Inside Saudi Arabia

Saudi creator Senan is back on Inside Saudi, our first guest in the new studio. He teaches Carly and Vesna the Saudi word munbatih (منبطح, literally "lying flat") and explains why people use it on him, makes the case for south Riyadh over the north, and tells the story of how his sister turned him into the guy reviewing K-pop in a thobe. We also get into how Saudis talk about mental health now, wh...

A year in, and Inside Saudi finally has a real studio.   In this update episode, Carly and Vesna welcome you to Chapter 2 of Inside Saudi from their brand new studio at Colabs, and catch you up on everything happening in their world and their community.   We cover the women only pool party that sold out, how women's events actually work in Saudi, why it is so hard to make friends as an expat (and...

How do you actually launch something in Saudi Arabia? The honest answer surprised us too.   In this (bed) episode, Carly and Vesna share what really helped them build Inside Saudi over their first year, and it is not the business advice you would expect. It is about patience, relationships, gut feeling and serving people first.   We cover the advice that is more nuanced, why we run everything on v...

One year ago, we packed our bags and moved to Saudi Arabia. In our very first episode, we shared everything we thought we knew. Now, 365 days later, we're revisiting every claim, do we still stand by them? From compound life and close friendships to the heat, the winter cold, bringing dogs, plant-based food struggles, the cost of living, and whether you should really "just pack two suitcases and g...

Living in Saudi is not always the highlight reel. This week we get honest. Carly and Vesna talk through the hard parts of living in Saudi Arabia, the things nobody posts about. From the fear of driving in Riyadh, to the loneliness of expat life, to the real struggle of starting a business here. If you are moving to Saudi Arabia or already living in Riyadh, this episode covers what it is actually l...

We toured every compound in Riyadh, so you don't have to. In this Inside Saudi episode, Carly and Vesna give an honest review of the best compounds in Riyadh, from Flow Granada to Palma 2, Vives, Wadi Qortuba, Al Nakhla and more, then answer your questions in a full Q&A. If you are moving to Saudi Arabia or living in Riyadh, this is your guide to compound life: what it really costs, the Ejar r...

This one is bittersweet. It is our goodbye episode. Carly and Vesna are back from summer and packing up their studio for the very last time. In this catch up they get into everything that went down over the break, the good, the dramatic, and the completely ridiculous. From the nanny who left the baby home alone and then did a runner, to a 300 year old house falling apart, kids catching 12 fish spe...

This might be the most important conversation we have had on Inside Saudi. We sit down with Sajid Khan, a child safeguarding and education expert who moved from Birmingham to Riyadh at 24 and has spent over a decade protecting children in schools across the Kingdom. We get into what safeguarding really means, why Saudi can feel safer than the UK, the neglect cases that changed how he sees parentin...

We went to our first Saudi weddings, and nothing could have prepared us. This week Carly and Vesna break down everything they have learned about Saudi weddings and gatherings, from a total newbie point of view. Dinner served at 2:30 in the morning, glam that rivals the Met Gala, and the unspoken rules of what to wear. We get into the real flow of a Saudi wedding, why you can never overdress, the c...

From night classes in Cairo to a runway at Paris Fashion Week. This week Carly and Vesna sit down with Pacinthe, the Egyptian couture designer behind two Vogue Arabia covers, a Paris Fashion Week show, and a client list full of Arab stars and red carpet moments. We get into how she built her fashion house from the ground up, her signature draped corsets and sustainable line, dressing for weddings...

One year in Saudi, and we finally figured a few things out. In this episode, Carly and Vesna swap the ten lessons they learned after their first year living in Riyadh, going back and forth without knowing each other's list. We get into being kind to yourself through the move, whether you really need the big compound, why making Saudi friends changes everything, the truth about getting help at home...

We've never done a two-parter, but there was too much to cover. In Part 2, Victor Barrero is back to talk about the next chapter: Vision 2030, Expo 2030, and what it actually takes to build a country at the speed Saudi is moving.   Victor helped launch Flow in Riyadh, close to 1,000 households across four communities, stood up in a matter of months after landing. In this conversation he pulls back...

One of us has had a live-in nanny since September. The other has a cleaner for three hours a week and a robot vacuum called Robbie, who has just broken down. A year into life in Riyadh, Carly and Vesna compare notes on help: how to find it, how to manage it, and what it costs you when you refuse it. Carly walks through the two routes to finding a nanny in Riyadh, why she asks to see an iqama live...

