There’s no need to avoid this stopover – here’s why

There’s a popular notion among a certain set of travellers that Dubai sucks.

Blame the late author AA Gill, who wrote an infamously scathing travel story for Vanity Fair in 2011, saying of the emirate: “Dubai is Las Vegas without the showgirls, the gambling or Elvis. Dubai is financial Disneyland without the fun. It’s a holiday resort with the worst climate in the world. If you ever wondered what money would look like if it were left to its own devices, it’s Dubai.”

Ouch. Though, unusually for someone with the intellectual rigour of AA Gill, his story has some major holes. This summary of Dubai skips huge sections of the city-state and the experiences it offers, leaving readers thinking they know the place already, and exactly what they’ll find.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy for many travellers too, who visit Dubai primed to discover all those things they don’t like, all those elements that make Gill seem correct. Or they don’t visit at all.

But they, like the British author, don’t have a clue.

If you don’t like Dubai, you’re doing it wrong. Trust that this is coming from a person who also despises all those things that Gill despised, who hates the fakery of the opulent and the gaudiness of pure money.

There’s much I don’t enjoy about Dubai. The fact you can’t walk anywhere, that the city has been designed entirely for cars, and that even in the few places where you can stroll from one shop or restaurant or attraction to another it’s often so incredibly hot that you just don’t want to do it.

I like to get to know cities by wandering around them. You can’t do that in Dubai.

I don’t enjoy manufactured cities, perfectly planned cities, where everything seems like a show or a demonstration instead of something that just organically exists. Dubai can seem like that, given it has shot up so fast.

Emirati culture can also feel difficult to access here in the only place it exists: you have to visit dedicated venues or attractions rather than just experience it, and even then, you’re left wondering if it’s the real thing.

This emirate allows visitors access not just to a country but an entire region.

But still, I really like Dubai. And this isn’t some sponsored post from the tourism board. This is genuine affection.

If you don’t like Dubai, you’re probably going to the wrong places, the places tourists are expected to go because that’s what people think you’re going to like and that’s what has been built to cater to you. But if you don’t like all the shiny finery, the celebrity chefs and the world-record-breaking whatevers, you don’t have to do that.

People say Dubai has no culture, but I’m here to tell you that Dubai is overflowing with culture. It might not be Emirati culture, but it’s culture all the same.

Explore the streets of Deira or Al Rigga, Al Karama or Al Satwa (preferably in the evening when the sun has disappeared) and you will find culture. You will find Lebanese, Iraqi, Persian, Indian, Pakistani, Nepalese, Palestinian and Filipino cultures and much more.

The migrants who have come to Dubai, the people who have built Dubai and who continue to make the city tick, have brought their cultures with them, and you can experience it, mostly through the magic of food, in these unfashionable though eminently enjoyable, organic neighbourhoods.

How often do you get to sample genuine Iraqi food? I visited Kabab Erbil Iraqi Restaurant in Al Rigga recently and it was a thoroughly charming, delicious experience. You haven’t even ordered at Kabab Erbil and food starts piling up on your table: flatbread, dips, soups, salads. Then you decide what you want and these huge plates of grilled meats arrive, with more flatbread, and rice, and smiling Iraqi hospitality.

And you can repeat that experience across a broad range of cultures and cuisines in Dubai. This emirate allows visitors access not just to a country but an entire region, to nations you may never visit given the current political climate, and yet can get to know via its recent migrants. I love that.

Though maybe you’re not into food, which is fine. You can shop in the old gold souk in Dubai or the spice market instead of the Giorgio Armani store in Dubai Mall. You can take the kids on giant waterslides or go skiing or go scuba diving. You can dune-bash on a desert safari or view works by Middle Eastern artists at a gallery.

All this, and you probably only have two days to spend. Those 48 hours will fly by.

Rereading that AA Gill story now, I was struck by one paragraph in particular: “Dubai thought it was going to grow up to be the Arab Singapore – a commercial, banking and insurance-service port on the Gulf with hospitality and footballers’ time-shares, an oasis of R&R for the less well endowed. But it hasn’t quite worked out.”

That was written in 2011. Since then, of course, it has worked out. And that’s still not the reason to visit.