Dubai travel guide: 20 things that will surprise first time visitors

Dubai: it is massive and brash, flashy and ostentatious. It's a superb-vehicle visitors jam on a huge-metropolis avenue. It's a $a thousand bottle of champagne while a cheap glowing would do. It's the most important, the satisfactory and the most steeply-priced of the whole thing.

At least, that is what people anticipate when they arrive in this Middle Eastern town. Dubai is supposed to be small on tradition, and huge on bling. It's here for a very good time, no longer a long term, and it doesn't mind telling you so.

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But is that in reality the case? First-time site visitors might be surprised…

The food is ideal, and it's reasonably-priced
Thanks to a massive immigrant populace, such as a huge inflow of people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran and Jordan, Dubai has a really proper and low-priced food scene. Simply wander the streets of Deira, one of the city's older and less expensive neighbourhoods, and you may discover tasty treats from round the sector, to be had on the street for only a few dirhams. And for the quality Pakistani meals this aspect of Lahore, name beyond the suburb of  Satwa to dine on the shabby-but-well-known Ravi restaurant.

It's additionally appropriate, and high priced
Dubai has a popularity for exceptional-eating excellence, and it really lives as much as that, with plenty of celebrity chefs from round the sector setting up outposts in motels and resorts throughout the city. You'll have to lay down a few serious coin to enjoy meals via the likes of Nobu Matsuhisa, Gordon Ramsay, Gary Rhodes, Jamie Oliver, Marco Pierre White and Sanjeev Kapoor, but it'll be well worth the rate.

There are not many locals

This takes a while to sink in for maximum first-time visitors: the truth that there don't seem to be any nearby Emiratis around at all. That's because of a few elements, maximum extensively that handiest eleven in step with cent of Dubai's population is Emirati. The local lifestyle, too, is pretty a personal one, that means for plenty visitors the simplest Emirati they'll meet can be the only who stamps their passport on the airport. Those eager to research extra about nearby tradition, however, have to call in to the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding (cultures.Ae).

You can drink. A lot.

Yes, there are legal guidelines towards public inebriation, alcohol is extraordinarily expensive, you need to be over 21 to drink it, and it is handiest served in bars connected to inns or golf equipment. But that doesn't imply nobody imbibes in Dubai. Any vacationer looking forward to to have a dry vacation could be very amazed to find champagne brunches, happy hour beverages expenses, and an expat lifestyle of party-pleasant boozing.

The weekend starts offevolved on Friday – with brunch
Why are the cafes and restaurants packed on a Friday morning, whilst all of us ought to be at paintings? This is the Islamic world, which means weekends are Fridays and Saturdays. Among the Dubai expat crowd, in addition to many quick-time period site visitors, the beginning of the weekend way one element: brunch. And that is no light snack; Friday brunches are normally sizable feasts as sumptuousness as they're boozy. Many inns put on huge buffets of every meals conceivable on which you may gorge yourself before lurching again to the motel room for a nap.

There's records in Dubai
It's proper: 50 years ago this heaving city was little more than a creekside fishing village (before oil turned into located). But that doesn't imply there isn't history in Dubai. The oldest a part of the city is al-Fahidi, a properly-preserved cultural area that dates lower back to the early 1900s. The slim alleyways and traditional houses right here are a nice spoil from the skyscrapers and superhighways of Dubai proper.


Even if a the sight of really, actually tall constructing does not sound that brilliant to you, prepare to be shocked. The 829-metre Burj Khalifa (burjkhalifa.Ae) is the tallest constructing inside the international, and it in reality is hard to take in just how stupendously big it's miles. The view from the statement deck, a few 148 storeys above the floor, is thoughts-boggling. Nothing looks actual from that peak – it is like watching a child's miniature of the world. Going to the pinnacle is not cheap (from $forty six), however it is worth each dirham.

This is not a city for strolling
Those who love to explore strolling will be sorely disenchanted by way of Dubai. For starters, it's normally about one million levels outside – you don't want to be hiking around within the sun. Plus most matters in Dubai are miles aside, and the city has actually now not been designed with pedestrians in mind. About the best places you may sense comfy strolling are the big shopping shops, which, in equity, do offer lots of room to stretch the legs.

It's a client's paradise
Speaking of buying department stores, Dubai is a heaven on par with Hong Kong or Singapore for individuals who take pleasure within the shopping of goods. You can purchase pretty much something here, from fashion designer clothes to jewellery, spices, pinnacle-best foodstuffs and souvenirs. At Dubai Mall (thedubaimall.Com), there's even a "Gold to Go" ATM, at that you properly-heeled shoppers can withdraw one-ounce bars of solid gold, supplied they have got the funds. Only in Dubai.

