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The UAE looks nothing like Dubai once you leave the city. Here are 10 road trips worth hiring a car for, with drive times and top tips.
Here’s the thing about Dubai that took me embarrassingly long to work out. Everything most people see of the UAE sits within about 15 minutes of a metro station. The malls, the beach clubs, the observation decks, the brunch. It’s all genuinely good, and it’s all completely misleading, because it tells you almost nothing about what this country actually looks like. I bet you about 90% of people have been to Dubai have never made it beyond the city itself. And I think that’s such a shame, because the UAE is stunning.
Get an hour outside the city and the whole thing changes. There are mountains out there – proper ones, with switchback roads and cold air at the top. There are wadis with water in them. There’s coastline on the east side that looks nothing like the Gulf, and desert that goes on for so long it starts warping your brain.
None of it is reachable by public transport. Not one of the 10 places below. Which is why sorting out a large SUV rental in Dubai is really the decision that determines what kind of trip you have, rather than a boring admin task you do at the airport.
In this article I’m going to show you some of the best road trips from Dubai. Some are easy half day outings, like the lakes out at Al Qudra or the mountain roads up to Hatta. Others, like the drive out to Liwa Oasis or the ferry across to Sir Bani Yas, are worth building a whole weekend around. All of them show you a side of the UAE you’ll never see from the city.
So here are 10 places worth driving to, roughly in order of how far you’ll have to go.
Before you book the car
I’d read this bit even if you’re an experienced driver, because there are a couple of UAE-specific things that catch people out.
Your UK licence is fine: If you’re on a tourist visa with a UK photocard licence, you can hire a car and drive across all seven emirates without an International Driving Permit. The UAE recognises licences from more than thirty countries including the UK, US, Canada, Australia and most of Europe.
Off-road driving voids your insurance: This is the big one and almost nobody mentions it. Standard UAE rental insurance excludes off-road driving – sand, gravel tracks, wadis, beaches, unmarked desert routes. Not “excludes it if you crash”. Excludes it full stop. Undercarriage damage and tyres are usually carved out too, even on the zero-excess policies.
Which matters here, because three or four of the places on this list involve leaving tarmac. Some rental companies will sell you an off-road add-on. Ask before you drive, not after, and if the answer is no, park where the tarmac ends and walk.
The other practical bits: Fuel is cheap by British standards, so the distances below aren’t as punishing on the wallet as they look on the map. Salik is Dubai’s automatic toll system – the gantries charge your car as you pass under and the rental company bills you afterwards, usually at cost. Same for any speeding fines, which are enforced properly, so don’t.
Which drive should you do?
If you’re short on time, this is the shortcut.
| Place | Drive | Best for | Need clearance? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Al Qudra Lakes | 40 min | Easy first outing, picnics, cycling | No |
| Fossil Rock | 1 hr | Sandboarding, short scramble | Yes |
| Wadi Shawka | 1 hr | Rock pools, hiking | Yes |
| Hatta | 1h30 | Kayaking, mountain biking, all-rounder | No |
| Khor Fakkan | 1h45 | Beach, clear water, harbour life | No |
| Snoopy Island | 1h45 | Snorkelling, turtles | No |
| Jebel Jais | 2 hrs | Zipline, via ferrata, the drive itself | No |
| Jebel Hafeet | 2 hrs | Best driving road, sunset, history | No |
| Liwa Oasis | 3h30 | Dunes, camping, stargazing | Overnight |
| Sir Bani Yas | 3h30 + ferry | Wildlife, overnight trip | Overnight |
If you’ve only got one free day, make it Hatta. If you’ve got two, add Jebel Jais. If you’ve got a week and you like driving, do the whole east coast loop – Khor Fakkan, Snoopy Island and Jebel Jais fit together neatly over two or three days.
Al Qudra Lakes
45 km from Dubai | around 40 minutes
The easiest one on the list, and a good first outing if you want to see what’s out there without committing to a full day. From the road it looks like more desert, and then a lake appears – flat, blue, and completely at odds with everything around it. It’s man-made, part of the Al Marmoom Desert Conservation Reserve, and it’s become a proper wildlife spot. Flamingos, gazelles, oryx and well over a hundred bird species.
There’s no gate, no ticket, no one telling you where to park. You pull off and walk down. It’s free, it’s open year-round, and despite what you’ll read elsewhere you don’t need a 4×4 – the access road is paved. An 86 km cycling track loops the lakes if you’re that way inclined, though most people I’ve seen out there are doing nothing more strenuous than unpacking a picnic blanket.
Go early morning or late afternoon. There’s no shade and no street lighting on the way back, so don’t leave it too late.
Fossil Rock
70 km from Dubai | around 1 hour
Officially it’s Jebel Maleihah. Nobody calls it that. It’s Fossil Rock, because the rock face is scattered with shell imprints from when this entire area sat under an ocean. The climb is steeper than it looks in photos, and the last section turns into more of a scramble across loose sand than a walk. Sandboarding back down is considerably easier and, if I’m honest, the better half of the deal.
You’ll see dune buggies tearing about nearby, which tells you what the terrain is like. If you’re planning to get anywhere near the base you want proper ground clearance and, more importantly, you want to know exactly where your insurance stops covering you.
