Overland travel was and remains at the heart of every Hajj. Even the denizens of Mecca must get to ʿArafat for the vigil (wuqūf), a short journey outside of the holy city made by crossing over solid ground. Movement on land comprises the many rites of Hajj such as the circumambulation (ṭawāf) of the Kaʿba, the pilgrims’ dispersal after the ʿArafat vigil (ifāḍa) and the back and forth traverse (saʿy) between al-Ṣafa and al-Marwa, two hillocks in Mecca. This last rite arguably introduces pilgrims to the essence of overland travel in this region by having them commemorate the desperate running of Ismāʿīl's mother, Hajar, as she searched the desert for water for her dying son. But while these movements of people over land are obligatory rites, the method by which pilgrims get to the Hijaz region in the first place is not subject to orthodox prescriptions. In principle, people can choose their own way to travel.

The methods of travel on the Hajj have evolved significantly since the beginnings of Islam. In the early years, during the four Rāshidūn caliphs (632–661 CE), when the compact community of believers was centered in nearby Medina, pilgrims made their way to the holy places mounted or on foot, often led by the caliph himself. But when Islam expanded to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean – the Arabian peninsula itself flanked by the “lakes of Islam,” the Red Sea and Arabian/Persian Gulf – water travel offered an option to landed itineraries to Mecca, even if it would not be until the nineteenth century that steam ships traveling through the Suez canal (opened in 1869) partially supplanted the caravans from places to Mecca's north and west. And today, air provides what is far and away the most utilized element for Hajj travel, conveying 79 percent of people making the pilgrimage from abroad in 1994, compared to 9 percent by sea, and 12 percent by land; this shift toward air travel continues, with 94 percent of nonresident pilgrims traveling to the Hijaz by plane in 2013.