With its dizzying mega-architecture, manmade islands and knock-your-socks-off shopping, Dubai is a travel daydream, a vision of hallucinatory towers, palace hotels and bonkers novelties. It comprises the same exotic sea vistas and camel-topped sand dunes of its neighbours, Oman and Saudi Arabia, but with thrill-a-minute attractions that no other destination in the Middle East can offer.
For starters, you’ll be in reach of dishdasha-crowded mosques and upturned ice cream-cone forts, but also moments away from statement shopping malls and record-breaking buildings. This is a city of superlatives — be it biggest, brashest, fastest, highest — and it’s child-friendly to the nth degree, crammed with fantasy theme parks and Disneyfied water playgrounds that pay homage to Hollywood, Bollywood, Marvel and Lego. Add dune-bashing, desert-safari day trips and you’ll find it hard to catch your breath. So don’t forget the beach. Dubai’s soft-sieved sands and turquoise sea suggest the Caribbean, even if the skyscraper backdrop screams Las Vegas.
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What to do
Life in Dubai revolves around the beach and nowhere in the United Arab Emirates has a better coastal strip. Top picks are Umm Suqeim Beach, next to the Burj Al Arab, and palm-fringed Jumeirah Beach Park or JBR Beach, which spans the full length of Dubai Marina.
In the pantheon of Dubai’s world-beating achievements, nothing is more ambitious than the Burj Khalifa. Be smart at sunset and you can catch it twice — perfect for a date night, from terra firma and then again from the 148th floor after going up in one of the world’s fastest pressurised lifts. Next door you can plan a shopping adventure amid the hive-like madness of Dubai Mall, home to a leviathan-sized aquarium and the largest promenade of designer labels this side of China. For local culture, make a beeline for Jumeirah to marvel at the honey-hued Jumeirah Mosque. Mind-opening morning tours are run by the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding.
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Away from the higgledy-piggledy skyscrapers of Sheikh Zayed Road, the Arabia of yesterday springs to life at Dubai Creek, particularly when gliding on an abra river taxi past overloaded boats recently returned from the Persian Gulf. Allow a half-day for a nostril-tingling snoop around the musky Spice Souk, haggle over curly-toed slippers at the Textile Souk and gawp at the more-than-bling Gold Souk: the OTT emporiums assault the senses as much as the wallet. There are 300-odd stores and some 25 tons of gold on display. Know how to haggle? You’ll land yourself a bargain.
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Where to stay
Your base for creaky history, away from Dubai’s fly-and-floppers and all-inclusives, is the handsome Dubai Creek. The courtyards, wonky wind towers and olive-lit mosques of Al Bastakiya, the city’s turn-of-the-century core, capture the region’s heritage better than anywhere else in the Middle East. Hotels are authentic, plastered with plump cushions, bejewelled textiles and lattice mashrabiya screens, offering a glimpse into the United Arab Emirates as it once was. Hear something? That’s no shopping mall tannoy. It’s a scene-setting muezzin’s call-to-prayer.
The Palm Jumeirah, on the opposite end of town, is where to stay if you’re more in the mood for preposterously swanky hotels with monorail stations (yes, that’s how Dubai does public transport). The wedding cakey Atlantis, The Palm, is the epitome of Dubai hyperbole, built on a manmade island with a waterpark and aquarium so outrageous the Royal Navy could sail a submarine in it. Kim Kardashian spent more than £20,000 for a room for one night here, so you know it’s something else. And it has 14-carat gold soap. For more privacy, check into one of Dubai’s superlative private villas.
The city’s middle ground is Downtown Dubai. It’s ground zero for Dubai Opera, Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa, whose sky-impaling, 830m-high dimensions are best taken in from on top of an inflatable flamingo bobbing around one of the area’s dazzling hotel rooftop pools.
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Don’t miss
No visit is complete without eyeballing the rocket-shaped Burj Al Arab, the zeitgeist-shifting six-star hotel in Jumeirah that first set Dubai’s we-can-do-anything limit. It’s so mythically opulent, even kings and heads of state call it excessive. You’ll need a dinner or drinks reservation to get past the security gates, but it’s worth it to see its sci-fi atrium, brag-worthy restaurants, and 27th-floor Skyview Bar, with a soul-stirring panorama from the Palm Jumeirah to Dubai Creek.
Beyond the towers, some of the highest sand dunes in the Middle East crowd the horizon. You’re here to see fiery-hot Arabia, as well as arctic-cold shopping malls. Dubai invented the desert safari, and Middle East sunsets don’t come better than from the crest of a sand dune having enjoyed an exhilarating dune tour. Insist upon Big Red, near Al Badayer.
Best time to visit
The best time to travel to Dubai is between December and February for all-day sun. Temperatures will have cooled enough to a balmy 24C, making it much more manageable to get around in the day. The period around Christmas and New Year can be particularly expensive but then do drop from January. Or if it’s crowd-free beaches you’re after, target autumn or spring. Prices will be much lower, though temperatures will be much higher. The evenings are still cool though so if you’re happy to lounge by the pool or the beach all day, then you’ll get much more for your money. Prices really drop during the summer months but searing temperatures mean that you’ll probably want to stay indoors all day.
FAQs
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What are the biggest do’s and don’ts in Dubai?
Do respect the local Islamic culture. Swimwear is for the beach, not Sheikh Zayed Road or the shopping mall. Locals insist on catwalk fashion while at a water park, so if in doubt, dress up, not down.
Don’t hold hands or kiss in public. Air kisses, particularly among the Gulf community, are the norm, but anything more is illegal and who knows where you’ll end up.
How much should I budget for a trip to Dubai?
Tax-free shopping aside, budget £150-200 a night for a hotel stay, £70 for an upmarket dinner for two and around £8 for a pint in a waterfront bar. Dubai has around 100,000 hotel rooms, yet you’ll still pay a princely sum for a November to February stay. If you can bear the heat — we’re talking 40C plus — then rates are cheaper in the height of the Dubai summer.
Can you drink alcohol in Dubai?
Yes. Alcohol is served throughout the United Arab Emirates, but only in hotel restaurants and bars. Drinking in the Middle East is expensive for a reason, and remember that being drunk in public is a crime and the authorities take a dim view on those flouting their laws. The irony? Dubai is home to some of the swankiest bars on the planet.
Currency
United Arab Emirates dirham
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