The Best Places to Stay and Do in the United Arab Emirates

The wave-shaped tower has been a fixture on the Jumeirah coastline long enough that Dubai's skyline would look odd without it, and its best rooms frame the Burj Al Arab like a postcard you're actually sleeping inside. This beach resort runs from live-fire Mediterranean cooking on the sand all the way to a French brasserie on the 25th floor with panoramic windows pointed at that famous sail. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Golden columns in the lobby, and not in an ironic way. This sprawling Palm Jumeirah resort takes its Ottoman-inspired look seriously, delivering soaring interiors, a private beach, and over four hundred rooms where even the entry-level options come with a round-the-clock butler. Ten restaurants, a hammam, spa, and tennis courts mean you could theoretically never leave, which on a man-made island shaped like a palm tree is arguably the point.

Fifteen individually artist-designed rooms tucked into a 19th-century merchants' district that Dubai somehow forgot to demolish. XVA is a boutique hotel, gallery, and vegetarian café folded into one wind-towered building in Al Fahidi, where the alleyways are narrow enough that two people walking abreast is optimistic. Persian arches, palm motifs, and handcrafted textiles do the decorating; no alcohol, but the mint lemonade compensates more than it should.

The "infinity lagoon" is the tell: soft quartz sand, palm trees, and loungers arranged around a manmade private beach that opens onto Dubai Creek. This is a full luxury hotel, Park Hyatt's standard, which in Dubai means quiet and tasteful where the competition tends toward neither. Five low floors nod to classic Arab architecture, and the rooms, with their goose-down beds and generous bathrooms, make your home feel like a hostel.

Arabian oryx wander through camp after dark, which sets the tone for what kind of resort this is. Set inside the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve about an hour from the city, Al Maha is a tented Bedouin-style eco-resort where solar-heated water and endangered wildlife coexist with king beds and walk-in showers. Falconry, horseback riding, and desert drives fill the days. It holds a Michelin Key.

The only hotel sitting directly on Pearl Jumeira's waterfront, Nikki Beach Resort & Spa positions itself as a certain kind of fantasy: Gulf views from every private balcony, five places to eat and drink, beachside cabanas, and villas that come staffed with a round-the-clock host and a personal chef. The brand's motto is "tell only your best friends," which is doing a lot of work in a city where ultra-luxe is basically the baseline. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

A full-scale beach resort on a quiet stretch of Ras Al Khaimah coastline, about an hour from Dubai, where French Sofitel polish meets Gulf-facing infinity pool. Seven restaurants and bars cover the range from alfresco seafood to a patisserie doing afternoon tea, and a Clarins spa handles the rest. The design leans into Arabic heritage without overdoing it, and the rooms come with private balconies and sea views. Families get kids clubs and water sports; everyone else gets the beach.

Twenty standalone villas, each with a private pool, a cinema, an elevator, and a butler, which puts this Al Barsha property in a category where the word "hotel" barely applies. Dark hardwood floors, floor-to-ceiling glass, and terrace Jacuzzis give the interiors a cool, unhurried weight. Families on extended stays and executives who need a boardroom share the address without ever crossing paths.

Twenty-one rooms on a Colin Montgomerie golf course, surrounded by lakes and fairways, in a city where hotels typically have more floors than this one has guests. Address Montgomerie is a boutique resort that plays well above its size, with a full spa, three restaurants, and rooms styled with an unusual restraint for Dubai. Non-golfers settle in fine, but the floodlit par-3 course and coaching facilities are the real draw for those keeping score.

The hotel is a glass-tipped pyramid, which in Dubai reads as almost restrained. Raffles delivers the unashamedly classic luxury it's known for across its properties, with every room and suite opening onto a private terrace and panoramic views of the skyline. Services are comprehensive, the five-star comforts are exactly what they should be, and at the apex, the RED Lounge adds Chinese cuisine and cocktails with a view that the original pyramids never quite managed.

