Dubai

The creek is why the city exists, and it still works. Dhows tie up along the Deira wharfage and load by hand for ports across the Gulf; the abras that ferry passengers across remain the best transport in Dubai and cost almost nothing. The Gold Souk startles by sheer volume, and the Spice Souk beside it is worth a walk for the smell alone. Bargaining is expected — the first price is an opening position.

Across the water, the Al Fahidi district is the best-preserved quarter of the old city: coral-block houses in narrow lanes, topped by wind towers that cooled rooms before electricity did. The cultural centre here runs meals and open question sessions that answer exactly what visitors are usually too polite to ask. Go early — the light on the creek is best in the first hours, and the lanes are unshaded by midday.

The Burj Khalifa rises 828 metres, tall enough that the sun sets twice if you ride partway up as it goes down. Book ahead and take a slot about an hour before sunset: you get daylight, dusk and the lit city in one visit. At its base the fountain performs on the lake through the evening, free, and best watched from the promenade rather than a restaurant terrace where the view is charged twice.

Jumeirah's public beaches run for kilometres of soft sand with calm, shallow water, swimmable year-round — though at the height of summer the sea reaches bath temperature. Kite Beach is liveliest; the stretches near Umm Suqeim are quieter, and both give the classic view of the Burj Al Arab offshore. The Marina is a different register: a canal ringed by towers, with a promenade that wakes after dark.

Within an hour of Downtown the sand rises into serious dunes, part of it protected as conservation reserve where vehicle numbers are limited. The standard evening trip combines dune driving, camels, sandboarding and dinner at a camp, and it is the excursion visitors most often cut for time and most often wish they had kept. Two things are worth knowing before you book. Dune driving is genuinely rough and a poor idea for anyone with back or neck trouble or in late pregnancy — say so when booking rather than in the vehicle. And driving onto soft sand yourself, without training, lowered tyre pressures and a second vehicle, is how visitors get stuck: this is one of the few things here better reached with an operator than independently. How the operators differ, and how the quiet wildlife reserves compare with the standard convoy, is set out in the UAE desert guide.

Away from beaches and pools, cover shoulders and knees in malls, souks and public buildings; beachwear does not travel to the walk home. Alcohol is served in licensed venues, overwhelmingly hotels, rather than generally, and public drunkenness is treated seriously. During Ramadan, daytime eating and drinking in public are restricted and hours shift — but the evenings become the most interesting time of year to be here, and visitors are welcome at iftar.