Why Dubai?

So I don’t know if I could say prior to this opportunity, if a visit to the UAE was on my radar.

So back in August, I was off solo missioning in Canada, hiking in Yoho and Banff National Park. I will do a recap of that trip sometime in the future.  While I was there a friend of mine, Cecilia, shot me a note. She is also an avid traveler who does quite a bit of solo trips.  She said, hey I like to travel, you like to travel, how come we haven’t planned any adventures together?  What a brilliant idea! We are both open to exploring all the world has to offer, and have travel prioritized high in our life.

We had a few ideas in mind and had started to plan out a trip when I get a note from Cecilia. You know those emails you sign up for to see what deals are out there? Well one came into her inbox from Groupon for this amazing deal to Dubai.  She sent that to me and it was more, how can you not say yes to that?!

 

The Deal

So, the deal was for about $1100 (originating from NYC) through London to Dubai. It was a 7D/6N trip including airfare, hotel, transportation to/from hotel, and a half day city tour.  At this point in time, it seems flights to Europe are almost that amount so knowing you are going double the distance and staying in a decent hotel this seemed a little too good to be true.  We called and confirmed a few details (we could fly a partner airline with our preferred airline, we are Delta loyalists and want those airmile points!) before we pulled the trigger to buy the Groupon. 

We did go to Dubai in early May, which at that point in time is when the UAE gets hot, hot, hot. So of course, we got a few jokes that is why we found the deal that we did. Not true, we could have had that same deal in earlier months but due to our collective schedules we couldn’t leave any earlier than that.

Neither one of us has done a Groupon trip before so we didn’t know if there were going to be any gotcha’s once we were on our way but we both have a pretty good attitude about travel and can take what comes with us.

So we purchased a few extras (flights to NYC, extra legroom for the flights and upgraded the hotel slightly), so this threw a few extra hundred onto the trip but nothing too bad.

Pre-Trip Planning

Brunch is never a bad idea. So back in February we met for brunch to plan out what we wanted to do while we were in Dubai. We leave the States on Saturday, arriving in Dubai on Sunday and leaving on Friday. 

We decided to do 2 days in the city and 2 days in the desert.  We didn’t want to be go go go everyday but wanted to have some good tours while we were there to learn as much as we could. We selected a few options that looked interesting and had good ratings from TripAdvisor.

Beyond that, what we were racking our brains on is what to wear.  What is appropriate and what will be cool enough as it is typically 100 degrees or so around that time of year.  Initial research said in the desert anything is fine but in the city (malls/mosque) it is a bit more conservative. Main thing was cover the shoulders and cover down past the knees.  For the mosques they said for women skirts/pants down to the floor, arms should be completely covered, and a scarf to cover head/hair. Oddly enough we read that for evenings they become a little less conservative and that little black dress every woman has in her closet and cocktail dresses are okay

So, we thought best to get linen to battle the heat and maxi dresses for most activities, We opted to not risk it and push the envelope therefore we didn’t bring any cocktail type dresses but did bring an option or two that could work for a dressier evening.

Itinerary:

  • Friday – Depart Fly to NYC (Stay in AirBnB)
  • Saturday – Depart to Dubai via London
  • Sunday – Arrive in Dubai in AM. Settle in and tour around
  • Monday – Half Day City Tour in Dubai
  • Tuesday – Day Tour Abu Dhabhi
  • Wednesday – Afternoon/Evening Desert Dune Bashing (Red Dunes)
  • Thursday – Afternoon/Evening Vintage Land Cruiser Desert Tour
  • Friday – Depart to NYC via London (Stay in AirBnB)
  • Saturday – Return home

Packing (What’s in my Bag?)
I don’t know what got into me but I couldn’t get into packing mode at all for this trip so I just threw things in my bag last-minute, hoping I had things that would work as far as clothes/outfit wise.  I am a carryon only person so I was able to fit all my clothing, shoe needs and camera equipment in my rollerbag and the backpack I have listed below

For camera gear I took the following:

  • DSLR Body (Nikon D500)
  • 1 lens (28-300 3.5-5.6 – this is my main go to lens that works great for traveling)
  • Lumix DMC-ZS100 (Got this new point and shoot that has a 25-250 lens on it to try out to see how it would hold up to use for video so I can keep the DSLR in picture mode)
  • Joby gorillapod
  • IPhone (can’t count this out as I will alternate to get shots and video here – best camera is the one that is on you they say)
  • I packed this all away in the Mindshift Gear Sidepath backpack (this fit all the camera goodies, extra batteries/chargers and all my carryon items needs for the plane)
  • In my rollerbag I also had the ThinkTank Digital Holster (I brought this for days I didn’t want to carry a backpack around but wanted the DSLR on hand)