Travel in Bahrain: a causeway crossing and three World Heritage sites

Who visits Bahrain and how they arrive

The visitor numbers disagree by a factor of nearly three. Wikipedia's main article on Bahrain gives more than eleven million visitors in 2019, most of them from the surrounding Arab states; its article on tourism gives four million a year without a date. Neither disputes where the visitors come from. Many cross from Saudi Arabia to shop in the malls of Manama, and the King Fahd Causeway carried 382 million travellers between its opening in 1986 and 2018, in Saudipedia's count. Citizens of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain can cross it with a national identity card.

The minister of tourism told the Emirates News Agency in 2025 that visitor numbers rose by nearly 20% in 2024 and tourism revenue by about 13%, under a national tourism strategy running from 2022 to 2026. The ministry did not give the underlying totals in that interview.

Those arriving by air use Bahrain International Airport on Muharraq. Its new passenger terminal began operating on 28 January 2021, four times the size of the old building, with capacity for 14 million passengers a year. The US$1.1 billion modernisation programme that built it was financed by a grant from the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development under the GCC's development programme for Bahrain.

Both routes can close together. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office records that in April 2026, during the war with Iran, the airspace and the King Fahd Causeway to Saudi Arabia were closed at the same time.

What visitors need to enter and observe

Entry rules depend on nationality, and the government's electronic visa service handles applications for eligible nationalities. For British citizens the FCDO describes the arrangement: a passport valid for at least six months from arrival, a visa issued automatically for two weeks, and visit visas for stays of up to six months available on application, sometimes with proof of onward or return travel. A visit visa does not permit work, and residence permits go through the Labour Market Regulatory Authority.

Two rules catch visitors who do not expect them. A person involved in a civil or criminal dispute, or an immigration violation, can be barred from leaving the country until it is resolved, and may learn of the ban only at the border. And travellers arriving from a country with a risk of yellow fever must show a certificate of vaccination. Dual Bahraini and British nationals may be required to enter and leave on a Bahraini document.

The dress rules for women are relaxed by regional standards, in Britannica's description, and Western clothing is common, though women in rural and conservative communities keep the veil. Goods brought into or out of the country must be declared if they may be prohibited or dutiable, and the FCDO describes the rules as strict. It also advises keeping away from security and military facilities. Same-sex relations between adults over 21 have been legal since 1976, but Wikipedia records arrests under broadly written laws on public immorality and indecency.

How visitors get around the islands

The distances are short. Bahrain Island is 48 kilometres from north to south and 16 kilometres across at its widest, in Wikipedia's figures, and Muharraq and Sitra are joined to it by causeways, so the north of the country, where almost everything a visitor looks for stands, reads as one continuous built-up area. Driving is on the right. Plugs are the three-pin British type at 230 volts, and road signs and shop names are in both Arabic and English, which is also compulsory in schools.

The Hawar Islands are the exception: a separate group about 19 kilometres south-east of the main island and close to the coast of Qatar, small and rocky, inhabited only by a few fishermen and quarry workers in Britannica's description. A fixed link to Qatar, the Qatar-Bahrain Friendship Bridge, has been planned but not built.

When the heat allows a visit

The climate sets the calendar more firmly than anything else. From April to October afternoon temperatures average 40°C and can reach 46°C in May, June and July, and because the sea around the islands is shallow and warm, the humidity stays high after dark. The shamal wind brings dust from Iraq and Saudi Arabia in June and July. From November to March temperatures run between 10 and 20°C and rain falls on about ten days a year, in short winter storms.

The public calendar adds its own rhythm. The weekend has been Friday and Saturday since 1 September 2006. The Pearling Path in Muharraq publishes a programme of its own for Ramadan. The Spring of Culture festival runs through March and April, and the Bahrain Grand Prix has been held at Sakhir every year since 2004 except 2011, when it was cancelled, and 2026, when it moved to Malaysia.

Where Dilmun can be seen

The island's three World Heritage sites all lie in the north and west of the main island, and none is more than a short drive from Manama.

Qal'at al-Bahrain is the capital of Dilmun, a mound of successive towns about 300 by 600 metres and 12 metres high, with the fort on its summit that gives the site its name. UNESCO records walls still standing to 4.5 metres. The site includes an offshore sea tower about 1,600 metres to the north-west, probably an ancient lighthouse, and the channel cut through the reef beside it, and it is ringed by palm groves and gardens. The fort is the one the Portuguese rebuilt as their garrison after taking the islands in 1521, and a Persian garrison replaced them in 1602. An on-site museum manages visits and explains the excavations, which UNESCO puts at a quarter of the tell in one of its documents and less than 15% in another. A development exclusion zone protects the view to the sea.

