The beach patrol officer wasn’t aggressive about it. He was polite, even apologetic, in the way that made the whole thing more confusing rather than less. I was standing on JBR Beach in Dubai — one of the most tourist-packed stretches of sand in the UAE — in a swimsuit that I genuinely thought was … Read more
Understanding Dubai’s Dress Code I found a fare alert on a Thursday afternoon that made absolutely no sense to ignore. By Friday morning I had a ticket and no real plan — which turned out to be the best way to approach the whole thing. Dubai has this reputation for being glamorous and modern, but … Read more
I never took a gap year. I went straight from high school to college to a career, doing every sensible thing in the right order — and somewhere around 32 I realized I’d been meaning to see the world since I was 17. Dubai was one of the first places I actually stopped meaning to … Read more
After our youngest left for university, the house got very quiet very fast. My partner and I looked at each other over dinner one night and said, almost simultaneously, “So… where do you actually want to go?” We’d been living in Dubai for years, marveling at the skyline from our window, but somehow never truly … Read more
