The rapidly expanding Saudi Arabian resort includes plans for a sizable museum and a 13.7-mile tramway.

Initially, there was a blockage. Our convoy of three SUVs and one damaged pickup truck was speeding into a barren valley close to Alular, an oasis in northwest Saudi Arabia (pronounced all-oxo-la). We were on our way to lunch at the Banyan Tree Alular, a brand-new resort hotel, after visiting an archaeological site with my two full-time guides, a slew of other handlers, and representatives from the Royal Commission for Alular, or RCU, the organization in charge of development in this remote region of the Medina province of Saudi Arabia. However, a police officer motioned us over before we arrived at the newly paved two-lane road. We were told that no traffic was permitted. A senior official was on the way. The staff immediately accessed their social media accounts. MBS, perhaps? The caravan was electrically charged throughout its length. Anyone else who could obstruct traffic? MBS!

Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler and crown prince, Mohamed bin Salman, is rumored to camp in the neighboring highlands, where wolves prowl and old petroglyphs depict ostriches and ibex in an Arabian bestiary. Yes, MBS is a possibility. We held out. Everyone in a kingdom looks forward to the arrival of the monarch, or in this instance, the internationally infamous king-in-waiting.

The teenage driver, Ibrahim Al-Fatah, and I conversed briefly in the battered pickup using Google Translate. Ibrahim drives me only because an official unexpectedly joined our group, leaving us short one SUV seat. Ibrahim works at Adan, the ancient city we'd just toured. The remainder of the team, the regulars, had been invited on my trip by the RCU, a government agency with $15 billion to invest in creating a world-class tourism destination.

The RCU was founded in 2017, and since then, it has built a new international airport, paved desert roads, funded significant archaeological digs, attracted luxury hotel operators like Aman Resorts, started a local food economy, bred endangered Arabian leopards to be released back into the wild, built the largest mirror building in the world, hosted an exhibition of site-specific contemporary sculpture, developed plans for a significant museum, and announced a 13.7-mile electric train.

The #Louvre Museum in Paris 🇫🇷 is displaying a statue from SaudiArabia’s #AlUla 🇸🇦, dating back to the Lihyanite period.

— #SaudiArabia heritage and monuments are milestones in the history of the development of human civilization and culture. pic.twitter.com/eB7KaLTVAc

— Mohammed Alhamed (@M7Alhamed) September 7, 2022

We held out. Al-Fatah entered some text into his phone after being inspired. High-energy EDM was playing while a film of a pickup truck rally through a vast expanse of desert sand was being handed off. Each vehicle was a vintage jewel from the 1970s, an apple-red American pickup that had been expertly repaired.

Under his red-checked Shelagh, or head scarf, flapping in his open window, each driver appeared to be having a great time. When I was a child, I envied the trucks that my relatives in Tennessee drove. My American pride increased upon witnessing them restored to glory in Saudi Arabia. I enthusiastically awarded Al-Fatah the thumbs up.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/culture-design/architecture-design/saudi-arabia-the-line-city-neom

Just then, the anticipated dignitary arrived—an American diplomat, not MBS, after all. On to the soon-to-be-finished Banyan Tree, our caravan hurried. I was taken outdoors for a sunset visit to the Nabataean tomb complex at Hegira after lunch and a tour of the property, which features safari-style tents in a stunning desert valley. The facility debuted in October. The site, formerly known as Mandarin Salah, is stretched across a barren desert valley and is all but inaccessible to tourists. It is home to 111 rock-cut graves. The Nabataean kingdoms, most known for their northern capital, Petra, in what is now Jordan, were created with this as the final resting place for their royalty. In Alular, a region the size of Massachusetts with more than 30,000 unique sites, two more ancient societies, the Davanites and the Laihunites, who were dominant in the area 2,000 years ago, left a significant archaeological record. 2008 saw Hegira, Saudi Arabia's crown treasure, become the nation's first UNESCO World Heritage site.

Instead of the tinted-window SUV I had anticipated, an apple-red 1979 GMC Sierra 2500 pickup truck piloted by a mustachioed man in a crimson Shelagh met me outside the hotel as my personal transportation to Hegira. Its six-cylinder engine howled like a lion in the Serengeti, and its muffler blasted a smell of incompletely burned fuel that resembled the mechanic's cologne. Malouf Dawalibi, CEO of the Traveling Panther, who had been engaged by the RCU to plan my vacation, sighed, "We know that you enjoy vintage." "We figured you'd like this," I was in awe.

