Good country, exhausting tourist industry

Saudi Arabia is a genuinely beautiful and interesting place. Edge of the World is worth every superlative thrown at it. The Arabic coffee with cardamom is legitimately excellent. genuine hospitality gave the trip real depth.

What I struggled with: the tourist infrastructure around the headline sites in Riyadh is relentlessly commercial and dress code and behaviour norms to observe is a genuine friction point. You can feel the gap between authentic Saudi Arabia and the packaged version sold to tourists. The authentic version wins, but you have to work to find it.