Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia's northwestern oasis valley and its first UNESCO site — Hegra (Madain Salih), 111 monumental Nabataean tombs carved into honeyed sandstone 2,000+ years ago, far better preserved than Petra. The mud-brick Old Town crumbles photogenically at the valley floor; Elephant Rock (Jabal AlFil) defines the night-sky photos; the mirrored Maraya hall hosts headline acts at the Winter at Tantora festival. Opened to tourism only in 2019 — luxury lodges (Habitas, Banyan Tree) lead the boom.

Saudi Arabia's capital is the most rapidly transforming city in the Gulf — a desert plateau metropolis of 14 million whose Vision 2030 reset has brought tourist eVisas (since 2019), women drivers, public concerts, and the city-scale Riyadh Season festival running each October to March. The skyline is dominated by the Kingdom Centre Tower with its 65th-floor Sky Bridge, the National Museum sits in the King Abdulaziz Historical Centre, and Diriyah — the mud-brick UNESCO seat of the original Saudi state — is being restored on the city's western edge. Ninety minutes northwest, the Edge of the World cliffs (Jebel Fihrayn) drop 300 metres into a pink desert. Summer is brutal at 45°C plus; visit November through March.

Saudi Arabia's Red Sea gateway and the historic embarkation port for the Mecca pilgrimage — 4.7 million people on a humid coast where the architecture is older, the food is more Levantine, and the pace is gentler than Riyadh. Al-Balad, the UNESCO-listed old town, is a labyrinth of coral-stone houses with carved-wood rawasheen balconies that sealed in shade and modesty for 500 years. The 30-kilometre Corniche promenade runs north along the Red Sea past the King Fahd Fountain (the world's tallest at 312 metres) and the white minaret of the Floating Mosque. Offshore, the Red Sea has some of the planet's least-visited coral reefs. Hotter and stickier than Riyadh; same November-to-March visiting window.