The GMC sped into Hegira at golden hour, windows wide to the red-rock scenery, the upgraded sound system blasting classical Arabic music. The valley seemed completely deserted. Jabaal Banat is a collection of women's tombs carved into a red ship-sized boulder that is deserted. The gravel road leading to the Tomb of Libyan, Son of Kuma, Hegira's biggest tomb, is empty of vehicles. (As a point of perspective, 1 million people visit Petra each year.) To stand alone and watch the shadow of the valley rim fall over the tomb, also known as Qasr Al-Farad or "the lonely castle," I ran the final quarter-mile across deserted dunes while high on oxygen and adrenaline. This was my own personal sunset.

I went back to the pickup in the waning light of the day. The large engine idled as the driver sat in the driver's seat; obviously, squandering gas is not a sin in this kingdom built on fossil fuels. The driver was conversing with Suleiman Aljuwayhil, a young tour guide, who revealed to me that the driver's father was born in this particular valley. Until the village was moved to make room for tourism, his Bedouin family received water from Nabataean wells.

By chance, Aljuwayhil father also owned the same truck as the driver's father: the same make, model, and year. He said, "My dream was to have this one when I grew up," and I could identify with that. "In my ear, the sound is like melody."

The sky shifted from rose gold to dusky blue, and I saw the man who had brought this time about. Not only the human moment of gas-scented nostalgia, but also the monumental historical moment: the opening of a conservative religious kingdom to foreign tourists, the economic shift from oil to renewable energy and high tech, the implementation of extensive social reforms, and the cautious relaxation of some Islamic rigidities. An official photo of MBS hung on the rearview mirror where my uncles would have put a pine-tree air freshener.

I saw MBS behind everything. MBS has the authority and the vast resources to rebuild the country as he sees fit. He is the grandson of Ibn Saud, who established Saudi Arabia's first monarchy in 1932 and ruled as its first king until his death in 1953. His vision for the future, known as Vision 2030, makes Saudi Arabia a must-visit location for tourists from all over the world, among many other commitments.

Sand dunes, oil wells, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, and ladies dressed in black abayas, hijabs, and niqabs were all on my mental wiki page for Saudi Arabia before my journey there in late last year (veil). Not until I heard about Hegra, at least, had I ever considered going there. Hegra, which was previously completely unavailable to visitors from outside the country, became widely accessible in 2019 after Saudi Arabia began issuing tourist visas and proclaimed the region as the country's top destination for culture and heritage. I was aware of the restrictions placed on women and the relatively insignificant prohibition of alcohol, as well as the regime's history of violence against journalists and the LGBTQ community. But I still wanted to go, both to confront my own biases and to meet Hegira before the crowds showed up.

The young people I met throughout my trip are what I recall most clearly, not the historic sites I saw. At Jabaal Hikmah, referred to as the "open library" for the collection of inscriptions carved into the canyon's sandstone walls, there was Amal Alijuhani, a bilingual row, or guide. Only her eyes could be seen because Alijuhani was dressed in the most modest attire and was an Alular native. However, she covered her headscarf with an embroidered Yankees cap and drove a fierce American muscle automobile, the 2021 Dodge Charger.

There was Aljuwayhil, a Riyadh native who had travelled to the United States as a youngster for complicated procedures and more recently for state-sponsored visits for his rw training. Suleiman recounted Aula's whole history while interspersing recitations of traditional Arabic poetry, lacking only time and not breath or memory. He saw his work as a rw as the beginning of a profession, the discovery of a calling, a means of support, and a way of life.

Huda Al Osama of the Traveling Panther served as my principal navigator, translator, explainer, and fixer. Except when she was ordering a grumpy official or checkpoint guard around, she was all charm. She patiently discussed the social reforms MBS implemented after being named crown prince in 2017 during our lengthy conversation. Although many women still choose to cover themselves in public—including several in their teens and 20s—this practice has been abolished. Today, women can also live alone, apply for a passport, drive, and travel without a male guardian. We didn't realize how significant the changes were because they happened so quickly, she claimed.

