Saudi Arabia Road Trips Gain Ground as Desert Routes and Heritage Towns Become Travel Attractions

Written By: Ankita Neogi Khan

Ankita Neogi Khan

With over 15 years of experience in digital media, I bring a strong foundation in language, journalism, and storytelling to travel reporting. A graduate in English (Honours) from Presidency College with a Master's in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Calcutta, I began my career as a content curator before transitioning into travel journalism. I specialise in aviation, tourism trends, destination news, and industry insights, combining meticulous research, accuracy, and compelling storytelling to deliver credible, engaging, and insightful content for a global audience.

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August 25, 2026 11:34 AM

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Driving tours in Saudi Arabia allow travelers to experience the largest country on the Arabian Peninsula in a unique way. Offering travelers more than landmark-led tourism, Saudi Arabia has seen a 6% increase in domestic and inbound tourism to 115.9 million in 2024. Tourism expenditures hit SAR283.8 billion which further encourages travelers to experience what Saudi Arabia has to offer beyond the standard vacation packages. As Saudi Arabia’s Transport infrastructure and regional inter-connectivity is further improve through the development of the country’s transport strategy, travelers can see the beauty of the country’s mountain corridors, coastal routes, and desert landscapes, through driving tours, and connect them with small heritage settlements.

When the Highway Becomes the Holiday

For decades, travellers often viewed Saudi Arabia’s extensive road network primarily as infrastructure. That perception could now change as tourism expands across regions with sharply different landscapes and cultural identities. Saudi Arabia road trips can transform distance from a logistical inconvenience into part of the experience, particularly when routes connect scenery, heritage, food and smaller communities.

This matters because the Kingdom is not a compact destination. Its geography stretches from the Red Sea to the Arabian Gulf, while mountains, deserts, oases and historic settlements create distinct travel environments. A road journey can therefore reveal geographical contrasts that a short domestic flight cannot reproduce.

The opportunity also fits Saudi Arabia’s broader tourism expansion. The country achieved its earlier 100-million-visitor target ahead of schedule and has subsequently raised its ambition to 150 million visitors by 2030. Consequently, developing more distributed experiences could become increasingly important as established destinations attract larger visitor volumes.

Why Saudi Arabia Road Trips Are Gaining Ground

The strongest argument for road tourism lies in the Kingdom’s sheer variety. A single journey can move from dense metropolitan districts into mountain scenery, desert wilderness, coastal environments or historic settlements within the same broader itinerary.

Saudi Arabia’s transport authorities are already pursuing a more integrated mobility system. The National Transport and Logistics Strategy aims to improve interconnected infrastructure while positioning the Kingdom as a global logistics hub. Its targets include reaching the top six globally for road infrastructure quality and the top 10 in logistics performance.

That infrastructure agenda was never designed solely for tourism. Nevertheless, better connectivity can create an important secondary effect for leisure travel. When journeys become easier, more predictable and better connected, destinations outside major cities become commercially more accessible.

The distinction is crucial. Road tourism does not require every highway to become a tourist attraction. Instead, selected corridors can acquire distinctive identities, supported by attractions and services along the route.

Mountain Corridors Offer a Different Saudi Arabia

The southwestern mountains provide perhaps the clearest example of how road travel could broaden perceptions of the Kingdom. The Asir region contains traditional villages, agricultural landscapes and mountainous terrain that contrast dramatically with the country’s desert stereotype.

UNESCO’s tentative listing for the Rural Cultural Landscapes of the Sarawat Mountains highlights traditional settlements, fortified villages, agricultural features and community-managed landscapes across southwestern Saudi Arabia. The documentation notes that many villages historically interacted closely with their surrounding environment.

For travellers, that creates a different proposition. The attraction is not simply reaching a particular mountain town. Instead, the sequence of changing elevations, villages, viewpoints and cultivated landscapes can become the experience.

