Saudi Arabia to reopen for tourism as of August 1st according to a report from Reuters. In a statement released by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Tourism they stated; “Vaccinated tourists will be allowed to enter without having to be institutionally quarantined upon providing a negative Covid-19 PCR test and a vaccination certificate,” This has […]

Introduction Traditionally inhabited by Berber nomads, the contemporary history of Mauritania has been somewhat interesting. At the start of the 20th century the country became part of the French Empire, before gaining independence in 1960. Its history since then has involved one-party rule, numerous military coups and the ongoing conflict in Western Sahara. Nowadays the […]

Coronavirus travel update. Welcome to the YPT COVID-19 / Coronavirus travel updates page. With this page we aim to give up to date travel advice on which countries are open to tourism during the current pandemic. As you might imagine one of the most frequent questions we are getting asked right now is which countries […]

At Young Pioneer Tours we consider ourselves the experts when it comes to mega tours and travel. We run a lot of tours to a lot of places, some of them are very short, but some are what we like to refer to as mega tours. What is a mega tour? To us it is […]

For a long time, with the ongoing war in Yemen, it was unthinkable to visit the country and the archipelago of Socotra of which the reputation is already well established, was off-limit. With the new flights linking Cairo to Socotra with Yemenia Airlines, it is now possible to visit Socotra. We knew that we just […]

In October 2019, Young Pioneer Tours was amongst the first Western companies to organize a tour to Saudi Arabia making use of the great opening-up of Saudi Arabia with the new visa policy it launched. Our first group had an amazing time in this country, and we expect tourism to skyrocket. The whole of the […]

Everything you wanted to know from the first tourists in Saudi Arabia For a very long time, non-religious-related tourism just wasn’t a thing in Saudi Arabia. But then, suddenly, it opened up. In order to save the day with a cancelled tour to Iraq, YPT did what we’re best at – adaptability – and ended […]

The other week, as I was talking in a pub with someone, I was asked what quality was most necessary to being a YPT guide. I said ‘flexibility, adaptability and people skills’ (OK, that’s three qualities. So I cheated a bit). Little did I know that those skills I had just named would be put […]

Saudi Arabia used to be one of the toughest countries to get into and lots of people had to come with elaborate plans to get into the Kingdom and visit it. Tales of extreme bureaucracy and difficult maneuvers were common for non-Muslims who wanted to travel there. Slowly, it has been progressively opening, first with […]

Saudi Arabia, the long out-of-reach kingdom, birthplace of Islam. It has been on travellers bucketlist for a very long time but, until very recently, it was one of the hardest countries to get into due to a very tough immigration policy which meant tourist visas simply didn’t exist. For a long time, people who visited […]