---
type: Video
title: "Inside Saudi Arabia's Billion Dollar Future City 🇸🇦"
description: A first trip to Jeddah asking one question — is Saudi Arabia ready for tourism — answered from a hosted suite, a beach club, an entertainment park and a plate of chicken and rice.
tags: [saudi-arabia, jeddah, tourism, hotels, beach-club, coffee, thobe, food]
timestamp: 2026-08-05T14:30:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKVUlN2Jjss
video_id: OKVUlN2Jjss
upload_date: 2025-05-30
duration: 2381
---

# Inside Saudi Arabia's Billion Dollar Future City 🇸🇦

Harry's first time in [Saudi Arabia](/countries/saudi-arabia.md), all of it in
[Jeddah](/places/jeddah.md), with [Kieran](/people/kieran.md) — who he runs into
in the street by accident rather than arranging to meet.

The question he sets at the start and answers at the end is whether the country
is **ready for tourism**, five years after it started issuing tourist visas at
all. His answer is yes, just about.

The other thread is the thobe. He buys one on the first afternoon, wears it for
the rest of the video, and by the end calls it the single most effective thing
he's done for talking to strangers.

*Obs: the video carries two read-aloud eSIM sponsor segments and a travel-card
affiliate link. The provider is not recorded here.*

*Obs: the luxury hotel section is a hosted stay — Harry says he was invited, and
that he was upgraded. He also states at the top that he has **not** been paid to
come to the country and that the opinions are his own. The hotel is not named
here; the substance of what a stay at that level actually consists of is on the
[Jeddah](/places/jeddah.md) page.*

## Key moments

- [00:01] The premise: oil, Formula 1, boxing under desert lights — and **tourism
  opened in 2019**, which is the fact everything else hangs on.
- [00:32] The commitment: no script, no payment, an honest verdict on whether it's
  good or *a sandy desert*.
- [02:07] He names the two things he wants to test — whether the country can
  serve non-pilgrim tourists, and whether the assumption that all Saudis are rich
  holds. He doubts it, and points at the migrant workforce.
- [03:03] **The thobe.** Kieran already has an Emirati one bought in Dubai for
  $32; Harry wants the Saudi version so they can be from different countries.
- [04:26] The shop is run by a Bangladeshi trader, and the fitting is a
  collaborative event involving most of the street.
- [06:01] **120 for the complete outfit** *(from video – unverified — currency and
  the final haggled figure are garbled)*, discounted because it was all the cash
  they had between them.
- [07:16] **Immediate effect**: strangers stop them constantly, and keep
  correcting the headdress, which will not stay on.
- [08:27] The gold souk, which he compares to Dubai — clean, calm, and not where
  he'll be spending money.
- [08:27] **Almost nobody speaks English**, which he names as the practical
  problem with the country for a visitor.
- [09:19] **The hotel.** He is invited, and says so; the suite he's shown into is
  quoted at $7,500 a night.
- [11:42] A member of staff mentions that her family descends from an uncle of the
  Prophet Muhammad — recorded as what she told him.
- [11:42] **The upgrade**, and he corrects himself on camera: the Royal Suite, at
  **$75,000 a night.** Five rooms, three bathrooms, an office, a meeting room and
  a butler's kitchen. He is straightforward that he would never pay it and that it
  is a perk of the job.
- [16:13] What he actually wants out of it, which is not the bath: an office you
  can do business from.
- [19:35] Breakfast to the room, and a member of staff who confirms a prince has
  slept in the same bed.
- [20:42] **The reaction to two foreigners in thobes**, and his answer to the
  charge of disrespect: in the UAE it is banned for foreigners and he wouldn't; in
  Saudi it is allowed and people love it.
- [20:55] **The Corniche** — a seafront strip with running and cycling tracks,
  dead in the daytime, alive after sunset. He notes it as a deliberate exception:
  Saudi is not a walkable country and this area was designed to be.
- [22:21] **On being gay in Saudi Arabia.** Harry says he doesn't know and hands it
  to Kieran, who is part of the community: his account is that in practice it is
  widely accepted, that he expected problems and had none, and that the club they
  went to the previous night was packed.
- [23:26] **Coffee is the national obsession** after oil. Drive-through after
  drive-through, plus every American chain. He gives Saudi Arabia the third-latest
  average bedtime in the world, around half past midnight *(from video –
  unverified)*.
- [24:30] **Rented electric bikes** at 150 for the day, and a genuine problem:
  **the rental shop takes only the domestic card network — no Visa, no
  Mastercard.** His verdict on the spot is that this is exactly what *not ready
  for tourism* looks like. The fix is an ATM and cash.
- [25:29] They spend the afternoon **giving strangers lifts on the back of the
  bikes** — see [give strangers a lift](/tips/give-strangers-a-lift.md).
- [27:09] **The beach club**: free entry, an inflatable assault course at 65 or 75
  with a drink — he puts it at about $20 — and a bar with no alcohol.
- [27:25] The staff are Palestinian, Sudanese, South Sudanese and Somali, and the
  conversation turns into a roll-call of countries he has been to.
- [30:43] **32 °C in May**, which he finds surprisingly comfortable.
- [31:15] **The biggest misconception, in his framing**: that an Islamic country
  means no beach life. Tops off, tattoos out, nobody minds.
- [31:15] **Jeddah over Riyadh**, and he says he arrived believing the opposite —
  everyone he met told him otherwise.
- [32:37] **The entertainment park**: DJ, food, games, families everywhere, a
  comedian playing that night, no alcohol. He rates it highly and credits them for
  holding the line on drink.
- [34:32] **Saudi food.** Half a chicken on a mountain of rice, ordered before you
  sit down, **$9 to $15 for everything.** He rates it 8/10 and compares it
  favourably to a high-street chicken chain.
- [35:29] **Private family rooms** in restaurants, so women can eat unveiled with
  their own family.
- [36:03] Eating on the floor with your hands, which he has done in enough
  countries to be used to and still isn't good at — and the correction that eating
  with the left hand is haram.
- [38:51] **The verdict**: yes, just about. The infrastructure is there, the cities
  are modern, the people are warm and genuinely curious about visitors. It is not
  top of his own list, some things are *behind the curtain* — especially for
  non-Muslims — and it is not Dubai yet.
- [39:29] The parting advice: **wearing the thobe is a life hack** for unlimited
  interaction with locals.

## Extracted pages

- Country: [Saudi Arabia](/countries/saudi-arabia.md)
- Place: [Jeddah](/places/jeddah.md)
- Person: [Kieran](/people/kieran.md)