Inside Saudi Arabia’s Billion Dollar Future City 🇸🇦

Harry’s first time in Saudi Arabia, all of it in Jeddah, with Kieran — 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 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.
• [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
• Place: Jeddah
• Person: Kieran