Interactive Dubai Travel Guide

Dubai is the city most travel writing gets wrong — read most guides and you'd think it was only the Burj Khalifa, the beach resorts and the desert dunes. The honest version is more layered: a serious design city sits inside the resort destination, with Foster + Partners' Gate Building at DIFC, the contemporary art galleries at Alserkal Avenue and the converted warehouses of Al Quoz, Killa Design's Museum of the Future shaped like an Arabic inscription, and the preserved 19th-century wind-tower neighbourhood of Al Fahidi sitting a single AED 1 abra ride across Dubai Creek from the Deira souks. The trick is to walk both Dubais: a morning at the Museum of the Future before the queue builds, an Alserkal afternoon, lunch at Zuma or La Petite Maison in DIFC, an Arabian Tea House courtyard hour in Al Fahidi, a creek crossing by abra at dusk, dinner at Trèsind Studio, late drinks on a rooftop with the Burj lit up. The Metro Red Line runs driverless straight from DXB into the skyline for AED 8.50; the Green Line crosses to the old city; the abras still cost one dirham each way. November through March is the prime window, and June through September is the warning — the heat in summer is genuinely brutal at 40-45°C and the outdoors stops working for three months. Downtown sits a single Metro stop from DIFC; DIFC sits a fifteen-minute drive from Alserkal; Al Fahidi sits an abra crossing from Deira's souks; the Marina sits a tram ride from the JBR beachfront — six neighbourhoods and the Metro, Tram and abras binding two Dubais together inside one city.

Antipode's interactive Dubai travel guide is built around that idea — walk both Dubais, the new one and the older one, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Explore Dubai by neighbourhood, from Downtown's contemporary architecture with Adrian Smith and SOM's Burj Khalifa and Killa Design's Museum of the Future to DIFC's Foster Gate Building and gallery floor, Alserkal Avenue's converted warehouse art district in Al Quoz, the preserved 19th-century wind-tower lanes of Al Fahidi, the gold and spice and perfume souks of Deira across Dubai Creek, and Jumeirah's Burj Al Arab and Madinat Jumeirah resort strip. Choose between the Metro Red Line that connects DXB directly to the skyline for AED 8.50 (the local-knowledge alternative resort tourists miss) and a taxi or rideshare for the AED 80-120 direct comfort run. Visualise the four transit modes that matter — Red Line through the spine, Green Line across the creek to the old city, Dubai Tram along Marina and JBR, and the wooden abras still crossing the creek for one dirham, the city's oldest transit. Follow curated routes through a Skyline Dubai contemporary architecture day with the Burj Khalifa, the Museum of the Future, DIFC and the Dubai Opera; an Old Dubai creek route through Al Fahidi and the Deira souks by abra; an Alserkal Avenue design route most guides skip; and a Dubai night from DIFC dinner to Cē LA VI rooftop to late at the Marina — from the brutal summer when locals leave the country to the prime winter, with Ramadan often falling in spring and shifting the city's rhythm. Tap any neighbourhood, station or season and the city moves with you — built for design-led travellers, returning Emiratis and anyone planning a first trip to the Gulf.