Discover
Deira and Downtown are not the same holiday, Khor Fakkan is Sharjah but on the other sea, and Hatta belongs to Dubai two hours into the mountains. This is the layer where a trip is actually decided.
By emirate
The index
The federal capital, built on an island and read best from its corniche.
The garden city inland, and the country's only World Heritage inscription.
Two cities on one creek: the old banks, and the towers built behind them.
The country's museum estate, walkable, and dry.
Sharjah, but on the Gulf of Oman — an exclave on the other coast.
The smallest emirate's capital: a beach, a creek and a working dhow yard.
A town on a peninsula between two creeks, and the quietest coast in the country.
A creek city with the Hajar range behind it and a pearl bed offshore.
The only emirate capital on the Gulf of Oman, with the mountains at its back.
Dubai's wind-tower quarter, on the Bur Dubai bank of the creek.
The trading bank of the creek: gold, spice and the fish market at dawn.
The tower, the fountain and the boulevard around them.
Dubai's warehouse district, and where its galleries actually are.
Eight kilometres of waterfront, with a public beach along most of it.
The restored old town, and the largest heritage project in the region.
An abandoned pearling village, left standing as it was.
The capital's cultural district, and a turtle-nesting beach.
The entertainment island: a Formula 1 circuit and the parks around it.
A wildlife reserve island in the western Gulf, reached by boat or air.
An inhabited pearling island with archaeology going back millennia.
A built island in the shape of a palm, with a beach on every frond.
Mangroves, archaeology and one of the country's largest bird populations.
Four coral-shaped islands off Ras Al Khaimah, with the mountains in view.
Abu Dhabi's western region: oases, salt flats and the Empty Quarter.
The range that divides the two coasts, and the country's highest ground.
The Gulf of Oman shore: deeper water, clearer diving, different weather.
Dubai's mountain exclave, in the Hajar foothills.
Sharjah's central desert, and 130,000 years of human occupation.
