At the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, this country - significantly larger than California and more than twice the size of the United Kingdom - is a trove of amazing culture, history, architecture, and even nature, but sadly, the brutal civil war - fed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States - that has raged here since 2014 has created a humanitarian disaster that has all but halted tourism.

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Yemen on Tripatini's Instagram

One of nature's more dramatic flora, the dragon's blood tree is endemic to Yemen's Socotra archipelago, and named for its dark-red sap. And while Socotra has managed to remain largely insulated from the brutal fighting in the rest of Yemen, these days these amazing trees are still increasingly under threat from climate change and development pressures driven by the United Arab Emirates, which have become an increasingly heavy-handed presence here. Post: https://www.instagram.com/p/BkuOV3PjE4M/.

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  • Dave Acton December 5, 2024 at 1:02pm
    A pretty good explainer from The Guardian about Yemen in recent years and up to the present, including a bit about its tourism: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/20/yemen-enchanting-comp...
    Yemen: enchanting, complex, and much misunderstood
    After years of self-isolation from Yemen, the west’s fight is based on limited information – and even less understanding
  • José Balido April 11, 2023 at 9:31pm
    Norbert, the Puerto Rican travel blogger whose site Globotreks.com covers some pretty cool stuff, earlier this year wrote about how yeah, Yemen is a mess but Socotra island has largely managed to avoid much of the strife: https://www.globotreks.com/destinations/yemen/traveling-socotra-isl...
  • Riccardo R January 26, 2023 at 11:16am
    Sadly, UNESCO just added three sites to its "endangered" list, including Yemen's civil-war-threatened archaeological sites - showing the remarkable achievements of the Kingdom of Saba from the 1st millennium BCE to the arrival of Islam around 630 CE - in Ma'rib, a 2½-hour drive east of capital Sana'a: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/unesco-world-heritage-sites-...
    Three sites 'in danger' added to UNESCO World Heritage List
    The historic center of the Ukrainian port city of Odesa was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List as well as its list of sites "in danger" on Wednesd…
  • Wissam Al Khoury July 29, 2022 at 4:58pm
    Socotra Island is a UNESCO World Heritage site due to its unique fauna and flora - especially the endemic, dramatic dragon's blood tree - and actually a bit closer to Somalia than Yemen. It had managed to stay largely insulated from Yemen's brutal civil war but has just been seized by the Southern Transitional Council, separatists who want to restore the independence of South Yemen. I guess for the time this pretty much drives the last nail into the coffin of tourism hereabouts, sadly. And just yesterday the Boston Globe ran a piece about Socotra which took note of two even more profound threats to the island's ecosystem: development by the United Arab Emirates and global warming: https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/otherworldly-beauty-in-the-ba...
    Otherworldly beauty in the balance in the Galapagos of the Middle East
    An archipelago in Yemen is home to stunning biodiversity. Civil war, geopolitical wrangling, and climate change threaten all of it.
  • Max Pesling February 11, 2022 at 12:56pm
    Here's a reminder of the amazing heritage present in such a small country: it has no fewer than four UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the historic town of Zabid, the old quarter of capital Sana'a, the old walled city of Shibam, and one natural site, the Socotra Archipelago. So sad that all this marvelous cultural and natural wealth is largely off limits until further notice, but anyway, to read more about this remarkable sites, click here: https://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/ye
    Yemen - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
    Yemen - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  • Sarah Irving December 21, 2010 at 3:22am

    New blog post on the effects of conflict on tourism, and the rights and wrongs of encouraging tourists to come to conflict-affected areas: http://www.tripatini.com/profiles/blogs/rubbernecking-or-learning

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