Dubai Desert Safari: How to Choose One, and What the Cheap Ones Leave Out

The desert safari is the single most-booked thing in Dubai and the listings are almost indistinguishable from one another, which is exactly why people end up disappointed. The differences are real, they are just not in the headline.

The base of every safari is the same: a 4x4 collects you, the tyres are deflated at the edge of the Al Lahbab red dunes, and there is half an hour of dune driving. After that comes a camp with dinner and shows. What separates a thirty-dollar safari from a ninety-dollar one is the camp, the food and the crowd.

The cheap tier puts several hundred people in one camp with a single buffet line. The premium tier at somewhere like Al Khayma has separate buffets, seating away from the crush, and enough time that you are not eating and leaving.

Quad biking and dune buggies are almost never included in the headline price. They are add-ons chosen at the option stage, and that is where a cheap safari quietly becomes an expensive one.

Evening is what almost everyone books, and it is the right default: you get the dunes, the sunset, and a camp evening with dinner and shows.

Morning safaris are cooler and much quieter, with the sand ridged and untouched and far fewer vehicles about. They suit photographers and anyone travelling with small children, and they do not include the camp dinner.

Overnight is the one people underrate. Everybody else leaves the camp around ten o'clock; if you stay, the generators go quiet and the sky over the Al Lahbab dunes turns into something you cannot see anywhere near the city. You sleep in a tent and get sunrise over the dunes, which almost nobody sees.

If you have one evening in Dubai, take the standard evening safari. If you have a spare night, the overnight is a completely different trip for not much more money.

Dune bashing is deliberately rough — the driver takes the vehicle up and across dune faces at an angle and it is closer to a rollercoaster than to a drive. If anyone in your group is pregnant, has back or neck problems, or is prone to motion sickness, say so when booking. Every operator will take a gentler line on request and nobody is obliged to do the hard version. Saying it in advance is better than saying it halfway up a dune.

Bring a jacket. Between November and February the desert loses its heat the moment the sun goes down, the camps are open-sided, and people who arrived in shorts spend the last two hours cold and distracted.

Alcohol is generally not included and often not available at all at the camps.

And take the sunset seriously as a reason to be punctual: the light over red sand lasts about twenty minutes and a late pickup costs you the best part of the day.