Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder,

and there is nothing better I find than talking to travellers who have been to places that I am

contemplating going to. And so, meeting Zana Dorr is an absolute highlight for me. And Zana, you may not be familiar

with, but I call her the adventurous accountant. Is that fair?

Thank you, Simon, yes.

So tell me where you've just been and tell me where you're going in 2024.

I've just got back from Saudi. So the KSA

went for Christmas New Year, which might strike people as being slightly strange, seeing as

the KSA is one of the few countries in the world that doesn't recognise Christmas at all. And

obviously they have a different new year. And when they have that new year, they are not, should we say, cracking open the champagne?

Absolutely not. So it was completely dry, Christmas and New Year for me, but that was no problems.

I mean, they sell alcohol free beer, so we stopped up on that for New Year's Eve at least.

That's what I call a party.

Well, tell me about how it was as a woman traveling in Saudi Arabia.

I've been on what I would call a couple of fact-finding trips.

And as a man, it seemed to be no great problem.

But obviously, the attitude draws women, women travellers, foreigners,

it's really quite tricky, isn't it?

The most obvious thing for a woman is the clothing.

Now, we were obviously told, I went with the tour group, I went with the Explore,

and obviously in the introductory notes it advised us that we needed to take Nebaea and headscarves,

but interestingly, in Saudi you don't need to wear a headscarf every day, which is in

...