Seeing the spectacular sights of Dubai
Summary
Dubai gets a slightly bad reputation for being a bit fake, manufactured, crude etc. The thing is, it is all of these things, yet it is exactly because it has gone so far toward the non-authentic end of the spectrum that makes it such a fascinating place to visit. I’ve enjoyed Dubai each of the 3 times I’ve visited – loved the fountain performance of the world’s tallest building the Burj Khalifa, sitting on the beach by the world’s only 8 star hotel the Burj Al Arab drinking cocktails, seeing the giant aquarium in the world’s largest mall in the Mall of the World, taking a boat over to the Dubai Old Town and would have LOVED to experience the skiing! But I’ve visited mainly for work or in a time before we had the simplicity of taking photos on the phone. For these reasons, I don’t think I can really do the place anywhere near the justice it deserves by writing a full review, so haven’t shared photos and tips. Instead, I’ve given it a score based on how I found it – can’t miss out on such an obvious global city stop in the ratings
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Futuristic City Experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone