Why?” asked my puzzled friend when I told him I was planning to drive solo around Saudi Arabia. “Because I can – at last,” is the short answer. My fascination with Arabia began when my Dad gave me the book Arabian Sands about Wilfred Thesiger’s heroic crossing of the Empty Quarter.
I went on to study Arabic and travel all over the region, but Saudi always felt closed. Now, you can get a tourist visa online in a matter of minutes and women won the right to drive in 2018. It was time.
