Throw back to Last Years Road Trip

Now that I am back in sunny Saudi I am becoming super excited about the impending cooler weather and all the adventures we will have this year God willing. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love travel and adventures. I also love Saudi Arabia and how there are so many adventures to be had here in this beautiful country.

Last winter, to mark our first year living in the Kingdom we set out on an epic road trip that took us coast to coast across 4000 kilometres of desert, mountains, rock formations, valleys, beaches, stunning blue seas, volcanic craters and historical towns (You can read about our plans here: https://www.sandcastlesinsaudi.com/post/planning-our-first-saudi-road-trip ).

By the time we returned we had travelled through no less than ten towns and cities within six provinces in just 10 days:

- Riyadh

- Hail

- AlUla, Hegra in Medina Province

- Wadi Disah, Al wajh and UmLuj in Tabuk Province

- Yanbu and Medina in the Medina Province

- Buraydah in the Qassim Province

- Back to Dhahran, home, in the Eastern Province

It was such a huge adventure and the kids absolutely loved it. Saudi is so vast and so varied in landscapes that nature really was the best entertainment and playground for the kids during our trip. Not only was it fun but the experience was jam packed full of life lessons that I can only hope will shape my children's lives.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about road trips is that sometimes it is the experiences you didn't prepare for that turn out to be the best memories, the places that aren't places at all that turn out to be the most full of delight. While AlUla and Umluj were unmissable and one day I would love to go again it was quite often those moments that cannot be captured in a Tik tok video nor make good Instagram posts that were the most magical. It was the sun setting on 2020 in Al Wajh which was the most poignant and climbing the crater as we headed towards Medina that was the most fun. It was every camel sighting and every goat and every donkey. Every rock formation that was shaped like a turtle or a sheep! It was passing through small towns not on the map that excited us and it was when things went wrong and we got stuck in the sand in Wadi Disah that we will laugh about for years to come.

So this year I will plan again and I will plan well, as you must when going on any adventures with kids; but this year I will leave much more time for all the inbetweens, randoms and detours that may add the extra awesome.

So where will we go to next? If you have any places that you would like to see us go to in our next epic Saudi adventure then leave a comment and watch this space for more mini adventures coming up as the weather cools down.