Taif demonstrates how regional tourism can already generate meaningful demand. The city received more than 3.6 million domestic and international tourists in 2024, an increase of 9% from 2023. Tourism spending reached approximately SAR3.4 billion, while licensed tourism establishments numbered 266.

That performance suggests a wider opportunity for road-linked tourism around mountain destinations.

Desert Routes Can Tell Older Stories

Saudi Arabia’s deserts should not be reduced to scenery. Many routes cross landscapes shaped by ancient trade, migration and settlement, giving road tourism a powerful historical dimension.

The Ḥimā Cultural Area, for example, sits along an ancient Arabian caravan route in the southwest. UNESCO describes its rock art and inscriptions as representing at least 7,000 years of cultural continuity, with ancient wells and archaeological remains forming part of the landscape.

That makes Ḥimā particularly relevant to the road-trip concept. The journey towards a remote heritage site can become part of its narrative, rather than merely a transfer between two cities.

Saudi Arabia now has eight properties inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, spanning cultural and natural heritage. Its tentative list also includes landscapes such as the Rural Cultural Landscapes of the Sarawat Mountains and the Farasan Islands Protected Area.

The commercial lesson is straightforward: heritage corridors can encourage travellers to spend longer in regions rather than simply ticking off headline attractions.

Remote Towns Could Capture New Spending

The most interesting economic effect may occur away from famous destinations. Smaller towns can become meaningful stopping points when travellers have reasons to pause, eat, explore and stay overnight.

This creates opportunities for accommodation providers, restaurants, guides, transport operators, craft businesses and experience companies. It also gives tourism planners a mechanism for distributing visitor expenditure beyond the largest urban centres.

The idea resembles a distributed destination model. Instead of one attraction capturing most of the visitor economy, several smaller nodes collectively form a route-based tourism ecosystem.

That model could be particularly useful in regions where the landscape itself is already compelling. A heritage village, mountain viewpoint, farm, local restaurant or small museum does not necessarily need mass visitation. It needs enough travellers passing through to create sustainable demand.

From Scenic Drive to Curated Corridor

The next stage would be turning informal road journeys into recognisable tourism products. A curated route could combine accommodation, attractions, food, viewpoints and cultural experiences under a single identity.

For example, a mountain route could be marketed around cooler highlands, village architecture, farms and panoramic viewpoints. A northern itinerary could combine desert scenery with archaeology, while a Red Sea corridor could connect coastal landscapes, marine activities and emerging resort areas.

The principle is similar to successful scenic-route models elsewhere. However, Saudi Arabia can develop its own identity rather than simply replicate European or North American road-trip templates.

The product could ultimately be sold through tourism operators, destination platforms, hotels and regional tourism authorities. That would turn the road from a passive connector into an experience corridor with measurable visitor value.

Tourism Growth Makes Longer Journeys Relevant

The scale of Saudi Arabia’s tourism expansion strengthens the argument for diversification. GASTAT data shows that total tourists reached 115.88 million in 2024, compared with 109.34 million in 2023 and 94.47 million in 2022.

International connectivity is expanding at the same time. Saudi airports handled 140.9 million passengers in 2025, up 9.6% from 2024, while international passenger traffic reached 75.8 million. The Kingdom also connected with 66 countries and 176 international destinations in 2025.

This creates an important travel pattern. More visitors can enter through major gateways, then disperse across the country by road.

Therefore, air connectivity and road tourism are not competing propositions. Instead, airports can supply the visitor pipeline while roads distribute travellers into secondary destinations.

What Travellers Should Expect on The Road

For travellers, the concept requires more preparation than a conventional city holiday. Saudi Arabia’s scale means fuel planning, vehicle condition, navigation and weather awareness can materially affect a journey.

The official Visit Saudi road-trip guidance recommends keeping vehicles prepared, monitoring tyre pressure and maintaining adequate fuel supplies. It also warns travellers about sand, speed bumps and the distances involved.

International visitors should also verify driving eligibility before departure. Saudi government information states that foreigners with recognised international or foreign driving licences can drive under applicable conditions, while rental requirements can vary by provider.

