Uber, Careem or a street taxi in Saudi?

Most people arrive in Saudi with a phone full of apps and no idea which one to open. The honest answer is that all three work, and which one is best changes depending on where you are standing and what time it is.

The short version

Use Uber or Careem by default. Both are metered, both show the fare before you accept, and neither requires you to negotiate in a language you may not speak. Between them there is very little in it.

Use a street taxi when the apps are surging, when you are somewhere the apps struggle to find you, or when a driver is already waiting and the price he says is close to what the app was going to charge.

Uber and Careem

Careem was the regional service before Uber bought it, and it is still the one more local drivers use day to day. Uber has the interface most visitors already know.

In practice the two overlap almost completely. Same drivers, often the same cars. Open both, compare the two fares, take whichever is cheaper. That takes fifteen seconds and it is the only comparison worth making.

Where they differ:

• Careem handles cash more gracefully, which matters if your card gets declined abroad. It also covers smaller cities better.
• Uber is easier if you already have the app, a saved card and a UK account. Receipts land in the same place as home.

Both surge hard around prayer times in Makkah and Madinah. The half hour after a congregational prayer is the single worst time to open either app, because several thousand people are trying to leave the same place at once.

Street taxis

The white taxis outside the haram and at the airports are not metered in practice, whatever the meter says. You agree a price before you get in.

This is where visitors lose money, and it is entirely avoidable: check the app fare first, then negotiate from that number. If Uber says 30 riyals and the driver says 70, you now know that 40 is a reasonable place to land rather than a wild guess.

Street taxis genuinely win in three situations:

1. Straight after prayer. The apps are surging and the queue for a car is long. A waiting taxi at a slightly silly price still beats standing in the heat for twenty minutes.
2. At the hotel door. Hotels near the haram have taxis on the rank. You will not always find your Uber in the crowd outside.
3. For a fixed run. Makkah to Jeddah airport, Madinah to Makkah. Agree one price for the journey, and you will often do better than the app.

Rough costs

Indicative only, and they move with demand:

Journey	Typical
Within Makkah, hotel to haram	10 to 25 SAR
Jeddah airport to Makkah	150 to 250 SAR
Within Madinah	10 to 20 SAR
Makkah to Madinah by road	400 to 600 SAR

For Makkah to Madinah, look at the Haramain high-speed train before you look at a car. It is about two and a half hours, it is comfortable, and it is usually cheaper than a taxi for one or two people.

What we would actually tell you

Install both apps before you fly and add a payment card while you still have your home connection. Carry a couple of hundred riyals in cash for the times a card is not going to work.

Then stop optimising. The difference between the best and worst choice on a single journey is usually a few pounds, and you did not come here to save three pounds on a taxi.

If you are travelling with us, the airport transfers and the intercity legs are already arranged, so this only applies to the short hops you choose to make on your own.