237, it's not cobblers that pixi wouldn't be able to go out on her own if she was in a country like Saudi. My friends who live in Jeddah are escorted around the city by chauffeurs if they want to visit friends - they are not allowed out in the street unescorted (but that's another story about culture, not faith).
Secondly, my understanding is that pixi and her friend want to go somewhere where the Muslim faith is recognised and practised openly - she's a practising muslimah so will want to pray, a country therefore where mosques accepting women are readily available is more attractive than (say) Malta, which is very interesting to visit but there is one tiny mosque for the whole island.
I begin to wonder sometimes if some posters (by no means all, I hasten to add) actually know any Muslim people first hand, when comments like this are bandied about on a thread with a question which to me is not an exceptional, but sensible, in pixi's circumstances.