Neom

Neom (نيوم Niyūm, stylized as NEOM) is a futuristic megacity being built in northern Saudi Arabia. Its luxuries are being teased years in advance, but the first tourist facilities are due to open in 2024.

Understand

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / a stately pleasure dome decree . . . "

Saudi Arabia receives over 3 million pilgrims each year and thousands of business travellers, but facilities for secular tourists were almost non-existent, and even getting a visa for such purposes was difficult. Meanwhile their neighbours Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf States draw a large income from tourism. The country has therefore set out to attract tourists, and Neom is the latest and most ambitious of a string of megaprojects. They also intend to transition to a post-oil carbon-neutral economy, and see the way to do this as enticing tourists to fly thousands of miles to Saudi Arabia, there to cavort in water parks in a parched country, and to crank up the aircon against the roasting summers.

All along the coasts of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf are rusting tracts of part-built developments that flopped. Neom may yet join these; however it has a huge state oil budget behind it and political drive right from the top. The town name derives from Neo (new) M-for-Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and de facto absolute ruler of Saudi Arabia, who launched the project in 2017. When His Highness says "Let's build it here" it's unwise to demur, as the Howeitat tribe formerly resident in the area learned to their cost.

Neom has already hosted a sporting event, an ultramarathon in 2023 when only two buildings had been completed, but travellers' reports are as sparse as those of Mecca before Burton snuck in and out in 1853. "Neom" strictly refers to the resort city, while the wildest component of the grand plan is The Line, a linear city that's meant to be 170 km long, 500 metres high and 200 metres wide, with a high-speed train running down the middle. Others include the Oxagon, a 250 sq km floating industrial city, and Trojena ski resort in the middle of the desert. Each of these is a mega-project, and "giga-project" is the term coined to describe the whole thing. It remains to be seen how many of these schemes will see the light of day, but at least the artificial moon is not intended to.

Saudi-Egypt Causeway is the final big piece in this jigsaw, a plan for a 15 km bridge across the Straits of Tiran from Sharm-el-Sheik in Egypt, with links north up the coast to Jordan. Neom would then become the lynchpin of a tri-state Special Economic Zone, and Middle Eastern travel would be transformed. But the "plan" amounts to little more than a handshake between rulers, and as of 2024 there is not even an agreed design and timeline let alone ground broken.

Still, leisure travel is always aspirational, and glossy TV adverts indicate what is being aspired to. These promote Saudi Arabia at large, Neom city, and specific resort complexes within it. They resemble cruise ship adverts, which portray spacious luxury populated by a few glamorous people, whereas the reality is a mid-price horde scrummaging at the buffet and peeing in the pool. And to what extent will Saudi Arabia's stern customs and laws be relaxed within this enclave? If not, potential customers will prefer Thailand and the Caribbean. But to the extent that they are relaxed, Neom will draw the fury of religious conservatives. It's proposed that robots will perform support functions such as security and deliveries, so the jihadists will already be figuring out how to infiltrate or radicalise the robots.

Get in

• Entry requirements: see Saudi Arabia#Get in. Most western passport holders are eligible for an e-visa or visa-waiver, and there are no special rules for Neom.
• 1 Neom Bay Airport (NUM  ^IATA)), ☏ +966 800 116 8888. This has domestic flights from Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam, and international flights from Doha and Dubai. A taxi onward is best organised via your accommodation. (updated Feb 2024)
• By road: Neom is 1600 km northwest of Riyadh, a 9 hour drive. Saudi Arabia's extensive bus network doesn't come this way, and the Riyadh-Jordan railway passes far to the east. So either hire a car, or it's a very expensive taxi ride.

Get around

Don't even think of it. The point of luxury resorts is to enclose you within a cocoon of restaurants, shopping malls, pools and "wellness therapies", so you never spend your money elsewhere or venture out on any journey beyond the range of a golf buggy.

See

• 1 Sindalah Island. Officially, Sindalah was opened in October 2024; however, the "opening" only seemed to cover the yacht club, as none of its hotels are operating yet. (updated Oct 2024)
• 2 The Line. Neom's most infamous project, a linear city 500 meters tall and 170 kilometers long, with a high-speed train running down the length. Plans have been scaled down to a comparatively modest 2.4 km by 2030, but as of 2024 it's only a rectangular hole in the ground and off limits to tourists since it's a construction site. (updated Apr 2024)

Do

Sports are intended to be a major part of the local attractions, and not just facilities and tournaments, but the arena for Saudi Arabian control of popular sports. This allied mega-project is coming along nicely in boxing, tennis, Formula One motor-racing and soccer, and in golf has reached critical mass: LIV Golf has bought up enough star players to launch its own playing structure, to rival and then gobble up the existing PGA and R&A. This is often called "sports-washing" as if it was just a PR initiative, but Saudi ambitions go much further.

• Golf: a single course has been laid out at Sharma and is nice and green, but hole-yardage and other information is not yet published. Another course is in preparation on Sindalah Island.
• Yachting: a marina is under construction on Sindalah Island.
• 1 Skiing and winter sports. Trojena in the mountains is to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games. Yes, snow does fall there, about as often as heatwaves in Zermatt, so the pistes will be mostly artificial snow. (updated Apr 2024)

Buy

Neom as lynch-pin of a Special Economic Zone

Nothing as yet, but Dubai has set the standard for Arabian shopping, and Neom is aiming to better it.

Eat

Hotel restaurants are your only option. All food offerings will be halal.

Sleep

Good luck sleeping: jackhammers, drills, cement mixers and generators make a racket round the clock. The armies of construction staff are accommodated in prefab temporary villages. Senior management stay for extended periods in the few existing hotels, which therefore may not have availability for others.

Marriott is set to open the first three hotels in Neom at Sindalah Island as early as 2024. In the meantime, though, your only options are on the mainland.

• 1 Hampton by Hilton Sharma. The very first hotel to open in Neom is this Hampton Inn that charges $600/night, and is off limits unless you have an invitation. (updated Mar 2024)
• 2 Royal Tulip Sharma Resort, Tabuk, ☏ +966 14 435 1000. One of the few hotels in the area that predate Neom. Good luck actually staying though, since much of it is booked out to extended stays by staff associated with the construction. (updated Feb 2024)
• L'Azure Beach & Resort 2 km west of Royal Tulip is likewise booked out to project staff in 2024.

The resorts of Xaynor (opening 2027), Leyja, Epicon, Siranna, Utamo, Norlana, Aquellum and Zardun remain under construction or exist only as promotional videos.

Connect

As of Feb 2024, Neom and its approach highways have 5G from Mobily and STC, and 4G from Zain.

Go next

• Mecca is 1000 km south by road, via Jeddah.
• Aqaba in Jordan is 380 km north by road – the drive takes less than four hours, but you have to factor in delays at the border crossing. The must-see lost city of Petra is within a day-trip from Aqaba.