Dubai is a city that grew from a creek. For most of its history, it was a small trading and pearl-diving town on a tidal inlet, with merchants' houses behind wind towers, and the old quarters of Al Fahidi and Deira still show the low coral-and-gypsum buildings, with narrow lanes, where abras, the little wooden ferries, carry people across the water for a dirham or so. Then oil money and an extraordinary appetite for building transformed it, and today the skyline includes the Burj Khalifa, which at over 800 metres is the tallest structure ever built.
The land around is desert, red-gold dunes, gravel plains and salt flats, and the contrast with the city is dramatic. Within an hour, you can be on a road with nothing but sand and the occasional camel. East of Sharjah lies the Faya palaeolandscape, a rocky area where archaeologists have found traces of some of the earliest human movements out of Africa, dating back around a hundred thousand years, and UNESCO listed it in 2023. The Hajar mountains rise to the east, bare and jagged, forming the border with Oman.
For riders, Dubai is a city of wide, fast roads. Sheikh Zayed Road and the other highways have many lanes, smooth tarmac and heavy traffic, and speed cameras are everywhere, with serious fines. The best riding is outside the city, on the Al Qudra desert road, the roads to Hatta in the hills and the long highway east. Sand drifts across the road at times, and camels sometimes wander near the edge. Summer heat is severe, with afternoon temperatures over forty-five degrees and humidity near the coast, so ride in the early morning or between November and March, when the days are mild and clear.
Practically, fuel is plentiful and relatively cheap, and there are stations on every main road. Food ranges from street shawarma to elegant restaurants, and bottled water is in every shop. Bring documents, because police checks are common, and make sure your licence and insurance cover riding in the UAE. Wear a full jacket, even when it looks too hot, because the wind dries you quickly. Stay hydrated, and plan your route to avoid the Friday afternoon jams.