The otherworldly Wadi Disah – the Valley of the Palm Trees – near the Red Sea coast.Credit: iStock
Before arriving in Saudi Arabia, I remind myself to clock the genders of the drivers behind the wheels of the kingdom’s vehicles. A big deal, after all, has been made of the fact that, since 2018, Saudi women have been allowed to drive.
My “note to self” was unnecessary; thanks to the nightmarish traffic in the country’s two biggest cities of Riyadh and Jeddah, I have hour upon hour to peruse those faces behind the wheels.
Riyadh has big-city traffic problems thanks to a fondness for the U-turn.Credit: Getty Images
I’m part of a 12-day frontier-pushing Intrepid expedition designed exclusively for women travellers, offering the chance to meet local Saudi women and to get to know them.
This in a country where, until 2019, a male guardianship system controlled women’s international travel, among other matters.
Only Allah knows why, but the road design favours U-turns, often spaced kilometres apart, over traffic lights. It takes forever to get anywhere. And on the capital’s clogged streets, I spy nary a single female driver.
Yet that changes when our mini-bus – the main mode of transport for this tour – reaches a smaller town along our 1800-kilometre overland trek, which includes a high-speed train ride from the Holy City of Madinah to Jeddah, but doesn’t count detours to ancient rock-art sites and the otherworldly Wadi Disah – the Valley of the Palm Trees – near the Red Sea coast.
A store-keeper, university-educated in the US and with a perfect command of English, jumps into her car with a female companion to lead us to a nearby market where locusts are a popular snack. I spy one other woman driver in Madinah (Medina), but that’s it.
With men veering through the streets as though they’re trying out for Formula 1, who can blame women for not wanting to tackle big-city traffic? Not me, now that I’ve seen it up close.
It’s one of many eye-opening moments in this country, which opened to international tourists only in 2019.
Skyscrapers in Jeddah. Saudi Arabia attracted a record 30 million visitors last year.Credit: iStock
Saudi, whether you’re in favour of the place or not (and plenty of people aren’t), is hot, hot, hot right now in every sense of the world. Still, in a world where tourists have conquered almost every frontier, it remains a mystery to many.
That’s rapidly changing. In 2024, Saudi Arabia welcomed a record 30 million international tourists, and it’s now laser-focused on attracting 70 million by 2030. That target is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitious plan known as “Vision 2030”.
MBS (or Mbs), as he’s nicknamed, is omnipresent throughout his dominion. In hotel foyers, his photographed visage smiles benignly upon all who enter.
While Saudis, unprompted, profess their love for him, the rest of the world still struggles to forget that MbS can stoop to medieval means to keep his message on track.
With Saudi Arabia ranking as one of the world’s most divisive destinations, I wait for the raised eyebrows every time I tell someone I’m visiting there.
Beyond the mystique
For a first-time visitor like me, part of the allure of seeing this “new” Saudi Arabia is the chance to peek behind the veil that’s long kept the kingdom a mystery.
In the lead-up to my trip, I imagine desert-scapes of shimmering dunes, but of course this isn’t our view through the mini-bus windows.
Beyond those traffic-choked cities lie dramatic snaggle-toothed mountain ranges, desert highways and desolate petrol stations paired with mosques. These “service centres” are a regular pit-stop for us thanks to the mosque toilets.
Then there’s the dazzling tourist mecca of AlUla where the roadsides (unlike those threaded through the rest of the country) are magically litter-free.
AlUla is the capital of the governorate of the same name that is part of Madinah Province in Saudi Arabia. It is considered one of the best-preserved heritage sites in the world.Credit: Getty Images
Riyadh will never win any beauty contests, but it’s where our group of 12 women (American, British, European and me, an Australian) meet.
We start to learn about each other – and our local Saudi guide, conducting only her third tour – at a welcome dinner at Najd Village, a restaurant showcasing dishes from this central highland region that’s dominated by Riyadh.
As we sit along the walls of a private room, we absorb every exotic sight and scent as waiters spread a cloth on the floor and cover it with plate upon plate of food, including chicken kabsa (a much-loved flavourful rice dish).
It’s an early introduction, too, to the mandatory offer of a tiny cup of fragrant coffee, freshly poured from a dallah (traditional coffee pot).
The author dressed for a mosque visit.Credit:
The women in my tour group are an accomplished bunch. One was a translator while another was a university professor. They’re all adventurous travellers who have already trodden many an unbeaten path around the world. Several of the women are widows but, for the most part, partners aren’t mentioned.
While squat toilets don’t faze them, some of us do creak a little more than others as we fold ourselves down into a cross-legged position around the feast, wondering what the next 11 days will hold.
Secret lives unveiled
So what prompted Intrepid Travel, the Australian-founded and now global small-group tour operator, to devise such a tour in such a divisive destination?
Jenny Gray, Intrepid’s senior product manager, became determined to lift the lid on the secret lives of Saudi women – to other women – after her own eye-opening experience in Iran.
She was welcomed into a subterranean beauty salon where “there was really loud pop music and bright red lipstick and painted purple nails and cleavage and midriffs, and it was a lively, amazing atmosphere”, she recalls.
