Many foreign travellers visited the Rashidi emirs at Ha'il and described their impressions in journals and books, including:

• Georg Wallin (1854): Narrative of a Journey from Cairo to Medina and Mecca, by Suez, Arabia, Tawila, al-Jauf, Jublae, Hail and Negd in 1845, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol 24: 115-201. (Reprinted in Travels in Arabia, New York: Oleander Press, 1979.)
• William Gifford Palgrave (1865): Personal Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862-1863), vol. I, Macmillan & Co., London,
• Lady Anne Blunt (1881): A Pilgrimage to Nejd, The Cradle of the Arab Race: a Visit to the Court of the Arab Emir and `our Persian Campaign` (reprinted 1968)
• Charles Montagu Doughty (1888): Travels in Arabia Deserta. (Reprinted many times)
• Gertrude Bell (1907): The Desert and the Sown (republished 1987)
• D. G. Hogarth (1905): The Penetration of Arabia: a Record of Western Knowledge Concerning the Arabian Peninsula.
• Freeth, Zahra, and Winstone, H.V.F.: Explorers of Arabia from the Renaissance to the End of the Victorian Era, Allen & Unwin, London, 1978