AlUla, Tabuk & the Northwest

This corner of Arabia sat on the incense road that carried frankincense and myrrh from the south to the Mediterranean. The oasis of Dadan, at AlUla, was the capital of the Dadanite and then the Lihyanite kingdoms in the first millennium BC, and their inscriptions cover the rock face of Jabal Ikmah. Tayma, to the north, was an important oasis in the same era; the Babylonian king Nabonidus lived there for about ten years in the 6th century BC. In Al Jawf, Dumat al-Jandal — the Adummatu of Assyrian records — was a stronghold of Arab queens.

The Nabataeans, whose capital was Petra, made Hegra their great southern city in the 1st century AD and carved many of its tombs before Rome annexed their kingdom in 106 AD. Islamic tradition links the site to the people of Thamud, and it was long avoided as a cursed place. In 630 the Prophet Muhammad led an expedition to Tabuk, and the pilgrim road from Damascus to Medina passed through the region for centuries, guarded by Ottoman forts.

The Hejaz Railway, opened through Tabuk and Hegra in the 1900s, was repeatedly sabotaged during the Arab Revolt of 1916–18 and never reopened. The region became part of the Saudi state in the early 20th century. From the late 1940s the Trans-Arabian Pipeline brought pumping stations that grew into Arar, Rafha and Turaif. Since 2017 the state has made the north-west the centre of its tourism plans, with the Royal Commission for AlUla, the Red Sea resorts and NEOM.

The north-west is Bedouin country, home to great tribes such as the Anizah, the Shammar and the Huwaytat, and tribal ties still run across the borders with Jordan and Iraq. The traditions are those of the desert: poetry, coffee rituals, camel herding and hospitality in the goat-hair tent.

Oasis towns have their own character. AlUla's families farmed the valley for generations in a mud-brick town that was abandoned in the 20th century, and many now work in the heritage and tourism industry built around them. Al Jawf is proud of its olive groves, celebrated in an annual olive festival, and of Dumat al-Jandal's long history.

The region's calendar now also includes large cultural events: AlUla's winter programme of concerts at the mirrored Maraya hall and other events. At the same time, the giga-projects have been contentious locally — the clearance of land for NEOM led to the forced eviction of members of the Huwaitat tribe and prison and death sentences for some who resisted.

Tabuk is the largest city of the north-west, with around 600,000 people, a military centre with an air base and a farming hub with dairy and poultry farms and flowers grown for export. Sakaka and Dumat al-Jandal in Al Jawf are agricultural towns among olive groves and date palms, and Arar, the capital of the Northern Borders, is a modest government and trading town.

AlUla has been transformed in a few years from a quiet farming oasis into a tourist destination with resorts, restaurants and a heritage workforce, many of them young locals trained as guides. On the coast, Duba is a port with ferries to Egypt, Umluj and Al Wajh are coastal towns now serving the Red Sea resorts, and NEOM is under construction in the far north-west near the Gulf of Aqaba.

Life follows the seasons: winter is the time of camping, festivals and the tourist season, summer the time of retreat indoors. Roads are long and quiet, and many families still keep camels and flocks in the desert.

Northern cooking is Bedouin at heart: lamb or camel meat served over rice or bread at shared trays, jareesh cracked wheat, and flatbread baked on a griddle or in the embers. Dates are everywhere, and AlUla's valley also grows citrus, while Al Jawf is known for its olive oil and its own sweet dates.

After good winter rains, desert truffles, called faqa, appear in northern markets in late winter and spring and are eagerly bought and cooked with meat or rice. Along the Red Sea coast, fish and shellfish from the reefs are grilled or cooked with rice, and Tabuk's farms supply dairy produce and poultry.

In the cafés and camps, the drinks are Arabic coffee with cardamom, sweet tea with mint or sage, and camel's milk. AlUla's new restaurants serve menus built on local produce, while in Tabuk, Sakaka and Arar the everyday choices are kabsa, grills and shawarma.

AlUla, just south of Tabuk Province in Medina Province, is the region's highlight. Hegra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has over a hundred Nabataean tombs cut into sandstone outcrops, among them the Qasr al-Farid, the largest, and the tombs of the Qasr al-Bint group. Nearby are ancient Dadan and the inscriptions of Jabal Ikmah, the mud-brick old town under its castle, Elephant Rock, the mirrored Maraya concert hall and the canyons and reserves around the oasis.

Tabuk has its Ottoman-era castle and a Hejaz Railway station; Tayma keeps its ancient walls and the great Haddaj well; and the sandstone gorge of Wadi Disah and the mountains of Jabal al-Lawz lie in the province's interior. The Red Sea coast offers reefs, islands and luxury resorts between Umluj and Al Wajh, and NEOM is under construction further north.

In Al Jawf, Sakaka has the Za'bal castle and the Rajajil standing stones, and Dumat al-Jandal the Marid castle, the Umar mosque and the old stone quarter, with oasis farms all around. The Northern Borders are open desert along the old Tapline road.