In the summer of 2009, Victor Barrero typed "life in Saudi Arabia" into Google and got scared. He came anyway, on an eight-week flynas internship, a 25-year-old from Mexico who packed a camera and a checklist: camel market, old Diriyah, the grand bazaar. None of it looked like the photos. Diriyah was boarded up. He got into Kingdom Tower only because a guard mistook him for a diplomat. Then a frie...

A year in, Carly and Vesna re-priced their whole life in Riyadh: what's gone up, what surprised them, and what they'd tell someone running the numbers before a move. This is the granular version of the cost conversation, from the two biggest line items down to the ones nobody warns you about. They walk through compounds across four tiers, from the common 300 to 350K range to the half-million luxe...

Your neck pain and your gut might be the same problem. This week we sit down with Peter from Tonic The Method on what wellness actually looks like in Riyadh right now.   Peter is a physical therapist and Chinese-medicine specialist who moved here from Lebanon expecting wellness to rank near the bottom of people's priorities. He was wrong. We get into the nerve that connects your neck to your stoma...

After a run of guest episodes, we did something different.. a live summer Q&A on TikTok, answering your questions in real time, and turned it into this week's episode. No guest, just us catching up before the summer break. We get into what a Saudi wedding at the Ritz-Carlton is actually like, the malls worth your time in Riyadh, the Saudi and Gulf abaya designers we actually buy from, learning...

Saudi Arabia had no sunscreen of its own, in one of the hottest climates on earth. Ghadi Alshehri spent three years fixing that.   Ghadi is the founder of Borderline Beauty, the first homegrown Saudi sunscreen. She sat down with Carly and Vesna in Riyadh to talk about the gap she found, the science most of us were never taught, and what it takes to build something Saudi-made right now.   In this e...

There are seven routes to Saudi Premium Residency. Most people only know about one or two of them, and almost everyone thinks Vesna got hers because of Instagram. This week, Carly and Vesna walk through all seven, what each costs, what each unlocks, and what they wish they'd understood before they started navigating it themselves. Vesna holds Premium Residency as a secondary, sponsored by her husb...

Cedric Dahmoun said no to Saudi three times before he came. He stayed five years. He's a Belgian-Algerian content creator with 600,000 followers, most of whom found him through TikToks showing what life in Saudi actually looks like. He came during COVID from Dubai, with no Arabic, no plan, and a feeling that he'd run out of versions of himself to try in Europe. In this episode he tells us about th...

Alex Tashbaeva stopped going to school at twelve. She'd already been on a tennis court eight hours a day since she was five, and her Uzbek-Soviet parents had decided she was going to be a champion. By sixteen she'd left home; by nineteen she was the only girl on a ten-person coaching team flying to Riyadh to build out the Saudi national tennis programme. She said yes on a phone call. She knew noth...

How do you transition from the intense world of derivatives trading at Goldman Sachs and private client tax at KPMG to launching a global luxury swimwear brand? In this episode of Inside Saudi, we sit down with Katleya Nielsen and Ayesha Mahomed, the visionary founders of Lanuuk. They pull back the curtain on the "maternal shift" that led them to leave their 10-year corporate careers to solve a ma...

What is life in the Kingdom actually like when you step outside the "compound bubble"? In this episode of Inside Saudi, we sit down with viral creator Senan, a "Westernized Saudi" who has mastered the art of explaining his culture to the world. We start with a quick story about how an internet misunderstanding actually brought us together, but the real conversation begins when we dive into the loc...

What does it really take to succeed in Saudi Arabia? In this episode, we sit down with Mahmoud Moamenah, founder of Sudasi Business Solutions, to explore why understanding Saudi culture is the key to both life and business here. From growing up in Saudi and living abroad, to helping expats and businesses navigate the market, Mahmoud shares insights on integration, identity, and why many people nev...

Saudi Arabia is changing fast, and people around the world are starting to pay attention. In this first ever Inside Saudi Live, we bring together three very different perspectives on what life in Saudi is actually like. Ali Almeshaal is a Saudi media professional and tourism entrepreneur who began his career in television and now works across communications and tourism in the region. Micah Nicole...