Saudi Arabia: A Kingdom Opening
- Adam Rogers
- Feb 23
- 16 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
I had always wanted to visit Saudi Arabia — either one day on Hajj or Umrah, or simply as a traveler with time to roam. For years, it felt like one of those places I meant to get to, but never quite did. Getting there was difficult unless you were on pilgrimage or had a work permit. Tourism was prohibited.
That changed in 2019, when the Kingdom launched its first real tourist visa program. Suddenly, people from dozens of countries could apply online for an e-visa — or even get one on arrival — and Saudi went from “closed unless you have a reason” to “come and see.” Before that, the visitor categories were pretty narrow: pilgrims heading to the holy cities, business travelers passing through for meetings, and expats who lived and worked there long-term, usually in the oil industry. Then COVID hit, tourism paused, and the whole world went quiet for a while. But by 2022, it wasn’t just back — it was accelerating fast, with Vision 2030 money and ambition pouring into destinations like AlUla, the Red Sea coast, and NEOM. Vision 2030 is Saudi Arabia’s national reform and development strategy, launched in 2016, aimed at diversifying the economy beyond oil, expanding tourism and private enterprise, and modernizing society while strengthening the Kingdom’s global role.
By early June 2025, it was finally my turn.
I flew into Riyadh from Doha. Riyadh was my starting point, not my main destination, and I only spent two nights there. Part of that was deliberate. I wanted to see the capital, yes, but I’d also rented a car and had a long desert drive ahead of me. Riyadh was a beginning — a quick orientation before the real movement started.
I spent time visiting colleagues at AGFUND, which gave the trip an immediate sense of purpose and familiarity — walking into meetings in a city that, outside the office, still felt new to me. Riyadh itself is exactly what you’d expect from a capital built for scale: wide roads, big blocks, serious traffic, glass towers, heat rising off the pavement. It’s not ugly. It’s just not particularly intimate—a city you can respect without necessarily falling for.
That said, Riyadh has one place that absolutely did land for me — the one neighborhood I’d tell anyone not to miss, even if they only have a day: Diriyah, in the At-Turaif District.
You arrive, and suddenly the city’s modern edge falls away, replaced by this restored world of adobe walls, narrow passageways, and courtyards that feel like they’ve been waiting quietly for someone to come back and listen. It’s beautiful, but more than that, it has presence. You’re walking through the story Saudi wants you to remember: the roots, the architecture, the sense of continuity.
There’s also a museum there that’s genuinely worth your time — not the kind you rush through while checking your phone, but the kind where you slow down without meaning to. Artifacts, objects, and visuals that give a real sense of Saudi history — and, importantly, texture. I ended up spending several hours wandering around, half in the museum and half outside, drifting through those sun-baked corridors and imagining what this place looked like before restoration crews arrived.
By the time evening rolled in, I did what I usually do after a long day of walking: I found something simple and good to eat. I had dinner at a shawarma place — the kind of meal that doesn’t require reading a review because you already know the outcome. A warm wrap in your hands, a cold yogurt drink, the satisfaction of being tired in a new country for the right reasons.
The next morning, I pointed my rented Toyota Yaris out of the city and toward the desert. Roughly 1,000 kilometers to Mecca. A small car, a big country, and a very long ribbon of road.
The drive was classic Arabian Peninsula: wide vistas, heat haze, camels occasionally wandering along the shoulder like they owned the place (which, honestly, they do), and periodic fuel stops that broke the monotony. And otherwise… not much else. Just distance. The kind that forces you to settle into your own thoughts, and makes you realize how enormous this place really is.
The Drive to Mecca
As I drove south, the highway signs began to change. Blue panels pointing toward Mecca (Makkah) appeared more frequently. The name carries weight. Even seeing it from behind a windshield feels different from reading it on a map.
I first embraced Islam in 1982, at 19 years of age, while visiting Syria for the first time. It was less a dramatic conversion than a quiet settling — something that felt right and stayed with me— an evolution of my Christian faith, rather than a 'conversion.' I carry the religion in my heart, but I’ve never been especially outwardly religious. I always assumed I would perform Hajj later in life, when the timing felt right, when I felt ready.
The idea of Hajj has actually always intimidated me a little — the scale, the crowds, the intensity of millions moving as one. An Umrah, the smaller pilgrimage performed at other times of the year, always felt like a more natural first step: the same sacred geography, but off-season.
As the kilometers passed, I began to feel a subtle emotional shift. This wasn’t just another city on a road trip. This was Mecca.
