The United Arab Emirates is seven emirates organized around a federation that came into being in 1971, and the experience of visiting them is an encounter with one of the most deliberate national projects of the 20th and 21st centuries. Each emirate makes a different argument.
Dubai asks how far human ambition can be taken in a short time with sufficient capital. Abu Dhabi asks what that ambition looks like when it engages seriously with culture: the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the Guggenheim rising on Saadiyat Island. Sharjah, adjacent to Dubai and deliberately its counterpoint, has organized itself around Islamic scholarship and conservation. Al Ain preserves an ancient oasis civilization intact. Fujairah faces the Indian Ocean with a rocky coast and some of the Gulf region's best diving. Ras Al Khaimah offers the Hajar Mountains, the oldest geology in the Arabian Peninsula, and an emirate that takes its history seriously. This guide covers all six with the detail each deserves.
Request the complete guide. Reading time ~15 minutes.