Why Dubai Doesn’t Excite Me?

I promise you, this is a travel focused blog and nothing else. I have a lot of friends who get excited by the mention of Dubai. And why shouldn’t they? It’s a booming city, an architectural delight for some, and a party hub for others. Big budget Hollywood movies are shot there and a lot of celebrities often frequent Dubai as a destination. But for me, somehow the magic just isn’t there.

I have previously written a blog on all the things you can do when visiting Dubai, and you can read that here. So, I will try and not focus this blog on that as much as possible. I went to Dubai in 2014, it was my first time there. But of course, it wasn’t my first time to the Middle East, having lived in Oman for 10 years. Speaking of, when I lived in Muscat, I used to fantasize about going to Dubai, mostly because going there for a holiday was never an option. But that soon faded away with the growing years. I didn’t really care about it as much.

When the opportunity to go to Dubai presented itself, I just wasn’t excited about it. Not that I wouldn’t go, just that I wasn’t excited about it. It didn’t feel like a holiday destination to me. Perhaps, because I lived in the Middle East for 10 years? Landing in Dubai and making our way to the hotel, getting a glimpse of the Burj Khalifa along the way, I couldn’t see anything glamorous. After spending a few hours in the city, what I could see, were numerous construction grounds left barren. You could see that work had been started but now left untouched as if a soul was never there. We got on to the train and made an honest mistake of getting on the wrong carriage, all we got was a threat that next time there would be severe consequences. Now, I may be wrong, but if tourists are coming to your country and ultimately adding to your economy, wouldn’t you want to explain things more politely rather than create a scene? Surely, locals wouldn’t make the mistake that we did.

I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to Dubai. There’s no point saying it will never happen, because you don’t know where your life takes you but for the most part I wouldn’t want to go back to Dubai. The charm that some people see in what they think visiting Dubai would be like just does not exist for me. I do hope that this feeling that I have is towards Dubai only as I’d love to explore the Middle East more in the years to come.

Is there a destination that you’ve been to, that you just can’t get excited for? Leave them in the comments below!

Until next time,

MiliG