The burial mounds are spread across the west of the island. Six of the 21 components are fields of a few dozen to several thousand tumuli, and the other fifteen are royal mounds, two-storey towers of the Dilmun kings now standing among the houses of A'ali village. The tourism lists name mound fields near Dar Kulaib, Hamad Town, Buri, A'ali and Janabiyah, and UNESCO records that two further fields, Wadi as-Sail and Umm Jidr, are planned as an extension of the listed property. Other Dilmun sites on the tourism lists include the Barbar temple, rediscovered from 1954 by the archaeologists Geoffrey Bibby and Peter Glob, the temple at Diraz, the spring at Ain Umm Sujoor and the settlement at Saar.

The Bahrain National Museum, opened in 1988 on an artificial peninsula facing Muharraq, holds the finds. The museum describes 6,000 years of history; Wikipedia's articles give 5,000 and 9,000 years for the oldest material, a spread that reflects how differently the sources date the island's first inhabitants.

How Muharraq keeps the pearling town

Muharraq, the island joined to the north-east of the main island, was the town of the pearl merchants, and the UNESCO property threads through its streets. The buildings are the houses of pearl merchants and boat captains, their shops and storehouses and a mosque, among them Siyadi House, Al-Ghus House, Al-Jalahma House, Fakhro House, Murad House and Nukhidhah House. At the southern tip of the island the fort of Qal'at Bu Mahir marks the shore from which the boats left for the oyster beds, which are part of the property.

UNESCO notes the timber and plaster craftsmanship of the merchant houses and the risk of over-restoration erasing what they convey. The route is presented to visitors as the Pearling Path. Arad Fort, also on Muharraq, held an Omani garrison in 1800 until the Bani Utbah besieged it later that year.

What Manama holds for a visitor

Manama is the modern city: the government offices, the financial district and the hotels, beside the port of Mina Salman. Bab Al Bahrain opens onto the Manama Souq and the Gold Souq in the old district. The Al Fateh Grand Mosque is on every tourism list, Beit Al Qur'an in the Hoora district holds Qur'anic manuscripts, and the Al Khamis Mosque was founded in 692, among the earliest on the island. Wind towers survive on older buildings in the old quarters of Manama and Muharraq.

Much of the visitor economy is retail. The tourism article lists more than ten shopping malls, among them Bahrain City Centre, Seef Mall and The Avenues, a waterfront mall opened in October 2019, and Bahrain Bay is a waterfront development on the north-east coast.

What visitors eat and buy

The coffee house is the social space most visitors meet first: coffee flavoured with cardamom and saffron is offered as hospitality and drunk in cafés that serve as meeting places. Machbous, fish or meat cooked with rice, is the dish most often named, beside muhammar, a sweet brown rice with dates or sugar, and grilled fish and shrimp from the Gulf. Britannica notes that most of the country's food is imported, though local farms supply a large share of vegetables and dairy.

Crafts are sold where they are made. Britannica names A'ali for its pottery and Karbabad for baskets woven from palm leaves, and records goldwork, tinsmithing and weaving across the country, sold in small shops and at the Wednesday market in Manama. Dhows are still built in the yards of Manama and Muharraq, and the Gold Souq in old Manama sells jewellery.

What lies in the south of the island

The south of Bahrain Island is desert, and its sights are spread out. The towns on the way are recent: Awali near the centre of the island was built for the oil company's foreign staff, Isa Town was founded by the government in 1968 and Hamad Town was completed in 1984, in Britannica's account. The Bahrain International Circuit at Sakhir has hosted Formula One since 4 April 2004, along with drag racing on its own strip. The Tree of Life, a tree about 400 years old growing alone in the Sakhir desert with no visible water, is a popular attraction. The Oil Museum stands near Jabal al-Dukhan, built in 1992 for the sixtieth anniversary of the first oil discovery, near the first oil well itself. Riffa Fort is also in the Southern Governorate, and the Al Areen Wildlife Park, the only protected area on land, breeds the Arabian oryx, which was hunted out on the island, alongside gazelles, and draws many species of waterfowl, in Britannica's description.

Offshore, the Hawar Islands near the Qatari coast are a protected area visited for birdwatching; up to 100,000 pairs of Socotra cormorants have been recorded there, and dugongs feed in the surrounding sea grass. Diving is offered around the islands, and in 2019 an underwater park of about 100,000 square metres, built around a sunken Boeing 747 with artificial reefs and a replica pearl merchant's house, was announced by the state news agency. Durrat Al Bahrain, a development of reclaimed islands, and Al Dar Island are further attractions in the south.