Then there was my classy all-hours driver Yazid Al Anafi, who was bashful and understood more English than he let on and had primarily learned it from watching YouTube. He once said, "We are going!" after I inquired about the flavor of camel, a local specialty, and then drove me directly to his favorite mom-and-pop eatery where he flat-out refused to let me pay for my camel stew over rice lunch. (Just so you know, it tastes very much like mutton.)

Saudi Arabia is a young people's country. 50 percent of Saudi citizens are under 25 and nearly 70 percent are under 35. They are conversant with American popular culture to a degree we cannot conceive because they are digital natives. (Name one Saudi actor or singer right away.) They employ words like hallah, which means "let's go," and inshallah, which means "God willing," which may be either a confident "we'll see" or a charmingly ambiguous "absolutely." MBS, who was 32 when he was named crown prince, is their leader and stands for their generation's ascent. The youth are benefited by social reforms, tolerance of movies, and dance music (MDLBeast Sound storm, an electronic music festival first staged in Riyadh in 2020, last year attracted a crowd of 700,000 over four days). They undoubtedly stand to gain from Vision 2030's great plan to use the enormous funds obtained from the kingdom's oil trade to create a diversified, industrial economy.

Prior to the implementation of Vision 2030, the only two reasons to visit Saudi Arabia were for business or the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. It is now regarded as a rapidly expanding industry. Alular can't fail because it was picked to be the nation's first "hospitality oasis," the proof of concept. The location, which spans 13 administrative areas and a landmass the size of Greenland, will create best practices for upcoming construction projects there. According to a representative I spoke with, "Saudi Arabia is a continent in itself."

The establishments I visited are, in many ways, only placeholders and unfulfilled promises. They highlight how much work will be required to achieve MBS's dual tourism goals of boosting the local job market with foreign funds and enhancing the kingdom's international standing. For instance, the RCU sees Old Town Alular and Aljamiado, the nearby new town, as a tourism area with upscale hotels, cafés, and retail establishments. Old Town currently consists mainly of a collection of dilapidated mud-brick structures.

RCU heritage preservation and restoration advisor Andrew Hall emphasized over lunch that "Vision 2030 is leveraging tourism and heritage as a strategy to economically empower local communities." The RCU is employing a very contemporary method of staffing. Of the 30 rw in AlUla, local women make up half. Women were not permitted to work behind hotel reception desks until recently, but now they are frequently seen doing so. Antony Triston, an Englishman who worked in the Middle East before taking over as general manager of Banyan Tree two years ago, remarked that "tourism was frowned upon five years ago." “The local community's knowledge of and excitement for tourism is astounding.”

When I first met Turkic Alarmin at Habitus, my hotel in a breathtaking box canyon next to Banyan Tree, I came to realize this for myself. Alarmin drives tourists about the expansive property in an electric golf cart. He claimed to be from Jeddah, a developed, moderately cosmopolitan port city on the Red Sea. On my first day, as I walked off my jet lag, the Gen-Z dynamo swooped in on me, equal parts haircut, YouTube English, and pluck. He gave me a personal tour of the property, pointing off the infinity pool, the spa area, and the site-specific sculptures that are a part of Desert X Alular, a renowned biennale of contemporary art co-curated by the English author Neville Wakefield.

He dropped me back off at my bungalow and said, "Anything you need, you push zero, ask for Turki," a promise that was maintained no matter what time I contacted the front desk. I demonstrate everything.

Alular is how old? Do you want to go all the way back? 200,000 years ago, stone age implements from the region were made. I observed ancient stone structures known as muscatels from the air that were constructed some 7,000 years ago by pastoralists who grazed livestock over what was once a wetter, greener Arabian Peninsula. On another occasion, a 7,000-year-old petroglyph depicting a camel tending to her calf was discovered on my vehicle tour of the 580 square mile Sharan Nature Reserve. Aljuwayhil pointed out phrases of Dasani script, one of 10 ancient languages recorded in the area, and read fragments of Arabic from more recent centuries, mostly traveler's graffiti of the Faizal was here variety. These early writings of Alular were scratched into the water-smoothed walls of a slot canyon above Asher Valley. He pondered, "Today we have Snapchat, yet throughout the beginning of time individuals have recorded their experience."

