Saudi Arabia: the desert kingdom that just opened its doors

For most of living memory Saudi Arabia was the great blank on the traveller's map — somewhere you passed through for pilgrimage or work, never for pleasure. Tourist visas only arrived in 2019, and the country they opened is stranger and bigger than anyone expects: sandstone canyons, an almost-undived Red Sea, and cities sprinting headlong into the future. Go now and much of it is still yours alone.

AlUla and Hegra

If you do one thing, make it AlUla. Hegra, the kingdom's first UNESCO site, is a Nabataean city — the same civilisation that carved Petra — where more than a hundred monumental tombs rise straight out of honey-coloured rock. It draws a fraction of Petra's crowds; you can stand before the great unfinished tomb of Lihyan and hear nothing but wind. Give it three unhurried days, and time Elephant Rock for the moment the sandstone turns to amber.

Beyond the tombs

Ninety minutes from Riyadh, the cliffs at the Edge of the World simply fall away to a pale plain that runs clean to the horizon. Off Jeddah — whose coral-stone old town, Al-Balad, is a morning's wander in itself — the Red Sea hides some of the healthiest, least-dived reefs anywhere. And the Empty Quarter, the largest sand sea on earth, delivers dunes on a scale that quietly humbles you, best under canvas with a guide.

Before you go

Come between November and March; summer heat is genuinely punishing. An e-visa takes minutes for most nationalities, cheap domestic flights knit the distances together, and dress stays modest — the abaya is no longer required, but alcohol is entirely prohibited. This isn't a plug-and-play holiday, and that's exactly the appeal: ancient ruins without the queues, reefs without the dive boats, and a country in the middle of extraordinary change. Go while it still feels like a discovery.