Me and My Travels: explorer Alice Morrison on Saudi Arabia, Chile and Africa
Scottish adventurer, explorer, and writer Alice Morrison
Scottish adventurer, explorer, and writer Alice Morrison has dedicated her life to discovering the unknown.
She was the first woman to walk the length of the River Draa in Morocco with camels and speaks fluent Arabic.
She is deeply fascinated by the Middle East and Africa and has spent years exploring their diverse landscapes and cultures.
Currently, she is undertaking a world-first expedition to become the first person to cross Saudi Arabia from north to south on foot. Here, she shares some of her most unforgettable travel experiences.
My very first memory is of a tall tribesman with a spear standing in a kind of triangular doorway, silhouetted against the light, and that was in Uganda.
Because I have travelled since I was six weeks old, when my parents got on a boat and sailed to East Africa (they taught in a college in Uganda for eight years), it has completely shaped my life. I was brought up in a different culture from my own.
I’ve spent more time in Africa than I have in Scotland. When you grow up between cultures, it changes you. I was the odd one out, growing up in black Africa as this pink Scottish child. But that experience gave me such a unique perspective on the world.
I’m on a pretty memorable trip at the moment, walking across Saudi Arabia on foot. But if I had to pick one I’ve completed, I’d say cycling from Cairo to Cape Town.
It took 120 days to cross the entire continent by bike. It was a serious physical endeavour — cycling in 50-degree heat in Sudan, through the rainy season in Tanzania, where I had to stop and clean my bike in puddles just to get the chain moving again.
I even got chased by a bull elephant at one point. I went through 10 countries, saw giraffes running beside us in the game parks, and experienced the changing seasons. It was an extraordinary trip.
Saudi Arabia surprised me the most. I think the portrayal of Saudi Arabia in Western media is pretty negative on the whole, so I had this idea of a very strict, conservative society.
But what I found was one of the most hospitable, welcoming cultures I’ve experienced. The people are warm and love to laugh. Women can now drive, women are working everywhere, and all of those restrictions have been lifted.
I never expected to feel so at home here. I walk with Saudis, my guide is Saudi, and the entire team is Saudi, which makes all the difference. I’m not just passing through; I’m part of something bigger, learning about the country from the people who call it home.
One of the most surprising things is how much freedom I have felt here. I can walk through cities without a headscarf, interact with locals freely, and even joke around with shopkeepers in the markets.
There’s such a strong culture of hospitality that people go out of their way to welcome you, invite you in for tea, and share their stories. It has been an eye-opening experience.
Al-‘Ula, where I am right now. It’s a place of great natural beauty. It’s a giant oasis filled with palm trees, surrounded by towering red sandstone rock formations, with golden desert sand in between.
It’s also the home of the ruins of the Nabataean empire. The Nabataeans, who built Petra in Jordan, also built a huge city of the dead in Al-‘Ula, and you can go and look around the ruins.
I’ve been out with archaeologists here and they’ll just pick up a 2,000-year-old pottery shard as if it’s nothing.
There’s also a big focus on conservation — species like the Arabian oryx, which used to be extinct, are being reintroduced.
It’s a place that has everything I love: history, adventure, and stunning scenery.
The most beautiful place I’ve been to is Patagonia in Chile. It really is vast.
It has these rocky mountains, the two horns covered in snow, huge grasslands in between with horses roaming free, and clear rivers. It’s quite paradise-like in terms of nature.
Patagonia is the place to go if you love hiking, biking, or mountaineering.
Exploring. I like to just wander and see what I can find — animal tracks, fossils, stone-age tools, anything. I don’t like to follow a guidebook. I love just setting off and seeing where a place takes me.
I have an absolutely appalling sense of direction but I love the thrill of discovering things along the way.
Sometimes I don’t even know where I’ll end up but that’s part of the adventure.
I’m actually living my bucket-list trip right now, walking across Saudi Arabia.
I’ve studied Arabic since I was 18 and have always admired the female explorers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras who ventured into the Middle East and Africa in their corsets and pith helmets.
Saudi Arabia was closed to travellers for so long but, now that it’s open, I jumped at the chance to do this.
It’s 2,500km and I’ve been planning it for three years. It’s the adventure of a lifetime.
