Choosing a hotel near the Haram for Umrah

The short answer. For an Umrah the Makkah hotel is the whole trip, because you walk to the Haram and back several times a day. Judge any building on six things: minutes at night, lifts, food on site, noise, which gate the route reaches, and the room type the price is for. And remember that the season buys you more hotel than the budget does.

We do not publish a list of hotel names with distances. They change, and a stale list is worse than no list. What follows is how to judge whatever you are offered, which does not go out of date.

For the distance question itself, we wrote how far hotels are from the Haram.

Why this matters more on Umrah than on Hajj

On Hajj the hardest days are in Mina and the hotel is the second decision. On Umrah there is no Mina. Your days are built entirely around walking to the Haram and back, so the hotel is the trip.

That is why we tell families to buy the distance first and everything else afterwards.

The six things to judge a building on

1. The walk, in minutes, at night. Ask for minutes, not metres, and picture it at the pace of whoever is travelling with you.

2. The lifts. A tall building full of pilgrims has a lift queue at prayer times. Ask how many and how high.

3. Food on site, and at which hours. It saves a walk when you are tired.

4. Noise. Sleep matters more than furniture, especially when much of the activity is at night.

5. Which gate the route reaches. The Haram is enormous. Close on a map but reaching the wrong side adds a walk around the perimeter every time.

6. Which room the price is for. Two sharing and five sharing are different numbers in the same hotel, and this is where families save most.

The season buys more than the budget

This is the thing most people do not realise until afterwards.

In Ramadan and the school holidays, the close buildings go first and cost the most. In a quiet month, the same money puts you much closer. If your dates are flexible at all, moving them is worth more than increasing the budget.

December and winter Umrah and Ramadan Umrah packages.

What a star rating does not tell you

Any of the six above. A four star five minutes away beats a five star twenty minutes away for almost everybody. Five star Umrah packages.

Save in Madinah, not in Makkah

Madinah is flat, open and much cheaper to be close in. If the budget has to choose, spend it here in Makkah and take something sensible there. Choosing a hotel near Masjid al-Nabawi.

For an older parent or small children

The walk decides whether they enjoy the trip, and no other line comes close. Buy the minutes.

Umrah for elderly pilgrims and Umrah for families.

What to ask, in one message

• What is the hotel called?
• How many minutes to the Haram, at night?
• Which gate does the route reach?
• How many lifts, and how tall is the building?
• Is food available on site, and when?
• Which room is this price for?
• Is it the same hotel for the whole stay?

Ask us for the names

We name the hotels on each departure, on the Umrah packages page. Send us your dates and who is travelling and we will tell you the building, the walk in minutes, and what a week either side of your dates would buy instead.