Travellers should also verify visa eligibility before building a route. Saudi Arabia currently offers tourism visa pathways for eligible nationalities, while the official tourism framework allows qualifying visitors to explore the country for leisure purposes.

The official Visit Saudi travel guidance also provides practical visitor information, including emergency contacts.

Infrastructure Must Follow The Experience

Better roads alone will not create a mature road-tourism economy. Travellers need confidence that scenic routes will have adequate services, reliable navigation, accommodation and emergency support.

This is where transport policy and tourism strategy intersect. Saudi Arabia’s National Transport and Logistics Strategy already treats interconnected infrastructure as a component of quality of life. The tourism sector can build upon that infrastructure by identifying corridors where visitor services generate additional economic value.

The next opportunity could therefore involve roadside visitor infrastructure, including viewpoints, interpretation centres, rest facilities and carefully positioned hospitality.

However, development must remain sensitive to fragile landscapes. UNESCO’s management recommendations for Ḥimā specifically call for heritage impact assessments for tourism infrastructure that could affect its outstanding universal value.

A New Geography of Saudi Tourism

The strongest argument in favor of road trips in Saudi Arabia is indeed geographical. The Kingdom is developing more destinations, and the development of a road travel network would allow travelers to connect these destinations in a way that tells a single narrative across the whole nation.

Additionally, road travel allows for more flexible trip planning. Travelers who once stayed in one city for multiple nights can now plan a multi-region trip with stops in several mountains, heritage sites, deserts, and coasts, thereby increasing the number of hotel stays and money spent on food and sightseeing in smaller and more rural areas.

Saudi Arabia has made tremendous progress in their tourism beyond a few visitor centers. The next step could be making the spaces between destinations more significant.

This would support longer stays, more flexible travel, and help travelers find the more enjoyable, less-touristy parts of Saudi Arabia- the unexpected stops, more rural heritage sites, and mountain villages that one can discover by taking the road less traveled.

The foundation is there with increasing visitor numbers and connection by air and land. What is needed is the same level of creativity that was seen when developing the major destinations to packages travel along these roads and create the different way of seeing Saudi Arabia.

With this, Saudi Arabia’s roads can transform from being transport corridors to the spine of a unique tourism product that can take travelers to previously off-the-beaten-path places.

FAQs

1. Why are Saudi Arabia road trips becoming a new tourism opportunity?

Saudi Arabia road trips are gaining relevance as the Kingdom expands tourism beyond major cities and landmark destinations. Its enormous geographic scale allows travellers to combine mountains, deserts, heritage sites, coastal landscapes and smaller towns within longer journeys.

2. Which Saudi destinations are particularly suited to road travel?

Asir, Taif, AlUla, Hail, Al-Ahsa, Najran and the Red Sea coast offer strong potential for road-based exploration. These areas provide contrasting landscapes, cultural attractions and heritage sites that can be connected through multi-stop journeys.

3. Can remote Saudi towns benefit from road-trip tourism?

Yes. Road travellers can bring spending to smaller communities through accommodation, restaurants, local guides, crafts and cultural experiences. This could help create a more geographically distributed tourism economy rather than concentrating visitor expenditure in major cities.

4. What should travellers consider before driving across Saudi Arabia?

Travellers should plan fuel stops carefully, check weather and road conditions, maintain their vehicles and carry reliable navigation tools. Distances can be considerable, particularly on routes crossing remote desert areas, so preparation is essential.

5. How does road tourism support Saudi Arabia’s wider tourism strategy?

Road travel can connect multiple tourism products within one itinerary, including heritage, adventure, nature, wellness and coastal tourism. It also supports the broader objective of encouraging visitors to explore regions beyond established urban centres.

6. Could Saudi highways themselves become tourist attractions?

Potentially, yes. Carefully selected corridors could be developed around scenic viewpoints, heritage stops, local food, cultural experiences and distinctive landscapes. The result would be a journey designed as an experience, rather than simply a route between two destinations.