Glistening pods, the shape of mini UFOs – with interiors just as futuristic – welcome you to Shebara Resort on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast.
It’s not often you arrive somewhere that looks like it’s been quietly teleported in from the future. But Shebara Resort, the first hotel to open on Sheybarah Island, feels just that: a sci-fi reverie dropped gently onto a stretch of untouched coastline. Picture a scattering of mirrored pods stretching out over the sea like a string of shiny pebbles, floating above coral reefs so pristine they’ve barely registered human presence. And then imagine the silence.
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Designed by Killa Design (the same firm behind Dubai’s Museum of the Future and Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab), Shebara avoids the predictable sand-and-canvas aesthetic of island resorts. Instead, it leans into a kind of Martian minimalism – orb-like villas that reflect the water and sky, accessible only by boat or seaplane, and angled to face the horizon like passive solar satellites. At first glance, it could be slightly ominous, but in reality, it’s anything but menacing. There’s a lightness to the place, a sense of experimentation and promise.
This is part of Saudi Arabia’s vast Red Sea Project – a headline-grabbing plan to reimagine the country’s vast, undeveloped western coastline as a destination to rival the Maldives, while pitching to a new kind of traveller: adventurous, globally minded, and increasingly eco-literate. That last part is significant. The Red Sea is home to some of the world’s most resilient coral, and protecting it is the overriding concern here. Everything at Shebara is off-grid: powered entirely by solar, designed to touch the environment as lightly as possible, and constructed with a seriousness about sustainability that goes beyond branding.
But back to those villas. They’re not just pretty as seen from a drone shot. Inside, the design is calm, clever and low-intervention: think pale woods, soft linens, wide views. No gold taps, no in-room iPads (thankfully). Instead, you get sliding doors that open straight onto the sea and sunsets that make you forget to check your phone. There’s a casual rhythm here: wake up, snorkel with turtles, fall asleep to the sound of reef fish crackling below your deck.
This part of the Red Sea is still astonishingly undeveloped, and while future phases will bring bigger names and more recognisable luxury brands, Shebara is refreshingly unfamiliar. There’s something slightly utopian about it, in that curious, hopeful way new frontiers can be. Yes, there are challenges; transfers require a bit of logistical choreography (you fly into the new Red Sea International Airport, then take a boat or seaplane onward), but that’s all part of the adventure. When travelling, feeling like you’re arriving somewhere no one else has discovered is still the rarest luxury of all. shebara.sa
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