Water is what gave the earliest inhabitants of AlUla their lives. Nomads, tribes, warriors, herders, settlers, traders, and, millennia later, pilgrims travelling to Mecca used the pathways connecting the oasis of western Arabia. Water facilitated the development of agriculture and settled societies. It was feasible to cultivate cereals from the Fertile Crescent, figs from the Mediterranean, citrus fruits from Asia, fragrant roses from Damascus, and native date palms thanks to the area's up to 60 springs.

As we went through a farm covered in fragrant Medina mint and shaded by date trees, their trunks as tall as temple columns, James Thompson, the RCU's agricultural-sector manager, said, "We have to maintain this oasis as an example of traditional agriculture on the Arabian Peninsula."

Although a modern road now divides them, the oasis fields we toured previously touched the Old Town walls. (I was promised that it would eventually be taken down.) Mud-brick structures in Old Town, which date back to the 12th century, remained untouched until the 1970s, when the government gave residents land and no-interest loans so they could construct their own homes with electricity, water, and plumbing in what would later become the new town. Within a few years, termites damaged the wooden roof beams of Old Town, and winter rains weakened the adobe walls.

Old Town is to be modernized and the harm undone under Vision 2030. The massive ruins seemed insurmountable when Hall and I took a hard-hat tour of them, but with enough money, anything is conceivable. After all, Hall told me, these homes, bakeries, and public spaces were once inhabited. The cost of rebuilding will be enormous, but it will take decades before the investment pays off. It is conceivable that MBS will rule for the next 50 years. Hall said, "You develop something that generates an economy around it.

During my visit, it came to me that Aula's material culture is quite basic when compared to, say, Marrakesh or Istanbul. I observed plain mud-brick buildings, straightforward crafts, and unadorned textiles in place of interiors with eye-catching mosaics. However, Saudi Arabia has a rich intangible legacy. Everywhere I walked, I could hear music, and many conversations included references to scripture, songs, and poetry. During Friday prayers, lectures were delivered with grace over loudspeakers, and lavish displays of hospitality were made, including countless cups of tea and bowls of food.

Alluded to a highly formalized social culture in terms of dates.

The position of the "reciter," literally translated as "someone who remembers stories," has its roots in pre-Islamic poetry. Before the Koran was extensively read and distributed in written form, the rw was the one who repeated Muhammad's sayings. I was reminded of how history moves like desert sands when the Saudis I met gave me their own tales about Arabia's past.

I stopped in Riyadh for the day during my flight to Alular and went to the King Abdelaziz Historical Center. My tour guide hurried me past unadorned galleries filled with ancient antiquities and natural history displays. We paused in front of wonderful exhibits on Muhammad's life, the expansion of Islam, and the unity of the country under Ibn Saud, also known as King Abdelaziz to Saudis.

This official story, created by the leadership of the pre-MBS generation, is essentially soft propaganda regarding the legitimacy of the Saud dynasty as the first and only kings of a country united in religion and ruled by the Islamic faith. On the other hand, my experiences in Alular—Hegira, the Open Library, the muscatels, and the rw—created a collage of a complex past, one with numerous kings and religions.

The RCU is buying up enough expertise and people as it pours money into Alular to force through epochal reforms before Vision 2030 reaches its stated deadline. The massive investment enables jaw-droppingly extravagant gestures like Marayat, a performance space and rooftop restaurant housed inside the largest mirrored structure in the world. The architectural show will undoubtedly brighten 10 million social media feeds. Its gleaming exterior conceals an enigmatic interior, and it appears to float above the red-rock terrain like a computer simulation. perhaps even around a hollow center.

The RCU has also made modest investments, such as supporting the unassuming craft school Madrasa Adera, which is housed in a former girls' academy. According to English expat Harriet Stiles, design and programmed manager at Turquoise Mountain, one of the nonprofits that supports the school, "For us, this area, this environment, is hypnotic." However, if you have spent your entire life here, it is familiar. Students get an appreciation for their Saudi history by adapting ancient methods to fresh forms, such making chic handbags out of palm fronds. On the Incense Road, a commercial district in the Old Town, travelers can purchase their works. The majority of craftspeople are female.

