The Ultimate Dubai Itinerary: 5 Days in the City of Gold

When my husband flew to Dubai for a work trip, I knew it was the ideal time to plan a Dubai itinerary 5 days long that we could enjoy together after his trip. And I have to say, I was blown away by how comfortable I felt while traveling through the UAE and I’m excited to share this with you! Let the Adventure in the City of Gold Begin: The Itinerary Did you know? Dubai is called the City of Gold because it’s risen from a sleepy seaside down to a rich, luxurious international hub in less than one generation. We definitely saw why and it was interesting to see the contrast in development between the other UAE Emirates and Dubai. Okay, now that we got that fun fact out of the way… Dubai itinerary time! I took a red-eye flight from Washington D.C., which had me landing at 9:00 A.M. local time. That said, day one was mostly unplanned because I had no idea how I would feel after the flight, and we didn’t know what my husband’s schedule would be. But unscheduled days can be the best ones! After dropping luggage off at the hotel, I went strolling around the city to get acquainted. If you’re unfamiliar with the area, Dubai is a sprawling city. You can walk around pretty easily, but I visited in March during the winter months, and it was already hot as hell. My #1 tip: Do not visit the UAE over the summer months unless you have a high heat tolerance. This New Englander was sweaty in the 90+ degree dry heat in March. Self-Led Walking Tour & Souks Since our hotel was near Old Dubai we walked there after lunch using this amazing walking tour itinerary. If you go to Old Dubai you cannot miss the gold souk. Gold for days! I couldn’t believe the sheer amount of gold jewelry and doo-dads. There were gold headpieces, kinky outfits, insane necklaces, you name it. Now the gold souk was insane, but the other souks confused my American mind. The souks all blended together into one large market. But, we walked by a spoon souk, carpet souk, and perfume souk. Do people go to the spoon souk to buy their spoons and then to the fork souk to find matching forks?? I still wonder about this. From the souk souk city (b!tch), we wandered over down the street to take the water taxi back across the street and find some lunch. We had a little trouble figuring out which water taxi route went where but we finally found a map. The rides were cheap at 1 or 2 AED per passenger, and it was a fun little adventure. It was also miserably hot around noon so walking back down around Dubai Creek was not ideal! Thank god for public transportation.