UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The first thing that comes to mind here: MONEY. Because of the discovery of oil here this country is flooded with it and they haven’t stopped building. In terms of tourism, the UAE is very new but you wouldn’t think it considering how much is there already. It’s insane how fast they have built and continue to do so. The country is home to many building world records including tallest building, largest inclined building (more than the leaning tower of Pisa!), and currently building the largest picture frame! They just don’t stop and continually create new things giving the opportunity for any traveler to find what they are looking for.

Good to Knows

  • Currency: Dirhams
  • 3.5 dirhams = $1USD
  • Visa: None
  • Entry fee: FREE

Getting Around

We flew direct from SFO to Dubai with Emirates. The total flying time was around 15.5 hours. Honestly, I wasn’t as blown away from the airline as I had thought considering they make it seem pretty glorious but what would you expect flying economy. I think the real benefit to flying with Emirates compared to other airlines would be their business and first class, other than that it was a pretty normal airline.

  • Emirates: $1520USD round trip
    • Do note that this price included our flights from Dubai to Perth as Dubai was one of our stopovers. I would estimate that without the Australia flights it would be about $800.

Once you arrive the most popular means of getting around are cabs or Uber, or you can always take their metro system which is quite easy to use and very modern and clean. We spent most of our time taking the metro and bus throughout our time there. Quite impressed with the design of the metro, but what else would you expect from Dubai??

  • All Day Metro/RTA Pass: 22AED ($6USD)

Featured Places

  • Dubai
  • Abu Dhabi

Time of Year

We traveled at the peak of their winter, end of January, which was actually quite pleasant and perfect weather. Not too hot during the day (70F-80F) and a little chilly at night (60F-70F). I would definitely recommend to come during their winter as I heard it can get up to 125F during the summer and most people who live there can barely stand the heat they leave the country. One of our tour guides actually told us one of his guests fainted after being outside for 5 minutes because it was too hot!