I couldn't help but be amazed by the breadth of the project and the foreign consultants' sincere, upbeat sense of purpose. (Of course, they get paid generously for their cheer.) I spoke with Sumatra Ghost, the director of RCU's artistic activities, while on a trip to a farm owned by Princess Noora Aludel. He participated in the creation of Desert X and is in charge of some of the Marayat art exhibitions, both of which support Saudi artists. Ghost, a British man, refers to his work as "pre-activating cultural assets," which means he searches the past for the beginnings of cultural programming. One such initiative is the smell project, which will honor the historical incense trade. He reminded me that Aula was once a hub for various civilizations. Why is it not possible?

As I sampled rose-petal jam and citron preserves created in Princess Noora's kitchens, Ghost said, "You see how Alular fits into the Saudi national vision of opening the country as a center of learning." "Artisans were at work here, as can be seen if you look at Hegira. That has to be reopened. Genuine faith is held in the influence of culture.

Alular should serve as the test ground for a new tourism business for a number of obvious reasons, including its scenic beauty and cultural history. But it's possible that the fact that this rural region of the kingdom is located far from Riyadh, the center of Islamic fanaticism, is no accident. Would mixed-gender swimming pools—a common facility in Alular—ever be permitted in the holy sites of Mecca and Medina? How far can social tolerance go even in Alular where hotel employees turn a blind eye?

I enquired of many whether homosexual and unmarried couples could visit in peace. I frequently heard from Saudis and expatriates alike that visitors will be welcomed if they respect traditional social mores. Islam requires it. I was reminded that the drive to welcome tourists emanates from the top when I expressed skepticism.

Instead of what it was twenty, ten, or five years ago, Saudi Arabia is now a developing nation. When I spoke with the MBS students, I detected hope, potential, and movement. I pictured Spain after Franco and China in the early 2000s, when repressive societies changed as a result of extraordinary political transformation. Hall recalled experiencing another such event while we were eating at Suhail in Old Town. He asserted that the end of apartheid in South Africa was a time when things might be made to function. He said, "You were pardoned for experimenting," and typically strict bureaucracies temporarily relaxed.

He added as he served chicken sales al taif and stuffed grape leaves, "I see a similar thing here. A window of opportunity has opened up.

The world has seen MBS break international standards; the monarchy is not a Western democracy. Despite this, it is impossible not to wish the young people of Alular the best. May the dream of a more liberal Saudi come true for their sake. Inshallah.

What is Alular?
 

Accommodations in Banyan Tree: This resort, which is located 30 minutes from Old Town, has 79 opulent tented villas grouped together at the edge of the huge Asher Valley, giving it the appearance of a Bedouin desert camp.
 

Habitus:

 Exquisite wooden homes hidden 20 minutes from the Hegira UNESCO World Heritage Site in a stunning red sandstone gorge. The firm also opened Caravan by Habitats, where visitors may stay in Airstream trailers, and both the open-air restaurant and the mixed-gender infinity pool feature views of the desert.
Suhail, 

Where to Eat: 

This restaurant, which is housed in a restored mud-brick building in Old Town, serves traditional American fare like kabab mire Hijazi alongside contemporary Arabic dishes like sales al tail (roasted chicken over milk-cooked rice with green and red pepper sauces) (camel and lamb meatballs).
 

What to Do Adan:

 At the fringe of the oasis that stretches from Old Town to Hegira is a modest but nevertheless stunning tomb complex from the Davanite empire carved into towering cliffs. Excavation work is being done near the abandoned city.
 

Hegira:

 The most impressive archaeological site in Saudi Arabia, where the Nabataeans, some 2,000 years ago, carved 111 tombs from cliffs and ship-sized boulders. It's worth stopping by around sunrise and dusk because it's situated in a desolate, windswept valley.
The walls of this little canyon, Jabaal Hikmah, also known as the Open Library, is located 10 minutes outside of Old Town and is covered with hundreds of pre-Islamic inscriptions in at least four prehistoric languages.
 

Marayat:

 This enormous performance space gives the impression of floating above the desert due to its mirror-like façade. Both Arabic and Western musical performances are featured at the venue. The glitzy rooftop restaurant Marayat Social cultivates the upscale ambiance of a Miami or Hollywood hot spot.
Sharaan Nature Reserve: In this 580 square mile wilderness reserve, look for the tracks of Arabian wolves, mountain gazelles, Nubian ibex, and red-necked ostriches. These uncommon and elusive desert animals are rarely observed.