The flight from Jeddah to NEOM Bay Airport took 90 minutes. The airport is new, modern, and almost empty. The drive to the hotel passed through landscape that shifted from flat desert to dramatic sandstone formations within 20 minutes. NEOM occupies an area the size of Belgium and looks it — the scale is disorienting.
My hotel near the coast was comfortable but basic — 850 SAR/night (~$225). The Red Sea was visible from the room. The water was the deep, saturated blue that only the Red Sea produces.
Day 2: Diving
A two-dive trip from Sharma with a local operator, 550 SAR. The boat was small — six divers. The dive master, a Saudi named Fahad, said the site we were heading to had been dived maybe 200 times total. "In Sharm el-Sheikh, that's one Tuesday," he said.
The reef was extraordinary. Hard coral in formations I'd never seen — table corals the size of dining tables, untouched and complete. A Napoleon wrasse the size of a golden retriever hovered at the cleaning station. Visibility was 35+ meters. I could see the reef wall dropping away below into the deep blue.
The second dive was a shallow coral garden (8-12m) with more species diversity than I could count. No anchor damage. No broken coral. No discarded fishing line. It looked like what every reef must have looked like before humans showed up.
Day 3: Hisma Desert
Guided canyon hike, 400 SAR for a half-day. The Hisma desert within NEOM has sandstone formations that remind me of Wadi Rum in Jordan, but without the tourist infrastructure. We hiked through a narrow slot canyon where the walls rose 30 meters on both sides, the sandstone layered in reds, oranges, and whites.
The guide pointed out Nabataean rock inscriptions — ancient trading route markers from the same civilization that built Petra. These carvings are largely unstudied and unprotected. They sit in the desert where they've been for 2,000 years, unmarked and unvisited.
The rust-red sandstone at golden hour was spectacular. The silence was absolute — no engine noise, no other groups, just wind and rock.
Day 4: Sharma Village
Sharma is a traditional fishing village on the NEOM coast. Coral-stone houses, fishing boats pulled up on the beach, the morning catch being sorted on the dock. It's a window into pre-development Saudi coastal life.
I ate at a simple seafood restaurant. Grilled hammour (grouper) with rice and salad, 45 SAR (~$12). The fish was 2 hours from the sea. The restaurant had plastic chairs and fluorescent lights. It was one of the best fish meals of my life.
The contrast between Sharma's simplicity and The Line's $500-billion ambition, separated by maybe 50 km, is the most disorienting thing about NEOM.
Day 5: The Line Visitor Center
The visitor experience center is free and impressive — immersive screens, architectural models, and a VR experience of what The Line will look like when complete. A 170 km mirrored structure, 500m tall, 200m wide, housing 9 million people with zero cars and AI-managed everything.
From designated viewpoints, you can see the actual construction. Massive earthworks, crane forests, and the beginning of foundation structures stretching to the horizon. The scale is staggering. Whether it will work as envisioned is a question I can't answer. But seeing it in progress is unlike anything else on Earth.
Day 6: Snorkeling and Sunset
A gentler day. Snorkeling from a beach near the hotel. The shallow reefs (3-5m) were healthy and colorful — parrotfish, surgeonfish, and a curious moray eel that poked its head out of a crevice to inspect my mask.
Sunset from a cliff overlooking the Red Sea. The water turned from blue to gold to deep orange. The desert behind me was silent. The only sound was waves on rock.
Day 7: Departure
The flight back to Jeddah. Looking out the window, I could see the NEOM coastline stretching south, the construction zones visible as geometric scars on the desert floor, and beyond them, untouched desert and reef continuing toward the horizon.
NEOM is the strangest place I've ever visited. It's simultaneously the ancient world (Nabataean carvings, fishing villages, pristine reefs) and the imagined future (The Line, AI cities, manufactured snow). Whether the future vision succeeds or not, the present reality — unspoiled diving, spectacular desert, authentic coastal culture — is worth the trip on its own terms.
For the diving deep-dive, read our NEOM Red Sea guide. For practical planning, see our NEOM FAQ. Al-Ula pairs naturally for anyone exploring Saudi Arabia's desert heritage.
