Umrah mistakes first time pilgrims should avoid

The short answer. Almost none of the mistakes are religious ones. They are a passport that expires too soon, a vaccination left until the end when one of them has a waiting period, scented soap carried into ihram, a hotel chosen on a photograph instead of a walking distance, and a first day spent exhausted because the flight landed at three in the morning and nobody planned for it. All five are avoidable in an afternoon.

This is not a list of sins. Your scholar will teach you the rites far better than a travel agency can, and we do not try. This is the other list: the practical errors we watch happen from this office, written in the order they usually happen in.

Before you book

Leaving the passport until last. It is the most common reason a file stops, and it is entirely avoidable. Check the expiry date today, before you choose dates, before you pay anybody. A renewal in a hurry costs money and can cost the departure.

Treating the vaccinations as a last errand. They are not all same day. One of them has a waiting period before you may travel, which means it belongs at the start of your planning and not in the final week. People discover this late and lose the dates they wanted.

Booking on a photograph. Every hotel photograph is taken from its best angle. The number that decides your Umrah is the walking distance to the Haram, at the hour you will actually walk it, with the people you are actually travelling with. Five hundred metres on a map is a different thing at two in the morning with an elderly parent.

Comparing two prices without comparing what is inside them. A cheaper package is cheaper somewhere, and it is usually the distance, the room occupancy or the transport. Ask which, and the comparison becomes real. We write our inclusions and exclusions out on every departure on the Umrah packages page for that reason.

Packing

Scented everything. Soap, shampoo, deodorant, wet wipes, toothpaste. In ihram these are a problem, and a surprising number of people pack the scented version without thinking and buy the unscented version in Makkah at several times the price. Buy unscented at home.

Too much. You will carry it further than you expect and you will bring things back. We have written the full list, including the things people regret leaving, in what to pack for Umrah.

Medicines in the checked bag. Keep them in hand luggage, with the generic names written down on paper. Brand names from Pakistan are not always recognised at a pharmacy in Makkah.

No bag for your shoes. You will take them off many times a day in a very crowded place. A cloth bag solves a problem that otherwise repeats for your whole trip.

The first day

Planning the first day as though you slept. Many flights from Pakistan land in the small hours. People arrive, go straight to the Haram, perform Umrah having been awake for twenty hours, and then lose the next day to exhaustion. Decide in advance whether you are going straight there or sleeping first. Either is fine. Not deciding is what costs you the day.

Not knowing which gate you came out of. The Haram is enormous and the buildings around it look alike at night. Note your gate number and photograph your hotel entrance when you arrive. This is the single most useful thing a first time pilgrim can do.

No water, and no plan for the heat. The walking adds up far beyond what people expect, and the heat is not the heat of Karachi. Carry water, and go out at the cooler hours when you have a choice.

The money

Changing all your money at the airport. It is the worst rate you will be offered on the whole journey.

Carrying it all in one place. Split it. Keep some in the hotel safe.

Forgetting the costs that are not in the package. The gifts people take home are almost always the largest unplanned spend, followed by taxis taken because somebody is too tired to walk back. Neither is in anyone's package. We say so in writing before you pay.

Travelling with parents

This deserves its own line because it is where the most regret sits.

Choosing the hotel for the view instead of the walk. If a parent cannot manage the distance, nothing else about the trip works.

Not telling us about mobility until after the booking. We can plan around a wheelchair, a heart condition, a knee that will not take stairs. We can plan around all of it before the booking and very little of it afterwards. Say it early. Nobody is judging the family.

Expecting them to keep your pace. Fewer things, done properly, with rest between them, is the trip they will remember.

And the one nobody believes until it happens

Not writing down who to ring. Phones run out of charge, roaming fails, and people get separated in crowds. Everybody in the group should carry, on paper, the hotel name and address in Arabic, the group leader's number, and the number of the office back home. We give that card to every group we send, and it is used more often than anyone expects.

Ask before you book, not after

Most of what is above costs nothing to avoid and is expensive to fix once you have travelled. If you are going for the first time, send us your dates and how many of you there are, and we will tell you plainly what your file needs, including the things that have nothing to do with us.

Message the office on WhatsApp or call, and a person will answer.