The 13 Best Resorts in Saudi Arabia

The villas here aren't built near the Hijaz mountains, they're carved into them, with suites set into cliff faces and ridgeline perches overlooking open desert. Floor-to-ceiling glass keeps the landscape inside the room whether you want it or not. A spa and stargazing terraces round out a place that takes "remote" as a design philosophy rather than an inconvenience. The Michelin Guide awarded it two Keys.

The swimming pool sits between two near-vertical sandstone cliffs, which sets the tone. This resort in the ancient Ashar Valley arranges 47 freestanding villas to read like a permanent tented camp, many with private pools. An Arabic restaurant and a Thai one handle dinner, and the spa is the kind you plan a day around. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Solar-powered villas float across a Red Sea archipelago so remote that the reef below is barely on the map. Nujuma is the Ritz-Carlton Reserve's first outpost in the Middle East, a design-forward resort where personal hosts handle the effortless parts so you can spend your attention on diving, sailing, stargazing, and guided walks with resident naturalists. The Michelin Guide awarded it two Keys.

Mirrored spheres floating above the Red Sea are the opening argument: this is an ultra-luxury private-island resort where the architecture does most of the talking before you've unpacked. Curved, self-contained villas come with infinity pools that blur into open water, and the reef diving is as undisturbed as you'd hope for somewhere this remote. The pace stays unhurried even when you're e-foiling. The Michelin Guide awarded it two Keys.

Ninety-six luxury villas wedged into a box canyon in the Saudi desert, founded by people who met at Burning Man, which tells you almost everything. Our Habitas AlUla leans hard into the communal side of desert life: group hikes, camel rides, and ATV tours sit alongside a spa with regionally inspired treatments and a swimming pool that earns its photographs. The restaurant, Tama, pulls from local Middle Eastern ingredients. Solitude seekers may want to look elsewhere.

Perched in the quiet hills of Wadi Laban, this villa resort sits close enough to Riyadh that you can get there easily, yet far enough that the city feels like someone else's problem. Private villas come with their own pools, outdoor grills, and views down into the valley, making it more of a rented retreat than a conventional hotel. The Michelin Guide has it among its Selected Hotels.

Laid out like a walled village around a winding lagoon, this resort on the northern edge of Riyadh runs fully self-contained, which is sort of the point. The buildings spread low and wide, the spa offers a dizzying roster of treatments, and there's an 18-hole mini-golf course for when holistic wellness hits its natural ceiling. Restaurants run from a poolside bar to a hookah lounge, and the rooms blend modern touches with traditional detailing in a way that never overcorrects.

Twenty-two polished Airstream trailers parked in a desert canyon, framed by date palms and sandstone walls, is either the strangest or most logical idea in Middle Eastern hospitality. Each unit comes with a kitchenette, private bath, and locally inspired interiors. Social by design, the camp runs talks and performances in a communal tent, with food trucks handling dinner. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and proof that low-impact travel doesn't have to mean roughing it.

Thatched-roof villas with private gardens and pools sit inside a wildlife reserve where golden tigers and giraffes roam past the buggy path, and that detail alone tends to end the conversation. This resort just outside Riyadh is the kind of place families and couples go when they want actual space, with an 18-hole golf course, horseback riding, zip lines, and a bird center filling the days before anyone thinks to miss the city.

Guestrooms at this Red Sea resort are built to feel like freestanding beach houses, with wide terraces and windows scaled to make the coral-studded water the main piece of furniture. An electric vehicle fetries you across desert before Shura Island appears. The lobby's tea service quietly becomes a cocktail hour, the beach club runs Indonesian food with DJs, and the spa pulls frankincense and sea salt from nearby. The reef starts at the private beach.