5 Reasons to visit Dubai

As part of our summer holiday this year, we spent four days in Dubai, en route from London to Phuket. We flew with Emirates and the layover would have been in Dubai so we thought it would be a fun place to break up the journey. The hubs and I have been once before, 6 years ago, and had a great time so this time we tried it out with the kids.

It is the kind of place that you don’t need ages to see, 4 days was probably a little too short but a week would be more than adequate. We really enjoyed it so thought I would share why you should go and visit Dubai too…

~WEATHER – though we did visit this time around at the hottest time of the year (at least 40°c every day, 35°c at night), you are basically guaranteed sunshine everyday. When we have visited before it was the end of October and I think that time of year is perfect. The resorts and beaches are full of shaded areas too though and we found it to be completely child-friendly.

~ SIGHTS – want to visit the world’s only 7* hotel or visit the tallest building in the world? Well, got them both in Dubai. The world’s largest shopping mall is there too, Dubai Mall, as well as lots of other amazing hotels, aquariums, water parks, gorgeous beaches and other things like desert safari trips or mosque tours.

~ CULTURE – it probably sounds silly but it is definitely somewhere where I really ‘feel’ abroad. Road signs in Arabic and people in traditional Islam attire is really new to me to see, and ignorantly, I don’t know that much about. When we were there, the last two days were the start of Ramadan so the hotel set up a tent in the reception, which is tradition, and we got to try out some traditional Arabic treats at sundown. This was all really fascinating to me (I would think it would be hard to do a whole holiday there during Ramadan time though as you can’t eat or drink in public during daylight – you can get food, just have to take it away and eat in your room).

~ FOOD – there is such a variety of food to try! There are restaurants of all different varieties from Arabic to Chinese to American (lots of American in fact) so you can be adventurous if you want to but if you’d rather have The Cheesecake Factory one day (my fave US restaurant), then you can too.

~ CHEAP – it is a 6 hour flight away so whilst it may cost a little more to get there than it would for a holiday in Europe, when you are out there it really doesn’t end up costing a lot. The variety of hotels is massive so they have to be competitive with each other. Plus the transport (we just used taxis) is ridiculously cheap. A 40 minute taxi ride from the airport cost the equivalent of £10 – bargaination!

I know it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and yes, it is basically the desert so everything there has had to be man-made, but I think it makes for a fun palce to visit, it is totally different and really family friendly.

Rebecca x

BlogLovin’ | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram