dubai, abu dhabi
& doha.

Dubai was the place I was probably the most curious about before the trip.

You see it everywhere.

The Burj Khalifa, Dubai Mall, luxury hotels, rooftop pools, futuristic buildings, desert safaris and the kind of places that seem designed to look impressive in photos.

And impressive it definitely is.

Standing underneath the Burj Khalifa for the first time is one of those moments where you cannot really understand how tall something is until you are actually there. We explored Downtown, Dubai Mall, City Walk, the Palm, Madinat Jumeirah, JBR and Bluewaters, spent time in Old Dubai, went on a desert safari, visited the ARTE Museum and even experienced the opening of Global Village.

So I am genuinely glad I went.

But Dubai was also the city I connected with the least.

A lot of it felt very constructed to me.

Everything is huge, polished and impressive, but sometimes almost too perfect.

There were moments when I felt like I was walking through a city that had been designed around attractions rather than one that had naturally grown into what it is.

That is obviously part of what makes Dubai Dubai, and I completely understand why so many people love it.

It just was not entirely for me.

I think I missed a little bit of character.

The moments I enjoyed most were often the ones where Dubai felt less like the Dubai you see online.

Taking an abra across the creek.

Walking through the older parts of the city.

Seeing the souks.

Being somewhere that felt slightly less polished and a little more lived in.

The other thing that surprised me was how expensive everything could become.

Not only hotels or restaurants, but simply doing things.

So many attractions have an entrance fee, and once you add a few activities together, the cost of a day can climb very quickly.

Getting around was not always as easy as I expected either.

There is a metro, and we used it when it made sense, but Dubai is so spread out that quite often we ended up taking taxis anyway.

Sometimes something looked close on a map and then turned out to be anything but convenient to reach.

And that became a bit of a theme throughout the UAE part of the trip: Google Maps was helpful, but definitely not something I would trust blindly for every walking route or entrance.

Would I recommend seeing Dubai once?

Absolutely.

Would I personally rush back?

Probably not.

I am glad I experienced it, and there were definitely moments I loved, but I think one visit was enough for me.

Abu Dhabi surprised me in a different way.

It felt calmer.

Less dense.

And somehow a little more connected to the image I had in my head of the Emirates before visiting.

There are still modern buildings, luxury hotels and enormous developments, of course, but the city did not feel as dominated by skyscrapers as Dubai did.

There was more space.

And, for me, more of an Arab and Emirati atmosphere.

The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque was easily one of the most memorable places of the entire trip.

It is one of those buildings where photographs can show you what it looks like but cannot completely capture what it feels like to stand there.

The scale, the white marble, the details, the light.

It was beautiful in a very different way from Dubai's skyline.

We also visited Qasr Al Watan and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, two completely different places that somehow both fit Abu Dhabi really well.

One feels grand and ceremonial, the other modern and architectural.

And I liked that contrast.

Abu Dhabi simply felt a little easier to take in.

There was less of that constant feeling that another attraction, another tower or another mall was competing for your attention.

I would not say it completely changed my life or that I suddenly wanted to move there, but between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi was definitely more my kind of city.

Then came Doha.

And somehow, Doha ended up being my favourite of the three.

I did not expect that.

Compared with Dubai, I had seen much less of Doha online before going, so maybe that helped. I arrived with fewer expectations.

But almost immediately, it felt different.

There was the modern side of the city, but it existed alongside places that felt much more connected to the region.

Souq Waqif was probably one of my favourite areas.

You could walk through small streets, shops and restaurants and actually feel like there was something happening around you that was not purely built around skyscrapers and luxury.

Then there was Katara Cultural Village, which almost confused us at first because everything looked so perfectly arranged that we genuinely wondered whether it was some kind of film set.

It was one of those places that looked almost too carefully designed to be real.

But that was also part of what made it interesting.

Doha felt very visitor-friendly without making me feel like I was constantly being asked to buy another ticket.

There were public spaces where you could simply walk around, look at things and spend time.

And getting around was probably the easiest of the three cities.

The metro was clean, simple to understand and actually useful for many of the places we wanted to visit.

After relying on taxis much more than expected in the UAE, that was honestly refreshing.

We explored the Corniche, the dhow harbour, Souq Waqif, Msheireb, Mina District and different parts of the city, and it felt like we could move between the modern and older-looking parts of Doha quite naturally.

And then there were the malls.

So. Many. Malls.

I knew malls were a big thing in the Gulf, but nothing prepared me for how many of them there were.

And these are not exactly the kind of malls where you quickly go inside because you need one thing.

They are entire worlds.

Restaurants, cafés, luxury stores, entertainment, elaborate interiors and sometimes architecture that makes you forget you are technically in a shopping centre.

By the end of the trip, I think we had accepted that visiting malls was basically part of experiencing the region.

Before this trip, I think I mentally grouped Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha together much more than I do now.

From far away, it is easy to reduce them to similar images.

Skyscrapers.

Luxury.

Heat.

Malls.

Modern architecture.

But being there made the differences much more obvious.

Dubai felt the most spectacular, but also the most artificial to me.

Abu Dhabi felt calmer and more distinctly Emirati.

And Doha somehow found the balance I enjoyed most: modern and polished, but still with enough character that I felt curious about what was around the next corner.

That does not mean one city is objectively better than another.

Someone else could easily visit the exact same places and come home saying Dubai was their favourite.

That is probably one of the things I like most about travelling.

A place can be beautiful, famous and incredibly impressive and still not completely be your place.

And another city you barely thought about beforehand can unexpectedly become the one you miss most.

I probably do not need another Dubai trip anytime soon.

Abu Dhabi, I would happily see again.

And Doha?

Doha is the one I would actually like to return to.