I am so excited. I can't wait! It's been a while in the planning but next week on Sunday we are going to actually embark on our first real Saudi road trip. A mega adventure if you will, a road trip of epic proportions. Inspired and slightly forced by the border lock downs this year, we are going coast to coast in a 4000 km drive through 6 provinces and 8 cities! Our trip should take us through untouched desert and rugged rock formations, remnants of civilisations going back up to 4000 years, volcanoes and lava fields and untouched seas that are said to rival the Maldives. Did I mention that i'm excited?! This may be my craziest and most epic plan yet! The last time I did any proper travelling was way back in 2006 when I could tie up my own shoe laces without pulling a muscle. In fact, I didn't even have shoes with laces then; Pre kids I could climb mountains in high heels, I could go where the breeze took me, no plans, no itineraries and I never needed sleep then. Ever.
As you can imagine, planning a trip of this nature with three young children is no small task. With a three, six and nine year old to keep occupied it needs to be low in driving time and high on fun! For my husband it needs to be big on comfort and centre around super duper food experiences. For me, I need to feel like I'm young, free and camping in the middle of nowhere yet have access to toilets and coffee frequently (an unfortunate side effect of a condition known as having kids). I cannot believe that just over a year ago, with young kids, one of whom has sensory processing difficulties and suffers from extreme anxiety, even a trip to the supermarket was unthinkable at times. Now here we are planning 10 days that would make even Dora the explorer herself well jell.
Of course I have planned well, factoring in all the scenery I want to see, all the things the kids want to do, all the hotels my husband wants to watch movies in and of course the maximum time we can be in the car before the 'are we nearly there yet?'s almost finish us off. With these things finalised I scattered in a few McDonald and Starbucks stops on route to keep us all in tip top travelling spirits.
We plan to visit Hail, Alula, Mada'in Saleh, Wadi Disah, Al wajh, Umluj, Yanbu, Madinah and Buraydah before heading home.
Now all there is to do is pack up the car and make like a tree and get out of here. As with all plans you make with kids, you have to plan for the possibility (probability?) that some or most of them don't happen at all. We are just excited to be off on an adventure whatever it may turn out to be and the amount of Kinder surprise eggs I've packed says we make it at least half way. Keep your eyes peeled from Monday to join us virtually on our adventure! If you haven't already then find me on Instagram and Tiktok where I hope to take some good photos, videos and notes to share with anyone else crazy enough to want to try this with their kids too!
