TORONTO — Intrepid Travel is lifting women up with a brand new expedition to Saudi Arabia.

The 12-day ‘Saudi Arabia Women’s Expedition,’ designed to offer a travel experience while empowering women and supporting female-owned businesses in the destination, will be led exclusively by female leaders and guides and showcase a different side of the country beyond the luxury resorts and high-end offerings.

A limited run of five departures, each with a maximum of 12 travellers, will begin on Nov. 26, 2024, priced from $7,975.

Starting in Riyadh and ending in Jeddah, groups will stay in a female-owned boutique hotel, heritage property and desert camp, directly supporting nine female-owned and operated businesses.

The trip will include experiences like a sunrise visit to the Nabataean site of Hegra guided by a local ‘rawee’ (storyteller), the chance to meet two sisters running a local citrus farm near Alulua to sample their produce over lunch, as well as a visit to Madinah, the second holiest site in Islam after Mecca, with a local female guide. Other highlights include visits to women’s homes and female-only spaces, putting equal focus on the host communities as it does the travellers. 

“This new trip has been a year in the making as we challenged ourselves to create a trip in Saudi in line with our values that would be a genuine force for good,” said Jenny Gray, product manager for Women’s Expeditions. “With tourism to Saudi focused on vast ultra-luxury offerings, we wanted to balance that by creating something completely unique in Saudi Arabia: a trip putting local women’s voices centre stage. With activities like joining a cooking class with a local female chef and getting pampered at a women-owned salon, the trip will give our travellers the chance to see a side of Saudi few get to experience.”

According to Gray, Intrepid developed the trip independently, partnering with a female-owned local operator run by Sara Omar, a Saudi mother of two, to bring the itinerary to life. 

On the many misconceptions of her country, Omar said: “A lot of people think Saudi women are unable to do anything, that we’re not educated, that we don’t work. Meeting the locals is the best way to understand what the lifestyle is really like.”

While Saudi remains an extremely conservative society, ranking low in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, women have acquired certain freedoms in recent years, with women now representing 30% of the tourism and hospitality workforce. 

Zina Bencheikh, Intrepid’s managing director EMEA who recently visited Saudi and whose team will oversee operations, added: “We know that for some travellers, the decision as to whether to visit Saudi Arabia, as it transitions to a more moderate society, is not an easy one. However, we strongly believe that travel, when done right, can be a positive force for change … By launching our Women’s Expedition, we hope to create opportunities for those women to push boundaries and drive meaningful change, for themselves and future generations.”

Intrepid’s Women’s Expedition product range launched in 2018 with the aim of breaking down the cultural barriers of traditional tourism with all-female adventures. With the addition of Saudi Arabia, the product range will now feature seven itineraries including Morocco, Pakistan, Nepal and India.