Experience the Gulf Differently.

Stays, dining and extraordinary experiences across the six countries of the Gulf.

Explore Experiences

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United Arab Emirates

Seven emirates, three coastlines, one relentless appetite for the new.

City towers, desert camps and mountain lodges inside one country
Desert, mountain and coast within a two-hour drive of each other
Restaurants from across the region and most of the world

Open UAE

Best November to March

Curated for you

4 in UAE

Short trips that work without taking leave.

Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi/Experiences

Louvre Abu Dhabi

A museum on Saadiyat Island built around connections between cultures.

Hegra, AlUla/Experiences

Hegra Day Tour

A guided visit through Hegra with transport inside the heritage site.

Doha/Experiences

Museum of Islamic Art

A waterfront museum covering Islamic art across more than 1,400 years.

Bu Maher Fort, the southern gateway of the Pearling Path

Muharraq/Experiences

Bahrain Pearling Path

A walking route through Muharraq that follows Bahrain's pearling history.

Luxe Picks

Six labels and nothing else. Each one means a specific thing and a listing carries at most one.

Luxe Pick: Meets every criterion we apply, at any price point.
Editor's Choice: Strongest in its category this season on our criteria.
Best for Couples: Adults-first, quiet and designed for two.
Weekend Favourite: Works as a Thursday to Saturday without taking leave.
Worth the Drive: Two hours or more from a major city and worth the journey.
Hidden Gem: Less widely known than its quality warrants.

No labels awarded yet

A label is applied only after we have checked the listing against the criteria on the left and confirmed its details with a named source. Nothing has cleared that yet.

How we choose

Nine cities, told properly

What each place is actually good at, when to go and the one thing worth building the trip around.

UAE/The Proving Ground

Dubai

Everything arrives here first and half of it is worth the queue.

Dubai rewards editing. Skip the list everyone gives you, pick one neighbourhood a day and treat the desert as part of the city rather than a day trip. The best hours are between five and eight, when the heat drops and the light goes copper.

Best months: Nov to Mar
Signature move: Sunset from a creek dhow
Nearest airport: DXB

UAE edition

UAE/The Long View

Abu Dhabi

Slower, greener and built to be looked at rather than raced through.

The capital spends its money on culture and space. Saadiyat holds the museums and the only stretch of natural beach left in the emirate. Push two hours inland to Liwa and the Empty Quarter starts.

Best months: Nov to Mar
Signature move: Liwa dunes at first light
Nearest airport: AUH

UAE edition

Saudi Arabia/The Rewrite

Riyadh

A capital changing faster than its own maps can keep up with.

Riyadh is a driving city with a walking heart in Diriyah. The restored mud-brick district of At-Turaif is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and open to visitors. Winter weekends are cold enough for a coat.

Best months: Oct to Apr
Signature move: At-Turaif after dark
Nearest airport: RUH

Saudi Arabia edition

Saudi Arabia/The Old Port

Jeddah

Coral-stone houses, a Red Sea corniche and the region's most relaxed evenings.

Al Balad is the reason to come. Centuries of merchant houses with carved rawasheen shutters, listed by UNESCO as Historic Jeddah and under restoration. The reefs start a short boat ride offshore.

Best months: Nov to Mar
Signature move: Al Balad on foot at dusk
Nearest airport: JED

Saudi Arabia edition

Oman/The Low Skyline

Muscat

No building taller than a mosque and mountains at the end of every street.

Muscat is built into the gaps between the Hajar mountains and the sea, which is why it never sprawls. Mutrah souq at dusk, then a wadi in the morning. Jebel Akhdar is two hours up a road that climbs the whole way.

Best months: Oct to Apr
Signature move: Mutrah corniche after prayer
Nearest airport: MCT

Oman edition

Oman/The Green Season

Salalah

The one place on the peninsula with a monsoon. It lands in August.

From late June the khareef pulls cloud off the Indian Ocean and the Dhofar hills turn green for around ten weeks. Waterfalls run and the temperature holds in the twenties while the rest of the peninsula bakes.

Best months: Jul to Sep
Signature move: Wadi Darbat in full khareef
Nearest airport: SLL

Oman edition

Qatar/The Short Trip

Doha

A capital you can cross in twenty minutes and fill for three days.

Doha packs a museum programme, a rebuilt downtown and an inland sea into a very small footprint. Souq Waqif was rebuilt in the old style and still runs late.

Best months: Nov to Mar
Signature move: Khor Al Adaid overnight
Nearest airport: DOH

Qatar edition

Kuwait/The Table

Kuwait City

Come for dinner. Everything else is a bonus.

Kuwait has a restaurant scene built around independent owners rather than hotel groups. The bay road is the spine of the city and Failaka Island sits forty minutes offshore with Bronze Age and Hellenistic remains on it.

Best months: Nov to Apr
Signature move: Bay road, three stops, one night
Nearest airport: KWI

Kuwait edition

Bahrain/The Weekend

Manama

Small, walkable and unbothered. The Gulf's default short break.

Manama and Muharraq sit on either side of a short causeway and hold four thousand years between them. The Pearling Path threads seventeen restored buildings into one route you can walk in an afternoon.

Best months: Nov to Apr
Signature move: Pearling Path, then the old souq
Nearest airport: BAH

Bahrain edition

Reading before you book

Longer reads on where to go, when and how to spend the days.

All guides

Across the Gulf/9 min read

When to go where: a twelve-month Gulf calendar

Salalah in August, AlUla in January, Jebel Akhdar for the roses in April. The region has more seasons than it gets credit for.