Dubai is not incredible merely in size and grandiosity by myself – it's also a place of surprising architectural beauty. We're talking icons just like the Burj Khalifa and the Burj Dubai (the sail-shaped luxurious inn), in addition to the high-quality Palm mission featuring the Atlantis Hotel, the twisting Cayan Tower, and the JW Marriott Marquis, the world's tallest hotel.

It takes one of these small quantity of time – we are speakme minutes right here – to head from the skyscrapers and tarmac of Dubai to right, infinite desolate tract. As soon as the metropolis ends, the sand dunes start. There are plenty of companies presenting varying experiences obtainable within the wilderness, from four wheel drive safaris to Bedouin-style dinners to sand-boarding journeys to quad-biking. It in reality makes a alternate from the purchasing malls and fancy restaurants.

Given its proximity to the barren region, it ought to come as little surprise that Dubai receives hot – very, very warm. Average high temperatures inside the summer time months, June to August, range from 38 to 40 degrees. That's too warm to do anything out of doors besides run to the following bit of air-conditioning. In wintry weather, in the meantime, it is a moderate 23 to 26 degrees all through the day, making it best for wandering the streets or hitting the beach.

The locals are rich – clearly, certainly wealthy
Your first brush with a nearby Emirati will probably be having your passport stamped at the airport. Your 2nd brush with a local Emirati will probable be looking as one zooms past in a Range Rover or a Ferrari. Emirati tends to do quite well, financially – that a lot will truly be clean in case you ever discover your self driving beyond certainly one of their significant houses. Very few take a seat outside the 1 in step with cent.

There aren't many girls around
This isn't a touch upon culture, however on uncooked records. Dubai's populace, thanks to a large influx of blue-collar migrant workers, is made from approximately 69 in keeping with cent guys. That manner that by using far the majority of the human beings you may see wandering around the location – except you're inside the foyer of your motel – can be of the male persuasion.

Feel like going snowboarding whilst it is 40 tiers out of doors? You can do that, at the indoor Ski Dubai (theplaymania.Com). Feel like gambling golf on a lush inexperienced path inside the middle of the desert? You can try this as properly, at numerous publications for the duration of the metropolis. And if you sense like using a camel, or going boating, or consuming French champagne, or seeing a concert, or going to an artwork gallery, or going stand-up paddle-boarding, or skydiving, or driving an F1 vehicle, or swimming with dolphins, or going bungy-jumping… you could do this too.

It's an area of excessive lifestyle
Though the metropolis might seem a little gaudy and gauche, there's masses in Dubai for subculture vultures. The currently opened Dubai Opera (dubaiopera.Com) hosts normal concert events and events, whilst it's also viable to view contemporary Middle Eastern artwork at some of galleries for the duration of city, or trap live shows via bands from round the sector at locations like Burj Park, The Music Hall, and The Music Room.

So a whole lot about one in every of Dubai's favourite sports is absolutely bonkers. For starters, there are not any actual jockeys on these camels, but as an alternative small robots that sit down on pinnacle of the animals and are controlled through someone nearby. How is there a person continuously nearby, you ask? Easy – a flotilla of luxury, air-conditioned 4WDs follows the camels round at the same time as they're racing, allowing the passengers to govern the robotic. The camel-racing tracks are also so massive that you may slightly be able to see the contributors maximum of the time from your grandstand perch. But still, that is a proper enjoy.

It's feasible to journey on a price range
If you choose to live in fancy hotels and consume out on the high-quality eating places and do your shopping in huge department shops, then a stay in Dubai will be very, very costly. But it doesn't need to be that way. Spend time inside the suburb of Deira, haggling at markets, ingesting Middle Eastern street food, staying in price range hotels and getting round walking, and you may suddenly find that this town can be extraordinarily less costly.

Everything seems like a international-file breaker
After some days in Dubai you'll turn out to be so used to listening to that something is the largest/quickest/maximum high-priced/tallest/most beautiful within the international that those records will quit to even sign up as being exciting. Dubai has many, many claims to international statistics for all varieties of things, which include the sector's tallest constructing and the world's biggest shopping center. Get used to listening to approximately it.

It's not as conservative as you believe you studied
You've likely study the memories of foreigners being locked up in Dubai for public displays of love, or being too under the influence of alcohol, or maybe being homosexual. And it is true, once in a while human beings do get caught out for activities that could be very plenty OK back home. But Dubai, at the whole, is not that conservative. You can wear some thing you sense secure in. You'll locate expats and tourists from around the arena ingesting and canoodling in bars and golf equipment. And there may be even a quite healthful homosexual scene. Just be aware about cultural sensitivities, and you'll be satisfactory.