Saudi Arabia opened to visitors in 2019. Here is what you can book.
Which Edge of the World trip actually stops for the sunset. What a rawi-guided walk through Hegra costs. Whether Al-Balad is better before breakfast or after dark. Reviews of every tour on sale in the Kingdom.
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4A cliff at Jebel Fihrayn, red dunes, the Red Sea, sunrise over Hegra.
The four days a first trip to Saudi Arabia is usually built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The cliff dayEdge Of The World Hike(Dinner under stars,village,bats cave,camp)The escarpment breaks off at Jebel Fihrayn and the plain is 300 metres down. This one walks the rim, then eats under the stars.
02The dune afternoonRed Sand Dunes (Safari trip)The red sand starts forty minutes north of Riyadh. Deflated tyres, a run over the crests, tea when the light goes orange.
03The Red Sea morningBayada Leisure Boat Trip with SnorkelingJeddah water is bath-warm and clear to the bottom. A boat out to the reef, masks on board, back in time for lunch in Al-Balad.
04The AlUla sunriseHegra Al Ula: Sunrise Hot Air Balloon FlightUp before the light with the burners on, over the tombs at Hegra and the Ashar valley. The one thing here nobody talks themselves out of.
Four cities, a canyon full of tombs and a mountain that keeps the clouds.
Riyadh for the desert on its doorstep, Jeddah for coral-stone lanes and the reef, AlUla for the Nabataean tombs, Medina and Makkah for ziyarah, Taif for cool air. Where each one starts, and the best day out in it.
The desert starts forty minutes from the capital.
Red dunes, an escarpment with a 300-metre drop, camel farms and quad tracks, all of it inside an afternoon of Riyadh. This is the half of the country people fly home talking about.
Riyadh: the city in the morning, the escarpment by four.
Everything in Riyadh →
Nobody flies to Riyadh for Riyadh. They come for what is an hour outside it: a cliff with nothing behind it, red dunes you can drive over, and the mud walls at Diriyah lit after dark. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the country.
Jebel Fihrayn, and when to leave
The track in is soft sand and unsigned, so this is a driver-and-guide day whether you like it or not. Afternoon departures put you on the rim for the drop in light; the ones that camp add dinner and a sky with no city in it.
Red dunes, tyres down
The Red Sands sit between Riyadh and Thumamah, forty minutes of dual carriageway then nothing. Dune runs, a camel if you want one, and tea poured on a rug while the sand goes copper.
Diriyah, Masmak, the old quarter
At-Turaif is mud brick lit from below and cool enough to walk by seven. Pair it with the Masmak fort and the souq, which is where the city actually shops rather than where it poses.
The days out most travellers to Saudi Arabia end up booking.
Every Saudi tour we have reviewed →More people take these than anything else in the Kingdom, and what earns each of them the slot.
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Edge Of The World, camels &Stargazing with 4×4
See Riyadh’s Edge of the World at sunset, meet camels, hike desert cliffs, enjoy dinner, and stargaze on a 6 to 7 hour 4x4 tour.
From · $53
Read our review →2
Edge Of The World Hike(Dinner under stars,village,bats cave,camp)
from $55
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Edge of the World with 4×4 vehicles, sunset Dinner and stargazing
from $46
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Edge Of The World and Bats Cave Tour by 4×4
from $45
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Riyadh Sunset Edge of the World & Deer Reserve 4WD Adventure
from $48
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City Sightseeing Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
from $22
7
Bayada Leisure Boat Trip with Snorkeling
from $99
8
Interactive Saudi Cuisine and Cultural Experience
from $216
AlUla is 200,000 years of people and about four hotels.
Hegra is entered on a timed, guided ticket and no other way. Around it: Dadan, the inscriptions at Jabal Ikmah, a mirrored concert hall dropped in a canyon, and an old mud town you walk through at dusk.
Every AlUla day out →
Jeddah faces the water and keeps its back to the desert.
