Adventure in Dubai: An Exciting Guide for Adventurous Travelers

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Are you ready for an adventure in Dubai? You could be exploring the wild deserts and mountains of UAE!

The United Arab Emirates boasts a thrilling playground for adventure enthusiasts, with Dubai offering a perfect gateway to explore the stunning landscapes of the Arabian Gulf.

Whether you want to ride dune buggies, surf on sand, or skydive over the Palm Jumeirah, there’s no shortage of exciting things to do in Dubai.

Read the article below to learn about your best options. We’ve compiled a list of the top adventures you can experience in this vibrant city!

CONTENTS – In this article, you will learn some exciting insights about planning an adventure in Dubai, including:

Dubai Guide to Adventure
Sand Boarding in Dubai
Dubai Indoor Skiing
Sky Dive in Dubai
Dubai Rock Climbing
Diving in Dubai
Dubai Dune Bashing
Surfing in Dubai
Final Thoughts on Adventure in Dubai
Next Steps

Dubai: An Exciting Guide for the Adventurous Traveler

The United Arab Emirates, located in the Arabian Gulf, offers visitor’s abundant adventures in its wild desert southwest region and the mountainous northern peninsula.

That makes it perfect for a Dubai desert safari. This is an amazing adventure you can expect to enjoy with your family!

The great thing about it is that the famous adventures are within a short drive from the shiny modern city of Dubai.

The Dubai desert is a popular tourist destination offering a wide range of activities, with one of the major exciting highlights being the dune buggy rental in Dubai.

You’ll discover a lot of unexpected adventures in Dubai, more than you might have considered.

Some of the most popular activities to watch out for include:

Sand surfing
Rock climbing
Jumping out of the sky
Cruising around the dunes

Dubai has every adventure for hot weather, from sand boarding and scuba diving to rock climbing and surfing, all within an hour’s drive. And even a few cold-weather opportunities, believe it or not!

Below are some of the thrilling activities for you to explore if you’re looking for adventure in Dubai.

Sand Boarding

Sand boarding is popular in any place where there are large piles of sand. So it should come as no surprise that it is Dubai’s most popular desert sport.

Flying down massive dunes on waxed boards is the next big thing to climbing the dunes.

Some of the best dunes (ranging from 600 to 800 feet high) are just a short drive outside the city in the Rub al Khali Desert.

This makes it an ideal day trip.

You can use snowboard boots and bindings to go sandboarding. And a snowboard also works as a sandboard, but many outfitters prefer stiffer sandboards designed for the sport.

Sandboards also have simple strap bindings, which are easier to get in and out of.

If you are not skilled in using the sandboard or feel like it’s too much work, you can consider sandboard sleds. These are waxed pieces of lightweight plywood that are a great option for beginners.

Indoor Skiing

Yup, you can ski in Dubai.

The Ski Dubai Snowpark, attached to the Mall of the Emirates, is a 5.5-acre park where you can trade the massive heat outside for a sub-freezing temp of 28 degrees F.

The snowpark is the largest indoor ski slope in the Middles East! It features five ski runs ranging from beginner to expert, 200 feet of elevation, and a quad chairlift.

The longest slope runs a quarter a mile. You can even try a 10-foot kicker jump in the terrain park and a slalom racing course.

If you’re a newbie, you can sign up for a ski school to learn how to ski or snowboard.

And if you are not into schussing, here are a few other cool activities you’ll enjoy at the park:

A sledding hill
Toboggan run
The Zipline
Penguin habitat

Sky Dive

Taste some adrenaline after unwinding on board your spacious-seated, gourmet food serving Emirates flight. The most convenient urban skydiving jump is offered in Dubai.

First-time jumpers can book a tandem jump that takes them up to 8,000 feet from an airport on the water next to the Palm Islands.

From that height, you and your pilot fall free over the city at a speed of 120mph until the chute is deployed, and you both float back to earth and land on a vast field of grass next to where you took off.

Sky Dive Dubai helps with tandem jump booking.

If you want more thrills or are experienced enough, you can head less than an hour into the empty desert for another airfield, dropzone, and try wingsuits.

As the name implies, wingsuits enable skydivers to cover miles and miles of horizontal terrain as they fall back to the ground.

You can get right back in the air after you a light your Emirates flight without a B777 or A380 plane. Flyboarding, first developed in 2011, uses the thrust of a jet ski to propel a board into the air or through the water.

Flyboarding may seem extreme, but it’s actually easy to do and learn. Within a short time, you will be whizzing around like Iron Man!

