Our Habitas Ras Abrouq

Qatar’s profile may have grown tremendously in the aftermath of the 2022 World Cup, but the country largely remains synonymous with Doha. The few intrepid types who venture beyond the capital are most likely to make a pilgrimage to East-West/West-East, artist Richard Serra’s landmark 2014 installation in the desert, where four steel columns loom amid the dunes—and, until this spring, not much else appeared for miles in any direction beyond a handful of camel ranches. But now day trippers can instead make a stay out of it, as Habitas—which not too long ago put AlUla in neighboring Saudi Arabia on the map for globe-trotting bohemians—set its sights on this stretch of the country’s remote western coastline, at the edge of a UNESCO-protected reserve in Ras Abrouq. Just a few minutes past Serra’s work, on a bluff overlooking the waves (and Bahrain in the distance), Our Habitas Ras Abrouq’s 42 earth-toned tented villas piled with Bedouin textiles are a plush place to bed down. Guests can try their hand at Qatari Sadu weaving, go diving with whale sharks, join a starlight sound ceremony, or simply watch the sunset from the villas’ oversized terraces with private plunge pools. “There's a curiosity as to why Ras Abrouq,” says Habitas CEO and cofounder Oliver Ripley. “What's interesting about Qatar is that there's so many layers to discover.”

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