“I was like, ‘Imagine if travellers could experience this to get an understanding of what life really is like [there]?’”
When it came to designing the Saudi itinerary, she says: “We wanted to give travellers an opportunity to see the country through the lens of women and to support and empower women along the way as well. There’s a huge amount of interest – people want to go there.”
Public park in the old town of Jeddah.Credit: Getty Images
While some tour companies cater to female travellers simply by declaring certain departures women-only, Intrepid weaves activities throughout its Saudi itinerary that can only be enjoyed by women, such as treatments at a beauty salon and, in Jeddah, swimming and lounging at a ladies-only beach.
“Some of those experiences [that women on our tours can have] are less obvious – some of them aren’t purely a women-only space – but it could be just conversations that wouldn’t happen in the presence of men for cultural, religious or social reasons,” Gray says.
She says the company is conscious that Saudi “wouldn’t be an easy decision … and not a cheap destination for everyone to access either”, yet the tour has proved extraordinarily successful.
“In the first six months since launching it, we saw more bookings than the first six months of any other destination that we’ve launched,” Gray says.
“Interestingly, we’ve had quite a few women who have been there before and wanted to go back and see what the change is like.”
No men beyond this point
Intrepid doesn’t take long to deliver on its promise of behind-closed-doors encounters with Saudi women.
In Riyadh, we troop into the house of the highly memorable Fatima Oliyan. After a welcome coffee, we play dress-ups – donning colourful frocks, elaborate chain headpieces and masks.
A mosque at a public beach in Jeddah.Credit: Getty Images
One of her adult daughters sets up a portable hot plate and cooks us tiny turmeric-tinted pancakes called masabeb.
Fatima is a charming extrovert, which she broadcasts early on by showing us that the fragrant oud-scented smoke spiralling from a handheld burner can be wafted in other places besides your hair, clothes and armpits. “Now it’s a party,” wisecracks one of my companions.
We’re also welcomed into another woman’s house for a home-cooked lunch that includes stew thickened with strips of flatbread; in a corner, a television broadcasts footage of pilgrims spiralling anti-clockwise around the Kaaba at Makkah (Mecca).
She passes around a box of kleija (which aptly rhymes with pleasure). These dome-shaped, grid-patterned pastries are tricky to eat as they’re filled with air and oozy date syrup (we also snack on them on our bus, along with dates anointed with a squirt with tahini).
At these homes, we’re startled by the appearance of a maid at meal’s end to clear the dishes (both hostesses, though, insist they cooked our lunches themselves).
Many maids working in Saudi hail from East African countries such as Uganda; our guide says many households employ both a maid and a driver.
At a beauty salon, where we choose between having a haircut or a pedicure, we’re attended to by workers who form a veritable United Nations (the young woman who trims my hair is from Indonesia).
There’s another cultural jolt towards the tour’s end. At a ladies-only beach in Jeddah, photography is strictly banned; to reinforce the rule, a sky-blue sticker is placed over our phone cameras.
The vibe beyond the entry walls, which bear a sign reading “No Men Beyond This Point”, is that of a glamorous beach club such as you might find in Bali.
Music wafts over the speakers, attendants spread towels onto shaded deckchairs and some of us bob in the extra-salty seawater, enjoying the buoyancy of the Red Sea (one of the world’s saltiest bodies of water).
Unlike Bali, though, you can’t order cocktails, which makes Saudi an accidental wellness destination of sorts.
From home, a friend inquires whether you can talk to women in Saudi Arabia. Of course you can. Many initiate conversations as they learnt English studying abroad, and foreign tourists are still (for now) relatively rare.
Within the confines of our mini-bus, our guide is asked something far trickier. “Are there still beheadings?” I hold my breath; she answers in the affirmative without missing a beat.
Rocks of ages
For Australians, Saudi’s most jaw-dropping rock-art revelation is a mark so tiny you could almost miss it. Among the petroglyphy at Jubbah, a World Heritage-listed site 90 kilometres from the city of Hail, is a stick figure holding what Saudis say is a boomerang.
Path and stairs leading to the ancient Jubbah petroglyphs at Ob Sinman Mountain.Credit: Getty Images
They’re running with this origin story so hard that we’re informed the region is hosting an international boomerang-throwing event in Hail that very day – so off we go to check it out.
To my astonishment, I find two Australians heavily involved in a sport I never knew existed.
“It’s intended to introduce the sport to Saudi Arabia and the local boomerang club that’s started,” says thrower Jarrod Byham, who lives in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges and is part of the “weird and wonderful” international boomerang “family”.
The world’s top boomerang throwers, including female competitor Marie Appriou from France, were brought to this spot by Australian Roger Perry. “We call it the thinking-man’s Frisbee,” Perry says of the sport. “You can’t just throw and hope for the best.”
Umbrellas at the piazza of Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina.Credit: Getty Images
He and Appriou plan to return to show Saudi boys and girls just how to make a boomerang come back.
