19 Hours in Bahrain: How I Turned a Layover Into an Adventure

Bahrain is a small country that’s packed with interesting places to explore. I had only 19 hours, but here’s how I turned my unexpected stopover into a one-day Bahrain itinerary.

I hadn’t even heard of Bahrain before I booked a flight that gave me 19 hours in the country.

That’s how my Bahrain adventure began.

I was traveling through Asia on a career break when I found what was almost certainly an error fare to Jordan. The catch — or perhaps the opportunity — was a 19-hour stopover in Bahrain.

I had been dreaming about visiting Petra for years, so I booked it.

Then I started researching Bahrain.

By the time my flight landed, I had a list of places I wanted to see.

I Didn’t Plan to Visit Bahrain

Bahrain wasn’t on my travel bucket list.

Jordan was.

Petra was the reason I was going.

But when I realized I’d have 19 hours in Bahrain, I decided not to spend the entire layover sitting around a hotel. That’s less than one day in Bahrain, including sleeping, so I needed to maximize the time.

I printed out information about Bahrain before the flight and read through it on the way there.

By the time I landed, I’d roughly mapped out an itinerary:

These are the things I definitely want to see.

These would be interesting if they’re convenient.

It turned out that having only 19 hours forced me to be very efficient.

And Bahrain is small enough that you can see quite a lot in a short amount of time.

Finding a Driver

Getting out of the airport was memorable.

I was immediately surrounded by people offering to drive me to my hotel.

There were a lot of them.

I explained that I needed a ride, but that I didn’t simply want to go to the hotel. I wanted someone who could drive me around Bahrain for several hours first.

Most people immediately lost interest.

Then I met Mohammed.

He seemed genuinely excited about showing me his country.

I hired him to be my driver, interpreter and unofficial tour guide.

I couldn’t speak Arabic, and his English wasn’t always easy for me to understand, but we figured it out.

What made the day memorable was that Mohammed didn’t seem interested in simply driving me from one tourist attraction to another.

He wanted to show me his Bahrain.

And sometimes that meant showing me things I never would have found on my own.

Bahrain’s Fascinating Architecture

One of the things I wanted to see was Bahrain’s architecture.

I was fascinated by the modern buildings, particularly around the harbor.

My favorite was the Bahrain World Trade Center building, with enormous wind turbines incorporated between its twin towers.

It was unlike anything I’d seen before.

If that building were located in some major Western city, I suspect it would be one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks.

There’s so many buildings in Bahrain that I found interesting. This is the most visually striking part of any Bahrain One Day Itinerary.

Read more: Bahrain Architecture →

The Surprise Hit: 500 Camels

Then Mohammed suggested something that wasn’t on my itinerary at all.

A camel farm.

At first I wasn’t sure.

But I’d already decided that one of the advantages of having a local guide was being willing to take some calculated detours.

So we went.

Mohammed told me the farm had around 500 camels.

And somehow, this completely unexpected stop became one of my favorite experiences in Bahrain.

I never would have put a camel farm on my original itinerary.

That’s exactly why I like getting recommendations from people who actually live somewhere.

Read: 500 Camels in Bahrain →

Not Every Recommendation Was a Winner

Of course, trusting a local doesn’t mean every recommendation in your impromptu one day Bahrain itinerary are going to be perfect.

Mohammed had another suggestion.

The King’s Parking Lot.

It sounded important.

I mean, if a local tells you that there’s something you absolutely have to see because the King uses it, you’re probably going to assume there’s something interesting there.

So we went.

It was a parking lot.

Read the full story: The King’s Parking Lot →

Seeing Bahrain Through Someone Else’s Eyes

That was one of the most interesting parts of the day.

I’d arrived with a list of places I’d researched.

Mohammed had his own list of places that mattered to him.

Sometimes our interests overlapped.

Sometimes they didn’t.

But that was the point.

Travel isn’t just about seeing the places that appear on a tourist’s checklist. Sometimes it’s about discovering what someone who lives there considers important.

I didn’t always understand why something mattered to him.

He probably didn’t always understand why I was so fascinated by a particular building.

But we were learning from each other. That’s what travel is all about!

Standing at the Doorstep of Saudi Arabia

One of the strangest moments of my 19 hours in Bahrain wasn’t actually in Bahrain.

It was looking toward Saudi Arabia.

I grew up thinking of Saudi Arabia as somewhere incredibly far away and culturally foreign. Like many Westerners, most of what I’d encountered about the country came through the news, movies and stories that tend to emphasize the places and situations that seem unfamiliar or dangerous.

I’d traveled enough by this point to know that I shouldn’t automatically believe everything I heard about a place.

But that doesn’t mean those perceptions disappear overnight.

And suddenly, there I was.

Right next door to Saudi Arabia.