Wadi Shawka
92 km from Dubai | around 1 hour
Rock pools carved into a wadi in the Hajar Mountains, with cold mountain water that’s a genuine relief after the drive in. One honest caveat, because I’d rather you hear it here than find out at the end of a 90-minute drive: the pools are seasonal. After rain they’re brilliant. In a dry spell they can be low or gone entirely. Have a look for recent photos before you commit the day.
The route in is fine until it isn’t. The last stretch off the main road turns to dirt track and gets rough well before the parking area, so you’ll want to hire a vehicle with real clearance rather than something built for Sheikh Zayed Road. Plenty of people park at the tarmac and walk the rest, which is the sensible move if you’re in a standard hire car. Pack water shoes. The rocks around the pools are far slicker than they look.
Hatta
115 km from Dubai | around 1h30
Hatta is the one I’d send a first-timer to. It’s a Dubai enclave tucked into the mountains near the Omani border, and it does a lot of things well at once. Kayaking on Hatta Dam is the headline. The water is an improbable turquoise against completely dry mountains, and it photographs so well that people assume the colour has been pushed. It hasn’t. Book the kayak slot ahead in cooler months, because it goes.
There’s also a decent network of mountain bike trails, a heritage village, and enough hiking to fill a second day if you stay over. Honestly, the drive up through the Hajar Mountains is half the reason to go. If you’re only going to use a car rental service in the UAE for one leg of your trip, make it this one – the switchbacks are the experience, not the commute to it.
Khor Fakkan
135 km from Dubai | around 1h45
Cross to the east coast and the country changes completely. This is the Gulf of Oman rather than the Arabian Gulf, and the water is startlingly clear – you can stand on the harbour wall and see the bottom. What makes Khor Fakkan different from the resort strips further south is that the mountains come straight down to the shoreline. No gradual flattening out, no dunes. Rock, then sea.
It’s still a working harbour too. Fishing boats, nets, the lot. Stay until the light goes and watch them come back in.
Jebel Jais
170 km from Dubai | around 2 hours
The highest peak in the UAE, and the one place in this country where you will genuinely want a jacket. It gets properly cold at the top – a strange thing to write about somewhere you associate with sweating through a shirt by nine in the morning.
The zipline is the famous one, and it’s the world’s longest. But the via ferrata route is the better experience if you’ve got the head for it: clipped into the rock face with the whole Hajar range dropping away underneath you.
If you’d rather keep both feet on the ground, the road itself is worth the drive and there are viewing platforms and marked hiking trails near the summit. The views only improve with altitude, so keep going. Wear actual shoes. I’ve seen enough photos of people attempting this in sandals to know it needs saying.
Snoopy Island
Around 140 km from Dubai | around 1h45
It’s a rock off the coast near Al Aqah in Fujairah, and yes, from the right angle it genuinely does look like a sleeping cartoon dog. It takes most people a minute of squinting. The reason to come is the snorkelling. The coral sits much closer to the surface than you’d expect, so you don’t need to be a strong swimmer to see anything, and turtles are common. You can hire gear from the hotel next door rather than dragging your own out from the UK.
This is one to rent a car for specifically, because the coastal road just before Fujairah is its own reward – cliffs on one side, open water on the other.
Jebel Hafeet
150 km from Dubai | around 2 hours
Sixty hairpin turns in 11.7 kilometres, climbing a mountain on the Omani border above Al Ain. It’s regularly called one of the best driving roads in the world and for once that isn’t marketing – it’s a beautifully engineered piece of tarmac that switchbacks all the way to a car park at the summit.
Two things worth knowing. First, the Bronze Age tombs near the base are easy to drive straight past, and some of them are approaching 5,000 years old. Worth the stop. Second, go up for sunset. You get Oman on one side and Al Ain lighting up on the other, and it’s the single best hour of driving anywhere near Dubai. Take it steady on the way back down. It’s a long descent and brakes get hot.
Liwa Oasis
340 km from Dubai | around 3h30
This is the one that takes commitment, and the one that changes how you think about the place. Liwa sits on the edge of the Empty Quarter, and the drive gets genuinely strange once the road narrows to dunes on both sides. Moreeb Dune is one of the tallest in the world and you’ll see it long before you reach it.
People camp out here for the sky. With no light pollution for a hundred miles in any direction, it’s the kind of night sky most of us haven’t seen since childhood.
A firm word of warning though: this is not a place to take a hire car off the tarmac. Soft sand will bury a vehicle overnight, standard rental insurance won’t touch the recovery, and mobile signal is patchy. Stay on the road, park on solid ground, and if you want to get out into the dunes properly, book a guided trip with an operator who’s insured for it.
Sir Bani Yas Island
350 km to Jebel Dhanna, plus a 30-minute ferry | around 3h30 driving
A long drive west, then a ferry, and then there are giraffes. Not a zoo. The Arabian Wildlife Park covers a large chunk of the island and the animals are free-roaming – giraffe, cheetah, oryx, hyena. It’s the most unexpected thing in the UAE and it’s the reason people make the trip.
Worth understanding the logistics before you set off: you drive to the jetty at Jebel Dhanna and leave the car there. No hire vehicles go across. Everything on the island runs on foot or on the resort’s own transport, and the wildlife drives are booked separately. Given the distance, this works far better as an overnight than a day trip.
