Makkah

Almost nobody comes to Makkah as a tourist. You come for Umrah or Hajj, the rites are the trip, and everything else is what you do with the hours in between. That is the honest frame for planning it, and it is different from planning any other city in this list.

How long you actually need

For Umrah alone, two full days is enough: arrive, rest, perform the rites, and pray a few prayers in the Haram without watching the clock. Most people stay three to five, and the extra days go on repeat prayers and one Ziyarat round.

Ramadan and the Hajj season are a different calculation. Everything takes longer, the Haram fills hours before each prayer, and a journey that is fifteen minutes in March can be an hour. Add a day to whatever you were planning.

Where to base yourself

The only question that matters here is how far you are willing to walk, five times a day, in the heat, possibly with a parent or a small child.

• Inside the Haram ring — the towers and hotels within a few hundred metres. Expensive, and you will be glad of it at Fajr.
• Ajyad and the Ibrahim Al Khalil road — a five to twenty minute walk, considerably cheaper, and the sensible middle.
• Aziziyah and further out — the cheapest by a distance, but you are now dependent on a car or a shuttle for every prayer. Fine for a group with a driver. Hard work without one.

Our Makkah stays page lists what is bookable, with walking distance to the Haram on each.

What to do between prayers

Less than people expect, and that is not a complaint. The city is built around one thing. What there is: the Ziyarat round of Jabal al-Noor, Mina, Arafat and the rest; the Seerah museum and the Clock Tower museum, both next to the Haram; and the Hira Cultural District at the foot of Jabal al-Noor.

With a spare day, most pilgrims go up to Taif for the cooler air. It is the standard extra day out and it is a good one.

Getting here, and getting about

Nearly everyone arrives through Jeddah. The airport transfer is the one journey where planning pays: after a long flight, in ihram, with luggage and family, a pre-booked car meeting you at arrivals is worth more than the money it saves. See Jeddah Airport to Makkah for the fare by vehicle size.

Inside the city, walk if you are close and use a car if you are not. Traffic around the Haram at prayer times is genuinely bad, and the closest a car can drop you is often several hundred metres out.

Things worth knowing before you land

• Makkah is closed to non-Muslims. It is checked at the road checkpoints on every approach, so a mixed group needs a plan for the days you are here.
• Heat is the thing people underestimate. From May to September the marble around the Haram is punishing by mid-morning.
• Carry a small bag for shoes. Every mosque entrance, every time.
• Book the Rawdah slot for Madinah before you leave home, not after you arrive.

Where it fits in a wider trip

The classic shape is Jeddah in, Makkah, then Madinah, then out. Adding Taif costs a day. Adding AlUla costs three and is a completely different holiday bolted onto a pilgrimage, which some people love and others find jarring.

For the detail on the sites themselves, our Makkah city guide goes considerably deeper than this page does.