are now ubiquitous. Women have new rights – including the freedom to drive and travel without permission from a male guardian – and are no longer required to wear floor-length gowns in public or cover their hair.
The changes are part of an effort to raise the kingdom’s status and soften its image — a tall order for a government that has killed a newspaper columnist, tortured dissidents, precipitated a humanitarian crisis in Yemen and jailed people for supporting gay rights.
A central plank of the changes led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 38, the de facto ruler, is boosting tourism. Until 2019, the country did not issue non-religious tourist visas but catered to pilgrims visiting Mecca and Medina, Islam’s two holiest cities.
Saudi Arabia has transformed one of its top destinations — Al-Ula, with its UNESCO-listed Nabataean tombs — from an abandoned collection of archaeological sites into a luxury retreat offering guided tours. Another project will create luxury resorts near the Red Sea. More projects include preserving and developing the coastal city of Jeddah; a theme-based amusement park at sea called Rig; and Neom, the futuristic city that has attracted the most attention.
The country expects to attract 70 million international tourists a year by 2030, with tourism contributing 10 percent of its gross domestic product. (In 2023, the country had 27 million international tourists, government figures show, and tourism contributed about 4 percent of GDP.)
To get a sense of the changes taking place, I spent a month exploring the kingdom by car. I traveled alone, without a guide, driver or translator.
Much of the time I felt like I had been thrown the keys to the kingdom. But there were also times when I was faced with a more complicated reality, summed up by a road sign that forced me to abruptly leave the highway about 15 miles from the center of Mecca. “Mandatory for non-Muslims,” it said, pointing to the exit ramp.
The poster conveyed the lines being drawn to compartmentalize the country, which is now promoting itself to two groups of travelers: luxury tourists comfortable in bikinis and cocktails, and pilgrims prepared for strict religious adherence.
My trip began in Jeddah, where after exploring its historic district I drove eight hours north to Al-Ula.
The name Al-Ula refers to both a small city and a wider region packed with attractions: Hegra, the kingdom’s first UNESCO World Heritage site and its greatest archaeological draw, is a 30-minute drive north of the Old Quarter, a warren of crumbling mud-brick buildings now partially restored. Further northeast is the Sharaan Nature Reserve.
Like Petra, its better-known counterpart in Jordan, Hegra was built by the Nabataeans, who flourished 2,000 years ago. The site contains more than 100 tombs carved out of solid rock. The most impressive of these, some 70 feet high, is a tomb called the Lonely Castle. I boarded an air-conditioned tour bus that stopped at four sites.
A few miles north of Hegra, I climbed into the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser—accompanied by an Italian graduate student and his mother—to tour the Sharaan Nature Reserve.
Gabriele Morelli, the graduate student, had first visited Al-Ula a few years ago — another era, he said. He described a version that no longer exists, filled with cheap accommodation and lax rules. Some changes have been necessary to protect ecosystems and archaeological sites from the growing crowds. But several people I met, both Saudi and foreign, lamented the extent of high-end development.
After Al-Ula, I drove to the Red Sea project, touted as “the world’s most ambitious regenerative tourism destination.” I boarded a yacht alongside Saudi influencers and was driven to a remote island, where I disembarked into a world of opulence at the St. Regis Red Sea Resort. I was chauffeured on an electric golf cart—past 43 beachside “dune” villas and two long boardwalks connecting the rest of the resort to 47 “coral” villas, built on stilts over shallow turquoise waters. The place was nearly empty.
The same was true at the nearby Six Senses Southern Dunes, a Red Sea resort that opened in November.
Since the country began issuing tourist visas, influencers have been documenting their experiences, with their trips often paid for by the Saudi government. Their light-hearted content contributes to the impression that the kingdom is waiting to be discovered by foreign visitors with outdated prejudices.
For many travelers, however, the portrayal of an uncomplicated destination can be misleading. Freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia is strictly limited; dissent is not tolerated – nor is the open practice of any religion other than the government’s interpretation of Islam. In its travel advisory, the U.S. State Department warns that “comments on social media – including past comments – that Saudi authorities may consider critical, offensive, or disruptive to public order, may lead to arrest.”
LGBTQ travelers are officially welcome in the kingdom, but could face arrest or other penalties for openly expressing their sexual orientation or gender identity. Female travelers could also face difficulties because the advances were most visible in big cities and tourist centers.
As a Westerner, I moved around the country with a number of advantages. But even my travel experiences were sometimes uncomfortable. Standing outside the grounds of Medina’s central mosque, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried, I was stopped by a member of the Special Forces. (Even after 2019, non-Muslim tourists were still banned from the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The ban was relaxed in parts of Medina in 2021.) The guard questioned me and, after calling a colleague, demanded that I leave. I had complied with the rules by staying outside the grounds of the Prophet’s Mosque.
More than anything, my family and friends wanted to know if I felt safe during my trip – and I did, almost without exception.
Rather than fearing for my safety, I often worried about how to fairly portray a place that provoked such a range of conflicting emotions: joy and anguish, excitement and apprehension, sincerity and doubt. Very little was easy to categorize, in part because the warmth of ordinary Saudis stood in striking contrast to the ruthlessness of their authoritarian government.
#extravagant #face
