Saudi Arabia
Hisma Desert
Red sandstone towers erupt from golden sand like a landscape sculpted on another planet.
Red sandstone pillars rise from golden sand in formations that shift between geological and sculptural — some narrow at the base like mushrooms, others stacked in towers that seem to defy gravity. The colour palette is Martian: rust, amber, burnt orange against a sky bleached white by heat. Between the formations, the sand is unmarked except by wind.
The Hisma Desert occupies the northwest of Saudi Arabia's Tabuk region, extending towards the Jordanian border. The sandstone formations are the result of millions of years of erosion, with the softer layers weathered away to leave pillars, arches, and natural bridges in hard red rock. The landscape is geologically continuous with Jordan's Wadi Rum, though far less visited and entirely without the tourism infrastructure of its northern neighbour. Bedouin-run desert camps offer overnight stays in traditional tents, with meals cooked in sand pits and navigation by landmark across the trackless sand.
Solo
The scale and emptiness of the Hisma reward solo exploration — you can walk for hours between the formations without encountering another person.
Couple
Overnight desert camps beneath the sandstone towers, with fire-cooked meals and uninterrupted silence, are as intimate as the landscape allows.
Friends
4x4 expeditions through the formation field — navigating by landmark, camping at different sites each night — are the adventure groups come here for.
- Red sandstone pillars and arches rise from golden sand — the landscape shifts between Martian and Earthly.
- Bedouin-run desert camps offer overnight stays in traditional tents with fire-cooked meals.
- 4x4 routes weave between the rock formations with no set paths — navigation by landmark only.
- The silence between the formations at dawn is so deep you can hear your own heartbeat.
Zarb cooked in the sand — lamb and root vegetables unearthed steaming after hours beneath the dunes.
Bedouin flatbread torn by hand and dipped into pools of olive oil and wild thyme.
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Sand ridges higher than buildings stretching to the Libyan border, hiding shards of cosmic glass.
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