With accolades like having the tallest building in the world (Burj Khalifa), the biggest mall in the world (Dubai Mall), Dubai has come a long way from being just a desert. Despite what it has grown into in such a short time, each time popular travel sites like Condé Nast Traveler posts on Facebook about Dubai, you’ll see plenty of critical comments that discourage you from visiting. If I hadn’t known better, it would have been easy to assume that many people actually hate Dubai (but wait, a good number of them have not even visited Dubai before).
To be honest, I haven’t quite worked out exactly whether I like or dislike Dubai as a travel destination, though it’s probably towards the I-Don’t-Exactly-Fancy-Dubai-But-It-Was-An-Interesting-City-to-Observe side. As a city, Dubai’s vibe isn’t my cup of tea. No big deal about this though cos many cities aren’t my cup of tea either – I’ve come to appreciate the mountains more.
Dubai is glitzy when night falls, lights twinkling from buildings and billboards. In the daytime, the city somehow feels quite sterile — skyscrapers, a dusty fog covering the air; you get the drift. The question is,
Is Dubai worth visiting?
A few things to know before you decide about Dubai
1. The weather can be very hot
Rain is rare. In fact, I felt weird hearing the rain hit my windows when I returned to Singapore from UAE, not kidding! In Dubai, the weather can get really warm hot. “There are 2 seasons: Hell and Spring“, so describes a Quora user (source). That ‘Hell’ lasts 9 months, while cooler weather for the remaining three. Be prepared for the heat if you’re not visiting during ‘Spring’. In fact, it’s so hot that even those small bus-stops (almost 1300 of them) in Dubai are air-conditioned.
2. Dubai is not a cheap city to visit
It’s true that Dubai is not cheap because, how else are they gonna survive from tourism. However, not everything is expensive. It depends on your planning and the experiences you want.