And then came the checkpoint. The officer was polite, professional, entirely matter-of-fact. My visa, while valid for tourism, did not allow me to enter Mecca. It was too close to the Hajj season for Umrah entry, and access was tightly controlled. There was no drama in the exchange: just a calm explanation and a firm redirection.
I turned the car around. And stopped into a local Dunkin' Donuts to ask directions. I explained what had happened to two young Pakistani guys who worked there. They explained I could evade the checkpoint by driving around behind Dunkin's.
I thanked them and did as they suggested. It worked. I was on my way at last. I even had a room booked at the Mecca Hilton and had hired an Umrah guide so I wouldn't make any rookie mistakes. I drove down a long canyon that opened up into the Mecca suburbs. At this point, however, I ran into another police roadblock. This time, they took my passport and kept me waiting for an hour. I was told to park off to the side. When they returned, they politely explained that, while yes, they believed I was Muslim, I needed to have the correct visa. This was a new policy, they explained.
There was no anger, no sense of injustice. Mecca is not a casual stop. It is a sacred space, carefully protected and deliberately regulated. In a world where almost every city is open to everyone, there is something uniquely powerful about a place that is not. A city that belongs, first and foremost, to faith. "I'll be back," I told myself.
I backtracked to a rural desert road that led around Mecca and west towards Jeddah, just an hour away.
Jeddah — Gateway to the Red Sea
If Riyadh felt formal and deliberate, Jeddah felt lived-in.
The air changed fast. Humidity from the Red Sea wrapped around the city, softening the edges. The light was different too — less harsh than the desert interior. There was a looseness here, a coastal rhythm. Even the traffic felt slightly less urgent.
Jeddah has long been the Kingdom’s maritime doorway, the historic gateway for pilgrims arriving by sea. Today, it balances that history with a growing sense of modernity. I spent time wandering, taking in the city at street level, aware that this was not just a stopover but a transition — from desert to water.
And then the next day I went diving.
I booked a day out with Al-Haddad Scuba, and while there were a few minor issues with rental gear at the start, any concern evaporated quickly thanks to our divemaster and instructor, Hanna Ali. She handled everything immediately and professionally — calm, attentive, completely in command.
Once underwater, the Red Sea revealed itself in layers of color. Coral gardens are still vibrant in places, though not perfect. There were visible signs of stress — rising sea temperatures and pollution now leave their mark everywhere. I’ve dived in ecosystems that felt more pristine, more untouched. But I’ve rarely dived with someone as capable and quietly confident as Hanna. Her knowledge, her composure, and her obvious respect for the ocean elevated the entire experience.
There was something poetic about it, in hindsight. I had been turned away from one kind of spiritual sanctuary, only to find another beneath the surface of the sea — an underwater cathedral of coral and light.
After my dive, I went for a walk along the Jeddah Promenade, a long sweep of waterfront where the city turns outward toward the Red Sea. As the sun set, I watched families strolling in the warm evening air, children weaving between scooters and balloons, the call to prayer drifting softly across the water. The humidity lingered, but so did the breeze. Cafés spilled light onto the pavement, and young Saudis gathered in small groups, laughing, filming TikTok videos, and sharing shawarma and ice cream. It didn’t feel staged or overly polished — just a city enjoying itself by the sea.
One thing that genuinely surprised me was how many Saudi women I met and spoke with throughout the journey — in fact, I interacted with more women than men. They were working at hotel reception desks, staffing tourist information centers, guiding visitors at heritage sites, managing restaurants, and leading excursions. My divemaster in Jeddah was a woman. That would have been difficult to imagine not so long ago. Until 2018, women in Saudi Arabia were not even permitted to drive, let alone dive. Yet under the reforms of recent years, especially those tied to Vision 2030, women’s workforce participation has risen significantly, particularly in the tourism and service sectors. What struck me was not just their presence, but their confidence — professional, capable, entirely at ease. Whatever else can be said about the Kingdom’s transformation, this shift is visible and tangible on the ground.
One thing that genuinely surprised me was how many Saudi women I met and spoke with throughout the journey — in fact, I interacted with more women than men.
Up the Red Sea Coast and over to AlUla
I left Jeddah the next morning, Arabia heading north, keeping the Red Sea somewhere off to my left, sometimes visible, sometimes just sensed beyond low dunes and salt flats. The landscape began to shift in subtle ways — desert meeting water, beige interrupted by flashes of blue. There were long stretches where the highway felt like a private ribbon of asphalt, broken only by the occasional fuel station, a roadside mosque, or a cluster of low buildings announcing a small town.