To flyboard, you need to strap your feet into a board with two water jets on the bottom side. A long hose runs from the board and connects to a jet ski. So, when the operator opens the throttle, the water shoots through the hose and contributes to the thrust.

You can porpoise through the water, do backflips, and float 30-35 feet off the water if you practice more, learn how to balance, and have confidence.

It sounds thrilling, considering the calm, clean, hot-tub-warm waters of the bay surrounding Dubai. You get to cruise along the coastline in the shadow of the towering skyscrapers of this gleaming city.

Rock Climbing

UAE’s first via ferrata opened in the soaring Al Hajar Mountains, which is about an hour northeast of Dubai this winter. Via Ferrata means “iron path” in Italian.

Climbing through the rocky cliff faces of Jebel Jais, which is the country’s tallest peak at 6,266 feet, you will employs a combination of fixed ladders, carved steps, and safety cables along the traverse.

This combination enables climbers of all ages and abilities to safely adventure by climbing a sheer rock face that tops out at almost 400 feet off the canyon floor.

The half-mile-long trail also includes three zip-line segments. On the last one, you will experience a 328-yard-long steep descent to the bottom of the canyon.

The viafFerrata is the first step in a longer-term plan to make the Hajar mountains a place where mountain bikers, campers, and thrill-seekers can go all year long for a little bit of excitement while taking a break.

This project will take several years to finish. Between the sea and the mountains in the country, you will notice up to a 50 degree difference in the temperature!

By the end of 2017, the plan is to install a zipline here. It will be the world’s longest zipline, with the current record-holder in Puerto Rico being nearly 1.5 miles.

Diving

The leading dive sites in the Arabian Gulf are located along the 50 miles of coastline of the UAE’s eastern coast.

For the first timers, the ideal place is Sharm Rock. It has a depth of 40 feet, and you’ll find it off the resort village of Al Fujairah.

The rock is a habitat for:

Anemones
Clownfish
Parrotfish
Pufferfish
Reef sharks

Dive into the beautiful waters surrounding Martini Rock, part of a protected marine park.

The waters here are home to:

Soft pink coral
Lionfish
Eels
Scorpionfish
Sea turtles
Barracuda

For wreck diving, the MV Dara is perfect. It sunk in 66 feet of water in 1961 after exploding off the coast of Dubai.

The sunken vessel has since become home to:

Eagle rays
Barracuda
Guitar sharks

Given these diverse and rich dive sites, it’s easy to see why Dubai is ideal for anyone who wants to dive!

Dune Bashing

Just as the name insinuates, dune bashing involves ripping up, over, and down the sand dunes at speed with a Toyota Land Cruiser into 4WD. The activity is just a 45-minute drive into the desert sand-dunes country.

You’ll need a professional driver, as the ride has more in common with a roller-coaster than a leisure drive.

But if you want to drive by yourself, join a dine-buggy safari into UAE’s Empty Quarter.

Then, you will have a driving partner, and you will both captain a side-by-side ATV (All-Terrain Vehicle) to explore the sand dunes.

Your guide will lead you through the empty landscape as you climb a 500-foot dune!

Surfing

Dubai has a few surfable beaches that are home to a young, exciting, and international surf scene.

The most popular surfing beach is Sunset Beach.

Due to the absence of artificial islands interfering with the waves, the emirates of Ajman and Sharjah, located directly north of Dubai, have consistent breaks.

Go to Surf House Dubai on Jumeirah shore Road, two blocks from the shore, to get the surfing vibe. This surf shop charges about AED 3,000 (about $980) per member and is full of men and women who love to surf and SUP in the Arabian Gulf.

Peak surfing months in Dubai are from October to April, when the unhurried and relaxed waves reach about 2 feet.

Final Thoughts on Adventure in Dubai

In conclusion, Dubai is a city that caters to every type of adventurer. Whether you’re a daredevil seeking a heart-pumping experience, or you’re looking for a more serene escape – you’ll find it in Dubai.

The contrast of the modern city and the natural wonders of the desert and mountains make Dubai a unique and exciting destination.

If it’s your first-time visiting or a seasoned traveler to Dubai, you’ll find the adventures in Dubai are endless. You’re sure to have an unforgettable experience exploring this vibrant and dynamic city.

In fact, you might even want to think about flying business class to make the experience even more amazing.

So pack your bags and get ready to embark on an adventure of a lifetime in Dubai!

Next Steps

For more about exciting adventures in Dubai, read the articles below, next:

Author Bio: Robeena Brown is a travel blogger & destination expert living in the UAE and works for local tourism companies like Arabiers. If you have been looking forward to touring Dubai, getting a visa, extending stays and exploring the city, you can follow her on social media.