Jeddah. Met at the private terminal, and on the Red Sea corniche a short drive later.

Jeddah is the port of arrival for millions of pilgrims, and the pilgrimage calendar governs the city in a way no business event anywhere else does. During the Hajj season the airport operates a dedicated terminal at a scale built for the purpose, the road east towards Mecca carries extraordinary volumes, and hotel availability in Jeddah tightens along with it. Umrah traffic runs through much of the year and peaks sharply in Ramadan. Because the Islamic calendar is lunar, these periods move forward by roughly eleven days each year against the Gregorian calendar, so a date that was quiet last year may not be quiet this year.

For a business or leisure visitor the practical point is this: check the season before you fix the dates, and if the trip falls inside one, allow far more time on the roads than a map suggests and confirm the hotel early. We will say plainly when a requested timing looks optimistic rather than quoting a drive time we do not believe.

The city also hosts a street circuit on the northern corniche, and the Red Sea coast north of Jeddah is being developed for tourism on a very large scale. Both bring their own peaks. We do not publish event dates on this page because the regional calendar has been disrupted more than once recently; ask us and we will tell you what is actually confirmed at the time you ask.

One local fact catches visitors out, and it is better read here than at a checkpoint. Mecca is closed to non-Muslims, and the restriction is enforced at checkpoints on every road approaching the city. Traffic that is not permitted to enter is directed onto signed bypass routes, which is why a journey from Jeddah towards Taif takes a different line from the one a mapping application first offers. Medina may be entered by non-Muslims, but the sacred precinct at its centre may not.

A driver who works these roads every week knows this and routes accordingly without a word being said. A driver who does not causes an awkward conversation at a checkpoint and an hour lost. It is one of the clearest illustrations of why, outside London and Manchester, we work with operators we know rather than with whoever answers the telephone.

Within Jeddah itself the driving is straightforward and the corniche road along the Red Sea is fast outside the rush. Distances are longer than they look on a map, because the city runs for many kilometres along the coast rather than outwards from a centre. See corporate chauffeur and hourly, as directed.