Ask your hotel to pack a picnic before you set off. Habitas packed ours with local breads, cheeses, fruit, juices and a few local delicacies we’d probably never have chosen ourselves. It meant we could stop when we wanted to, rather than when we had to.

Take the scenic route

Leave AlUla through the Old Town and take the mountain road, not the highway. Within minutes we were behind a truck carrying a camel, happily lying down in the back as though she’d done it all her life. And she probably had. Camels are incredibly intelligent and completely attuned to their keepers. You couldn’t persuade one into the back of a truck if it didn’t want to be there. As the road climbs through the mountains, look out for camels wandering freely, herds of goats and donkeys, little villages, schools and mosques. This is everyday Saudi, and it’s a privilege to see it.

Al Manjur

There’s a little coffee shop that’s well worth stopping for. We ordered Arabic coffee, a cappuccino and an iced hibiscus drink, deep red, ice cold and wonderfully refreshing. Directly opposite is a supermarket that’s stocked to the rafters. We found fresh fruit, labneh, baba ganoush, bread and, to our delight, the dried milk cookies we’d first discovered in Taif.

Your picnic

The journey is part of the experience. As you leave Jeddah behind and climb into the mountains, you’ll pass the turn-off for Makkah and begin to appreciate just how varied the Saudi landscape really is.

The dried milk cookies (yes, really). We first saw these in Taif and didn’t buy them because we weren’t quite sure we’d eat them all. Finding them again in Al Manjur felt like a second chance. Made by naturally drying milk and cheese, they’re an ancient Bedouin recipe and perhaps the original protein snack, long before protein bars existed. Buy a bag for the journey. They’re delicious on their own and even better with a spoonful of local honey.

Ask your driver to take the scenic mountain route. It takes a little longer, but that’s the whole point.

It’s easy to think of Saudi as endless desert. This drive tells a different story. Mountains. Villages. Camels. Fruit sellers. Coffee stops. Desert. Then, quite suddenly, the Red Sea. If you have the time, take the road.

We would. Every time.