I hadn’t spent weeks planning this moment. I hadn’t gradually worked up to it on a carefully planned itinerary.

I’d booked a cheap flight to Jordan, discovered I had a 19-hour stopover in Bahrain, researched the country on the airplane and hired a driver at the airport.

And now one of the countries I’d always thought of as impossibly far away was right in front of me.

Saudi Arabia isn’t simply another country on a map. It’s a major regional power, one of the world’s most important energy producers, and a country with a culture and history very different from the one I grew up around.

I wasn’t entering Saudi Arabia on this trip.

But even seeing it from Bahrain felt like a tiny expansion of my comfort zone.

Looking back, I think that feeling stayed with me throughout my Middle East trip.

I was encountering places that had always seemed distant and unfamiliar.

Then I got to Jordan.

And somewhere between Petra, the Dead Sea, Wadi Rum and the people I met, I stopped thinking about whether the Middle East felt unfamiliar.

I was simply having an amazing time.

Bahrain in 19 Hours: My Bahrain One Day Itinerary

I managed to pack a surprising amount into my 19-hour stopover.

It was initially a trip to Jordan and then I added a day trip to Bahrain.

I explored Bahrain’s architecture, visited historic sites, saw the camel farm, drove around the country and even made it toward the Saudi Arabian border.

It was a ridiculous amount of experiences to squeeze into a stopover.

But that’s part of what made it memorable.

Bahrain was supposed to be a one day layover.

Instead, it became a destination.

Would I Visit Bahrain Again?

Absolutely.

I arrived knowing almost nothing about Bahrain.

I left with photographs, stories and a much better appreciation for a country I’d never even intended to visit.

The biggest lesson for me was simple:

Don’t automatically treat a long layover as dead time.

Sometimes the unexpected destination becomes part of the adventure.

And Bahrain was the perfect appetizer for what came next.

Jordan.

I had been dreaming about Petra for years, and the next part of the trip somehow managed to live up to the hype.

Explore my Jordan travel stories →

Planning a One Day Bahrain Itinerary

If you only have one day in Bahrain, I’d recommend making the most of your time by combining a few major sights with one or two experiences that aren’t necessarily on every tourist itinerary.

I had only 19 hours, so I had to be efficient. My day included Bahrain’s distinctive modern architecture, a camel farm, historic and cultural sights, and a drive toward the Saudi Arabian border.

You don’t have to copy my itinerary exactly. In fact, I’d encourage you to leave some room for unexpected stops.

One of my favorite experiences in Bahrain wasn’t something I’d planned at all. My driver, Mohammed, suggested visiting a camel farm, and seeing hundreds of camels became one of the highlights of my trip.

If you’re planning Bahrain in one day, my biggest recommendation is to leave some flexibility in your schedule. That’s where some of the best travel experiences can happen!

Does 19 Hours Count as Visiting a Country?

Some people don’t count a country if they spend less than 24 hours there.

I disagree.

A day trip to Bahrain or any other country can certainly count.

I spent only 19 hours for my Bahrain itinerary. Less than one day but action packed with memorable travel experiences!

But I didn’t spend those 19 hours inside an airport waiting for my connecting flight.

I got out and explored. I hired a local driver, visited the country’s architecture, went to a camel farm, drove around the country and saw places I never would have encountered during a normal airport layover.

More importantly, I came away with stories.

That’s how I decide whether I count a country toward my goal of visiting 50 countries: Did I actually have experiences there?

If you can tell me a story about your time in a country and show me photographs from that experience, I’d say you visited.

Bahrain may have been a 19-hour visit, but it gave me more than enough experiences to count.

Read more about how I count the countries I’ve visited →

See how many countries I’ve visited →

How I travel more often

One of the questions I get when people hear that I’ve visited 50+ countries is “How do you travel that much?”

The answer isn’t that I have unlimited vacation time or spend every weekend flying somewhere. I’ve learned to make travel a bigger part of my life by taking advantage of opportunities like this unusual Bahrain stopover.

Here’s how I travel more often — and some of the things I’ve learned along the way →

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Where is Bahrain

The Kingdom of Bahrain is a small island country of approximately 800,000 people. The name in Arabic is مملكة البحرين‎, Mamlakat al-Baḥrayn, literally translates to “Kingdom of the Two Seas”),

It’s a tiny country – while is an archipelago of thirty-three islands, the largest (Bahrain Island) is 34 miles long by 11 miles wide.

Location: it’s just east of Saudi Arabia, connected via the King Fahd Causeway, and north of Qatar across the Gulf of Bahrain. It’s southwest of Iran, and northwest of the UAE (directly west of Dubai).

If you’re planning a one day itinerary in Bahrain, you can cover surprisingly much of the country with a good plan — especially if you’re willing to start early and keep moving.