UAE Blogposts
Travelling Safely in the Arabian Peninsula: James & Emily’s Family Adventure
From Nervous to Inspired — What James & Emily Experienced in the Arabian Peninsula After weeks of planning, reassurances, and Zoom calls, the moment finally arrived: James and Emily touched down in Oman, ready for their first family adventure there. They stepped...
How Safe Is the Arabian Peninsula? Myth-Busting With a Travel Expert
How James & Emily Found The Desert Diva - and What They Learned About Travelling Safely in the Arabian Peninsula When James and Emily first considered travelling to Oman or the UAE, they didn’t know anyone who had actually been. They’d spent days going round in...
Is the Arabian Peninsula Safe? A Traveller’s First-Time Concerns Explained
Is the Arabian Peninsula Really Safe? What My Clients Thought After fifteen years of living across Oman, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, the question I still hear most often is:“Is the Arabian Peninsula safe for travellers?” And the honest answer is yes - neighbourhood...
??The Desert Diva’s Guide to Al Dhafra Festival 2022
It's the Al Dhafra Camel Festival 2022! Usually in late December, this year it has been moved to late January - so who wants to go? ***very important! Negative PCR result less than 96 hours old required to enter souq and arena. This may change to 48 hours with little...
**1001 Xpedition Arabia Nights
This blogpost has been moved - if the redirect does not work, then you can find it here - https://arabiancitiesandsands.com/1001-xpedition-arabia-nights/
!!My Favourite Abandoned Water Tanker: 2020 Update
I've been visiting THE tanker for 8 years - and how it has changed/deteriorated in that time! It was lying in the desert for many years before that however, here's a screen grab from google earth 2001 (the first survey of the...
HH Sheikh Sultan Bin Zayed Camel Festival – Sweihan – 20 Jan-2 Feb 2019
It's that time of the year again folks! A fantastic camel festival only an hour's drive from Abu Dhabi and Dubai, even less from Al Ain! This is your chance to discover more about the ship of the desert and its revered place in Emirati culture and...
The Desert Diva’s Guide To The Al Dhafra Festival
[pdf-embedder url="https://thedesertdiva.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/DD-guide-to-al-dhafra-1.pdf" title="DD guide to al dhafra"] Download the full guide here Location pin here Previous posts about camel festival here, here, here, and here
!!Abu Dhabi Desert: A Very Special Trip: Report
My Very Special Trip - Abu Dhabi Desert Guide I am often blessed with the opportunity to lead so many wonderful people through the deserts of Abu Dhabi. Early in the season, in fact, during the rather warm first weekend of October 2017, I was tasked with taking...
The Diva Returns to the UAE!
If you follow the Desert Diva on social media you might already have heard that after a year away in Oman, Marina has returned to the UAE – at least until Spring 2018! Oman didn’t work out for a number of reasons; we had not planned on renewing our UAE Freezone...
Passports and Paperclips
As a European with visa free access across 28 countries I used to find it strange to have to stamp out of one country and into another when visiting Oman from the UAE; I have done it so often now it has become second nature and my passport is full of Oman visa stamps...
Journey to the South Western Corner of The UAE
Mike Nott, author of Advanced Off-Road Adventure Routes UAE & Oman, kindly included a couple of routes of mine in the second edition of the book. Here is the story of the original recce trip for one of them which was originally printed in OutdoorUAE magazine back...