Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia was, until very recently, one of the most closed countries on the planet for leisure travelers. Tourist visas became available only in 2019, and the infrastructure is still catching up to the ambition. This is precisely what makes it compelling right now. There is a window — maybe five years, maybe ten — where you can visit a country of extraordinary historical and geographical depth before the tour buses and resort chains smooth out the rough edges. That window is open.

AlUla is the headline, and it deserves it. Hegra — Saudi’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site — is a Nabataean city contemporaneous with Petra, its tombs carved into sandstone monoliths with a precision that the desert has preserved almost perfectly. But AlUla is more than Hegra. The surrounding landscape is a gallery of eroded rock formations, ancient inscriptions, and oasis settlements that span thousands of years of habitation. It is one of the most visually staggering places on the Arabian Peninsula, and for now, you might have it nearly to yourself.

Jeddah’s historic Al-Balad district is a different kind of revelation — coral-stone merchant houses with mashrabiya screens, narrow lanes that functioned as a trading hub for pilgrims and merchants for centuries. The Red Sea coast south of the city holds coral reefs that rival anything in Egypt, largely undived. And the Asir mountains in the southwest, green and terraced and cool, shatter every assumption about what Saudi landscape looks like.

When to go: October to March. The interior and coastal regions are brutally hot from May to September. Winter in AlUla and Riyadh is genuinely pleasant — cool nights, warm days, clear desert skies.

What most guides get wrong: There are barely any guides yet, which is part of the appeal and part of the challenge. Independent travel is possible but requires patience — road infrastructure is excellent, but tourist signage and English-language information outside major cities remains sparse. Go now, while the country is still figuring out how to present itself. The authenticity of that moment will not last.