Discover Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula, and the variety inside that space surprises almost everyone who crosses it. The Asir highlands in the south-west receive monsoon cloud and grow coffee on terraces; the Rub' al Khali in the south-east is the largest continuous sand desert on earth; the Red Sea coast holds reefs among the healthiest in the world.

Its history is layered just as deeply. At AlUla, the Nabataeans carved more than a hundred monumental tombs into sandstone outcrops at Hegra — the sister city of Petra and the country's first World Heritage Site. At Diriyah, the mud-brick district of At-Turaif was the seat of the first Saudi state. Along the western corridor, the pilgrimage routes to Makkah and Madinah have carried travellers for fourteen centuries and still shape the movement of millions each year.

Vision 2030 has opened much of this to visitors for the first time. Museums, restored old towns, new reserves and a tourist visa system have appeared within a few years, and the pace of change in Riyadh, Jeddah and AlUla is unusual by any standard.

What has not changed is the code of hospitality that governs an encounter with a stranger — coffee poured immediately, dates offered, questions asked only afterwards.