Want to Visit Saudi Arabia?

If you want to, it seems as if you now might be able to. I am fascinated by eTurboNews, which covers the travel industry news from in Asia, Africa and the Middle East that are off the normal American tourist route. Still, having read about the appeals of Albania or prospects for Oman to become "the next Dubai" for tourism, I am still sometimes taken aback. Today, for instance, a headline proclaimed, "Saudi Issues Tourist Visas." Saudi Arabian Airlines has a "Discover Saudi Arabia" promotion, and 18 tour operators from who-knows-where are reportedly licensed to bring tourists into what is described as "the elusive kingdom."

The article, by one Aftab H. Kola, also reported, "Though the government of Saudi is still apprehensive about mass tourism considering its religious sanctity because of Makkah and Madina, Islam’s two holiest sites, measures are being taken to steadily allow tourists to visit the kingdom.....The government has stared issuing group visas through licensed tour operators for foreign tourists desiring to visit Saudi....The minimum persons traveling in a group should be five.... The minimum age for women to get visas is 30 if they are not traveling with their close relatives."

I'm over thirty. Where do I sign on? Only kidding. Only kidding. Many years ago, I met a couple who had recently returned to the US after living in a foreigners' compound near Riyadh. They weren't in the oil business or with the US government. Rather, he was a pilot working for the Saudi state-owned airline, and she languished in what I think of as a foreigners' ghetto. Women were not permitted to drive, or to sit in the front seat if they were driven by a male relative, but she said there weren't many places she wanted to go. Expat women with children had plenty to keep them occupied, but this couple was childless. He went flying off. She sat around and did jigsaw puzzles. It sounded so grim. It seems not to have changed too much.