One of the women in our group is in Saudi not for the boomerangs but specifically because she’s a devotee of the Nabateans – an ancient nomadic tribe that hailed from Arabia.
They’re best known for their extraordinary rock-cut handiwork in their capital city of Petra in neighbouring Jordan, but guess what? They left behind dazzling monuments in modern-day Saudi Arabia too.
Petra snaffles the limelight, but Hegra, 500 kilometres south-east and the Nabateans’ second capital, is just as extraordinary.
The first of eight sites in the kingdom to be World Heritage-listed, Hegra is 25 kilometres from AlUla. Our group is assigned a rawi – an official storyteller – who shows us around a few of the site’s 111 monumental tombs, including a peek inside one of them.
Elephant Rock.Credit: Katrina Lobley
Even closer to AlUla is Elephant Rock – a staggering 52-metre-high sandstone formation that’s weathered into a pachyderm snuffling in the desert sand.
In the late afternoon, while the beast sunbathes, it’s quite the thing to chill in a sunken fire-pit and puff on a shisha or slurp a coffee.
Muslim women in abayas and head scarfs flit past like blackbirds; our guide ditches her abaya as AlUla is one of the kingdom’s most liberal places.
At one time a pivotal stop for pilgrims heading to Makkah and Madinah, AlUla is today the jewel in the kingdom’s tourism crown.
The picturesque buildings in the old town of Jeddah.Credit: Getty Images
The last residents of its Old Town moved to a nearby purpose-built city in the 1980s; today, its sympathetically restored mud-brick buildings house galleries, cafes and chic boutiques, helping to make it the perfect multi-day attraction.
For a falcon’s-eye view over the AlUla region, we organise a private ride up a corkscrewing road to reach Harrat Viewpoint, 1219 metres above sea level. It’s the place to do sunset as long as you’re wrapped up warmly (grab that farwa – a snugly oversized coat traditionally worn by Bedouin men – from the tour bus before heading up).
Dressing to fit in on the women’s-only tour.Credit:
We also opt for an excursion to Jabal Ikmah, AlUla’s “open-air library”. Our guide, with only her brown eyes visible, tells us how as children she and her siblings would cavort among these rocks thinking nothing of the ancient incised scribblings.
With permission, I snap her name badge, but it’s only later that I notice another “only in Saudi” detail – a tiny piece of paper covered the photo of her face.
KNOW BEFORE YOU GO: FIVE ETIQUETTE TIPS FOR SAUDI ARABIA
Royalty and loyalty
Saudis love and respect their royal family. It’s fine to have strong opinions about certain family members, but don’t place locals in an awkward position with probing questions about them.
It’s a wrap
Women must wear an abaya (and head scarf) to visit Madinah – the second holiest city in Islam. An open abaya – think a floor-length maxi-coat with sleeves to the wrist – is perfectly acceptable. It does not have to be black. An abaya with matching scarf can be bought in a market (souk) for as little as the price of two expensive cappuccinos in Riyadh (haggling in the souk is expected).
Coffee time
Arabic coffee doesn’t resemble the coffee you drink at home – it’s brewed from green coffee beans and spices such as cardamom or saffron, and poured from a distinctive pot (dallah) into a tiny cup (or finjan) held in the host’s right hand; accept it with your right hand. Dates will also usually be offered.
Traditional Arabian coffee.Credit: Getty Images
Odd not even
Reaching for a second date to eat? It’s better to gobble three. Odd numbers are significant in Islam and the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings, and this extends to tiny moments such as how many dates you pluck from a plate.
Nature calls
Saudi Arabia is one of those countries with sensitive plumbing. Used toilet paper goes in a bin, not down the toilet. Public toilets, including mosque toilets, may be a mix of Western and squat toilets – it’s best to always carry spare toilet paper.
THE DETAILS
TOUR
Intrepid’s 12-day women’s expedition (maximum 12 guests) breaks for Ramadan and during the country’s extremely hot summer months (June to September). From $9795 a woman twin-share (a single supplement is available). See intrepidtravel.com
VISIT
Australian passport-holders can apply for a one-year, multiple-entry tourist e-visa, allowing stays for up to 90 days, at visitsaudi.com The e-visa, which includes mandatory insurance, costs about 402 riyals ($170). Fly from Australia to Riyadh via Dubai with Emirates. See emirates.com
HEALTH
Even in winter, parts of Saudi Arabia are hot. Jeddah, on the Red Sea Coast, is extremely humid. In desert areas, temperatures plummet at night. The tour mini-bus carries enough farwas for every guest to borrow. Bottled water is offered at every turn throughout the country (the sustainable notion of refilling water bottles is yet to catch on) so it’s easy to stay hydrated.
DO
The unmissable Islamic Arts Biennale unfolds within and around Jeddah airport’s Hajj Terminal until May 25; entry is free, but a reservation is required. In AlUla, many adventure activities are on offer but Intrepid won’t facilitate transfers to and from these “high-risk” activities, saying “none of these activities have passed Intrepid’s minimum safety standards”. See biennale.org.sa; experiencealula.com
The writer travelled as a guest of Intrepid.