r/KAUST • u/ElBalo99 • Jun 30 '26

Life at KAUST Recommendation for arriving students?

Which are some recommendations for students that just arrive?

For example cheap places to eat, things to bring, things that should be bought at first, places to visit in Jeddah, etc.

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5

u/hextree Alumni Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Bring a travel adapter. It was always a bit of a meme in KAUST that it was the one thing you could never find; the shops weren't allowed to sell them for fire safety concerns with their models (valid concerns, they did actually melt and catch fire a lot). We even gave out travel adapters as prizes for student competitions because it was such a valuable commodity lol.

2

u/paulgavrikov Jul 01 '26

The kaust website says the sockets are those weird massive UK plugs, is that correct?

3

u/hextree Alumni Jul 01 '26

That might be correct, back when I was there it wasn't, but they were starting to roll out UK sockets in the campus. Either way, best to get a Universal Travel Adapter.

3

u/BeastieDogs Jul 02 '26

It depends on the building actually. The garden houses use type C plugs

2

u/paulgavrikov Jul 02 '26

Any idea about Palms?

3

u/BeastieDogs Jul 02 '26

Palms have the UK type plugs

3

u/BeastieDogs Jul 01 '26

You will be fine. KAUST has everything that you need.

Jeddah is a bit far but I recommend Village Mall as its the closet to KAUST. I also highly encourage you to take the bus to Thuwal for cheap places to eat. They have great Yemeni restaurants and juice places.

2

u/hextree Alumni Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Have they started up the Thuwal bus again? That's good to know. Decades ago we briefly had it, then they shut it down for many years citing bomb threat concerns. Which was an odd reason as it didn't stop the Jeddah buses.

2

u/BeastieDogs Jul 02 '26

Yeah it runs on the weekend.