The old town is coral stone quarried out of the sea and shuttered with carved wooden rawasheen, half of it under restoration and all of it alive after dark. Twenty minutes offshore the reef starts, and the water stays warm enough to swim in December.
- 1Bayada Leisure Boat Trip with Snorkelingfrom $99
- 2Historical & Heritage Tour in Jeddah Al Baladfrom $109
- 3Historic District Tour in Jeddah by a Local Guidefrom $127
Coral-stone Jeddah, Nabataean Hegra, mud-brick Diriyah. Three different centuries.
The Kingdom keeps its history in three materials, hundreds of miles apart. What it costs to walk each one, and which city it goes with.
What a day out in Saudi Arabia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The Kingdom is not a cheap country, but the walking half of it is close to free.
Old-town walks, audio routes, city buses and the short runs out of Riyadh.
The standards: the Edge of the World, red-dune safaris, Hegra with a rawi, boat days off Jeddah.
Private 4x4s with a driver for the day, balloon flights and the multi-stop AlUla itineraries.
Three things you can only do in Saudi Arabia.
Deserts and old towns exist all over the Gulf. A 300-metre cliff with nothing behind it, a canyon of Nabataean tombs almost nobody has seen, and a coral city with wooden shutters do not.
The Edge of the World
Ninety minutes north-west of Riyadh the Tuwaiq escarpment simply stops. The plain below was an ocean floor, the rock is full of shells, and on a clear day you can see the old caravan route running out across it. There is no railing, no ticket office and no tarmac for the last stretch, which is why everybody goes with a driver.
- 1Edge Of The World, camels &Stargazing with 4×4★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,050 reviews
- 24×4 Trip to the Edge of the World at Sunset★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 719 reviews
- 3Edge Of The World Hike(Dinner under stars,village,bats cave,camp)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 675 reviews
Hegra
The Nabataeans who built Petra built a second city here, and 111 tombs stand cut into free-standing sandstone outcrops with their facades still crisp. It was the first site in the country to make the UNESCO list. Entry is by timed ticket with a rawi, a local storyteller-guide, and the desert around it is closed otherwise.
- 1Visiting The Incredible Heritage Site Hegra in AlUla★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 93 reviews
- 2Hegra Al Ula: Sunrise Hot Air Balloon Flight★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 43 reviews
- 3Hegra Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 3.9 · 25 reviews
The Rawasheen of Jeddah
Old Jeddah was built from coral blocks cut out of the Red Sea and hung with rawasheen, the tall carved wooden bay windows that shade a room and let the sea air through it. Some are four storeys tall and two hundred years old. Restoration has been running for years, so the lanes are a mix of scaffolding, new cafes and houses still waiting.
- 1Historical & Heritage Tour in Jeddah Al Balad★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 57 reviews
- 2Historic District Tour in Jeddah by a Local Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 49 reviews
- 3Al-Balad Old Town Historical City Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 47 reviews
Three Saudi bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of the Kingdom can be arranged the night before from a hotel lobby. These three run on timed tickets, dawn wind and a season, and none of them cares when your flight gets in.
- 01Visiting The Incredible Heritage Site Hegra in AlUlaHegra is entered on a timed ticket with a rawi guide and no other way. Slots are capped per departure and the good ones go early.
- 02Hegra Al Ula: Sunrise Hot Air Balloon FlightBalloons fly at dawn and only when the wind allows. Flights run through the cool months and stop when the heat comes back.
- 03Edge Of The World, camels &Stargazing with 4×4The track in is soft sand with no signage, so it is drivers only. Weekend afternoon departures fill first, and they are the ones with the light.
What to do in Saudi Arabia when the afternoon is unusable.
From May to September the middle of the day is not a planning problem, it is a wall. Riyadh runs past 45C and Jeddah adds the humidity. The country already solved this: everything social happens after dark. Move the sightseeing to the morning, then eat, drive and walk at night.
By place - coast, capital and canyon
By kind of day - sand, stone, water or road
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