Getting Around Dubai: Metro, Taxis, and When to Just Book a Car

Dubai is long. It runs roughly seventy kilometres along the coast, and the two things you most want to see — Downtown with the Burj Khalifa, and the Marina with the Palm — are about half an hour apart on a good day. Almost every visitor underestimates this and builds a plan that has them crossing the city three times.

The metro solves most of it. Two driverless lines, entirely air-conditioned, clean and punctual, and the Red Line runs the length of Sheikh Zayed Road connecting the airport, Downtown, the Marina and Expo City. If your plan sits along that spine, the metro is faster than a car at rush hour and costs a fraction.

You need a Nol card to use it — a rechargeable card sold at every station. One card can be shared by a group for buses and trams but not through metro gates, so buy one each.

What the metro does not reach: the Palm Jumeirah interior, most of Jumeirah's beach strip, and the desert. For those, take a taxi.

Taxis are metered, regulated, everywhere, and cheap compared with European or American cities. You can hail one on the street, pick one up at any mall or hotel rank, or book through the RTA app. Careem and Uber both operate; Careem is the local one and usually has more cars.

A cross-city trip that feels like it should be expensive — Downtown to the Marina, say — is usually reasonable outside peak hours. Rush hour on Sheikh Zayed Road is the exception, and it is severe: the same journey can double in time between five and seven in the evening.

From the airport, both terminals have a taxi rank and the metro's Red Line runs from Terminals 1 and 3. With luggage and a hotel far from a station, take the taxi.

One detail worth knowing: the pink-roofed taxis are driven by women and reserved for women and families. They are the same fare.

For anything outside the city — the desert, Abu Dhabi, the east coast at Fujairah — a booked vehicle with a driver is not a luxury, it is the only sensible option. Abu Dhabi is ninety minutes away; the east coast is two hours across the country. Taxis will do these trips but the meter makes them expensive and you have no vehicle waiting when you want to come back.

The same applies to any day with three or more stops in different districts. By the third taxi and the second wait, a car for the day has usually cost less and saved an hour.

Hiring and driving yourself is straightforward — the roads are excellent and well signposted — but the interchanges are large and unforgiving of a missed exit, and parking at the popular spots is genuinely difficult. For a short trip, most people are better off not driving.