I stopped for the night in Umluj, sometimes called the “Maldives of Saudi.” I checked into the Seaview Hotel, perfectly positioned across from the water. The rooms were clean, the service was friendly and efficient, and the rooftop restaurant had phenomenal views across the sea.
I went for a long walk along the beach, surprised by how empty it was. For much of the afternoon, I appeared to be the only foreigner in town, at least as far as I could tell. The sand was wide and pale, the water shallow and calm. Fishing boats bobbed quietly offshore.
Then, almost as if summoned by the cooler air, families began to appear in the evening. They seemed to materialize from side streets and parked cars, spreading blankets, setting out food, and children running ahead toward the shoreline. A few stopped and looked at me with open curiosity. Some seemed genuinely surprised to see me there.
“As-Salaam-Alaikum,” they would say. Peace be upon you.
“Wa-Alaikum-Salaam,” I replied. And upon you, peace.
And that was enough. Smiles followed. Nods. The shared language of a greeting bridged whatever distance might have existed. It was simple, warm, and entirely unforced.
Volcanic Drive to AlUla
In the morning, I left Umluj and followed a road that started north, then eventually turned inland. The scenery shifted again. The coastline fell away behind me, and the desert hardened. I drove through stretches of ancient lava fields — dark, jagged flows frozen mid-surge, as if the earth had once boiled and then abruptly gone still. The black basalt cut sharply against the pale sand, broken and angular, nothing like the soft dunes of the interior. It felt primordial, almost lunar. I didn’t expect volcanic landscapes in Saudi Arabia, but here they are — reminders that this peninsula has always been geologically restless.
The highway threaded its way through these hardened waves of rock before the color palette changed again. Gradually, the darkness gave way to warm tones — ochre, rust, rose. Sandstone began to rise from the plain in dramatic formations, massive and sculpted, standing like sentinels against the sky. Wind and time had carved them into arches, towers, and smooth fluted columns that looked almost intentional, as if shaped by design rather than erosion.
By the time I reached AlUla, the transformation was complete. The openness of the coastal plain had given way to something more intimate and theatrical — rock walls narrowing around the road, shadows stretching long in the late afternoon light.
The air felt cooler in the evening, a welcome shift after the humidity of the coast. AlUla has an atmosphere that feels carefully curated — boutique desert lodges blending discreetly into the landscape, low lighting designed to preserve the night sky, and controlled access to archaeological sites. It’s remote, but not rough. Wild, but managed.
Hegra (Madain Saleh)
The highlight, of course, is Hegra, Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site. Scattered across a wide desert plain, the Nabataean tombs rise directly out of towering sandstone outcrops, carved nearly 2,000 years ago with astonishing precision. The facades are intricate and imposing — columns, tombs, geometric patterns — all hewn from solid rock. They stand alone in the open desert, not clustered tightly together, but spaced apart as if each family claimed its own monument against eternity.
There is something deeply arresting about the scale. You approach one of these formations from a distance, and it looks like a natural cliff face. Only as you get closer do the lines sharpen, the symmetry emerges, and the doorway appears — cut high above the sand, framed with deliberate elegance. The craftsmanship is both artistic and practical: tombs designed not just to honor the dead, but to project status, permanence, and power along ancient trade routes.
The Nabataeans, whose capital, Petra, lay further north in modern-day Jordan, extended their influence across this region centuries before Islam, controlling trade routes between Arabia, the Levant, and beyond. Hegra was not a remote outpost; it was a node in a vast network of trade and culture. Standing there, in the dry heat, you can almost sense caravans arriving from the distance, and the quiet negotiation of goods and alliances.
What struck me most was the stillness. The desert absorbs sound. Wind moves across open ground without resistance. You can walk toward one of the tombs and feel entirely alone with it. When I first visited Petra in 1983 — long before the crowds arrived — there was a similar sense of discovery, of stepping into something that had not yet become a global backdrop for photographs. At Hegra, in 2025, there is that same spaciousness.
These tombs have endured sandstorms, empires, and centuries of neglect. Now they stand again as a centerpiece of Saudi Arabia’s reintroduction to the world — not futuristic, not modern, but ancient and unyielding. Stone cut with intention, still commanding the horizon.
Old Town AlUla
The Old Town of AlUla is a maze of mudbrick buildings, narrow passageways, and restored facades that seem to fold into one another in soft earth tones. Walking through it feels like stepping into a preserved rhythm of life — small doorways, shaded courtyards, tight corridors designed for heat and wind long before air conditioning was imagined. You can see the care that has gone into the restoration: timber beams reinforced, walls stabilized, lighting subtly installed so that at night the whole place glows rather than glares.
