Unfortunately, it has received some bad press recently and over the last years. The main concern for visitors is kidnapping since foreigners may be a target particularly in Saada, to the north of Sanaa, where there is less government control. Otherwise its a pretty friendly place and the ordinary people really welcome visitors. I hope the situation doesn’t deteriorate.
Apart from the roads, the people and scenery is really interesting and often unique. The architecture of the 6000 year old city of Sanaa, the buildings on rocks, the Crater of Aden, the array of daggers and guns carried by everyone, the food and other ‘substances’ people enjoy. Everything for the die-hard traveller. Tourism information can be found at Yemen Tourism
Roads:
It is a poor country compared to its neighbors and the roads could do with improvement. It does have a small motorway of sorts running from Aden Port to Sheikh Othman along the casueway and a sort of ring road around Sanaa but not to European standards.
The main roads are of reasonable to good condition outside the cities but the network of sealed roads is small particularly in the east. There are road connections to Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the east. One day there may be a Yemen-Djibouti Bridge
Its pretty tough terrain with lots of desert, rocky outcrops and wadis and mountains (the road from Sanaa to Hudaydah reaches 2900 metres).
A good map is the Geo-center ‘World-map: Arabian Peninsula’.
The series of images are from my visit in November 1994.
Sanaa – the market square in Old Sanaa inside from the main gate (Bab al-Yaman) and surrounded by the souq (Souq al-Milh)
Road from Aden to Sanaa
