Tour Highlights
We invite you to join us this fall as we explore a country which, in a bid to shift the economy away from its dependence on the petroleum industry, has just opened up to visitors for the first time in its history. Discover a country where ruins from ancient civilizations and date palm oases’ contrast sharply with urban centers and ambitious plans for a new $500 billion city state to cover 10,000 square miles of rocky desert and empty coastline. Saudi Arabia is going through sweeping changes and our program offers a unique opportunity to look at these changes up close.
Our program begins in historic Jeddah, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Admire its unique, centuries-old, multi-storied white urban dwellings and meet with staff from Art Jameel a major educational program dedicated to teaching students traditional building techniques. Enjoy lunch at the home of Mr. Sami Nawar, Jeddah’s official historian. After lunch, head to the dunes just outside of Jeddah to understand better the Bedouin lifestyle and falconry.
After a refreshing swim in the Red Sea fly south to enjoy the striking mountain scenery around Abha. Explore remote villages that once served as vital trading points between Yemen, Makkah and the Levant by way of the Red Sea. Meet with men from the Qahtani tribe who wear garlands in their hair while working as farmers in the area. Fly through Riyadh to Al Ula and discover the evocative ruins of an ancient city of carved rock tombs, known as Mada’in Saleh. Like Petra, the city was built by the Nabataeans about 2,000 years ago home. Once a thriving city along the ancient spice route, it played a crucial role in building a trade empire. Today its monumental stone-hewn tombs are some of the last, and best preserved, remains of a lost kingdom.