What struck me most is that AlUla preserves three distinct epochs within a relatively small geographic area. There is Dadan, with its earlier pre-Nabataean civilizations nearly 3,000 years old; Hegra, the Nabataean extension of a trading empire that once connected Arabia to the Mediterranean world; and then the Islamic era town itself — mudbrick homes and fortified lanes that carried life forward for centuries after the caravans shifted and empires faded. Few places layer history so visibly. You don’t need a timeline chart; you can walk it.
But AlUla is not being frozen in amber. There are contemporary art installations tucked into ancient spaces, performance venues discreetly carved into the landscape, and seasonal festivals that draw musicians, designers, and filmmakers from around the world. It feels curated — carefully framed — but not artificial. The Kingdom is not just protecting history here; it is presenting it, shaping how it wants that story told.
And then, in a moment that genuinely made me smile, I turned a corner and found a Tim Hortons—the Canadian coffee chain, in the middle of an ancient Arabian oasis. There was something oddly comforting about it — a small reminder of home thousands of kilometers away. If Hegra represents the grandeur of the ancient trade routes, and the Old Town the resilience of Islamic-era settlement, then Tim Hortons might symbolize the present generation: global, connected, caffeinated, and entirely at ease bridging worlds.
AlUla holds its past with pride, but it is also unapologetically part of the modern world. Mudbrick walls on one side of the alley; double-doubles and Wi-Fi on the other. In its own way, that juxtaposition says as much about today’s Saudi Arabia as any museum exhibit.
Jabal Ikmah — Ancient Graffiti
Not far from the Old Town lies Jabal Ikmah, often described as an open-air library from three millennia ago. The name sounds slightly romanticized, but once you stand inside the narrow canyon and look up at the rock walls, you understand why. The sandstone is covered in inscriptions — hundreds of them — etched by hands that lived here long before Islam, long before the Nabataeans carved their monumental tombs at Hegra.
These are not grand façades meant to project wealth or power. They are something quieter. Names. Prayers. Territorial claims. Dedications to deities are now largely forgotten and written in the Dadanitic and Lihyanite scripts, dating back to the first millennium BC, with later Nabataean inscriptions layered on top. The canyon walls became a place to leave a mark — to say, in effect, I was here.
There is something profoundly human about leaving one's name behind. Across continents and centuries, people carve their names into stone, into trees, into history. The difference here is scale and survival. What might elsewhere be dismissed as graffiti becomes a priceless archive of language and belief, preserved because the desert is dry and patient.
Across the Interior, and Departure
I spent a few days in AlUla, unhurried. Long mornings. Slow evenings. Time enough to let the place sink in rather than rush through it. Eventually, though, the road began calling again. I pointed the car northeast toward Hail, cutting back across the desert interior.
The drive felt different this time — less anticipation, more absorption. I took a detour north of Hail to try to locate another UNESCO-listed rock art site, known for ancient inscriptions etched into sandstone cliffs. The map suggested a straightforward turnoff. Reality proved otherwise. The paved highway narrowed, then thinned, then ended — dissolving into open desert with no signage and no obvious next step. I sat there for a while at the literal end of the road, engine idling, sand stretching in every direction, wondering how many travelers over the centuries had faced similar moments of uncertainty. Prudence won out. I turned back before becoming a footnote in someone else’s travel story.
Hail itself was functional, modern, and largely unremarkable — a place to refuel both car and body. Not every stop needs to dazzle. Sometimes a city is simply a waypoint. I checked into a hotel and found a shawarma shop. That evening, I downloaded the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia and watched it, recognizing many of the landmarks mentioned as having just passed through them.
My final night back in Riyadh felt quieter than the first. Familiar roads. Familiar skyline. The sense of a loop is completed. In 10 days, I had driven roughly 3,500 kilometers — about 2,175 miles — across a country still introducing itself to the world.
Saudi Arabia in 2025 feels like a country mid-sentence. It is revealing its past while constructing its future at astonishing speed. You can see the scaffolding — literal and metaphorical — everywhere. Yet beyond the billboards and development plans, the deeper story is older and quieter: trade routes, inscriptions, carved stone, hospitality offered without hesitation.
As the plane lifted off from Riyadh and the desert stretched out below, I realized I had not seen everything — not even close. But I had seen enough to know I would return.
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