The building announces itself as an obelisk, which makes the interior's commitment to French art de vivre a very deliberate bait-and-switch. This Sofitel hotel in Wafi City wears creamy tones, dark wood, and Art Deco detailing throughout its rooms, with Dubai skyline views doing the heavy lifting from there. Brasserie Boulud anchors the dining mix, and the spa layers L'Occitane treatments and a hammam around an outdoor pool.

Hayat Island is man-made, which somehow makes the Jebel Jais mountains behind it and the Gulf water in front of it look more surreal, not less. This is a large beach resort, with 351 rooms, suites, and villas, a private beach, pools, a spa, and six restaurants and bars. Some villas come with private pools; all rooms get the ocean view. Ras Al Khaimah rewards the detour from Dubai, and this is the kind of place that gives you a reason to stay a few days and actually use it.

Two towers connected by an observation deck over Dubai Creek Harbour, which tells you immediately what kind of scale Emaar had in mind. This hotel goes full Dubai in the lobbies, with gold accents, statement chandeliers, and marbled everything, but the 233 rooms and suites pull back to something quieter. The harbor and skyline views from the middle deck are the real argument for choosing it over somewhere more central.

A hotel in Al Jadaf that treats restraint as a design philosophy, which in Dubai is roughly as rare as a quiet roundabout. The Architecture Studio building tempers its hard modernism with Art Deco warmth, and rooms run from the sensibly compact to the 50-square-meter Mega for those who feel the city deserves a response in kind. Rooftop pool, gym, and a restaurant that skips the gold leaf for clean eating. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Low-rise luxury in a city that treats altitude as a personality trait, Vida Creek Harbour is a hotel that keeps things unfussy while the towers of Dubai Creek Harbour crowd around it. Neutral tones, warm furniture, and arabesque detailing on the exterior and throughout the interiors give it a grounded feel. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels, and the skyline views do a lot of the heavy lifting.

The Liwa Desert is part of the Empty Quarter, the largest continuous sand desert on earth, and this Anantara resort sits squarely in the middle of it, about ninety minutes from Abu Dhabi. Standard rooms come with oversized soaking tubs and dune views; suites remind you, fairly forcefully, that you're in the Emirates. An infinity pool, a full spa, and rooms comfortable enough to disappear into for days round out the offer. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Rooms here face the Gulf of Oman, so you fall asleep to actual waves rather than a white-noise app. Palace Beach Resort Fujairah is a mid-size beachfront resort on the Fujairah coast, about an hour from Dubai, with a private beach, a pool, and a handful of restaurants keeping things self-contained. The interiors lean breezy and light-filled rather than grand, which suits the barefoot pace of the place better than marble columns would.

The tower leans. Not a little, either: Capital Gate tilts at an angle that makes the Leaning Tower of Pisa look timid, and Andaz has filled the interior with art, warm materials, and a 19th-floor pool deck rather than let the spectacle do all the work. It's a luxury boutique hotel, so expect Hyatt-level service alongside the gallery space and spa. The Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre is next door, the airport fifteen minutes away.

About twenty miles outside Dubai, where construction cranes give way to polo grounds, this resort sits in a pocket of genuine green. Villas come with private pools, the larger residences have nine-foot privacy walls, and the spa runs Kerstin Florian treatments. The polo angle is the real draw: riding lessons, matches, and tennis for when you've had enough of the ponies.

The W Abu Dhabi sits astride the Formula One racecourse on Yas Island, its glass-and-steel shell running a synchronized LED light show after dark that makes the building look like it's auditioning for something. This is a full-throttle luxury hotel: edgy, color-saturated rooms, suites that scale up to genuinely extravagant, a multi-cuisine flagship restaurant, and a wellness center with a lounge overlooking the track, in case you like your massages with a side of motorsport.

Seven restored manor houses form the bones of this 65-room luxury hotel in the heart of Sharjah's heritage district, stitched together with newer buildings in a way that feels less renovation project and more quiet reinvention. Rooms blend minimalist Asian calm with Arabic textiles and warm wood, and the spa runs separate wings for women and men with hammam rituals on the menu. Creek Harbour views back the Japanese and Korean restaurant next door.

A steel-and-glass structure by an Italian architect sits among reflecting pools in Ajman, the smallest and quietest of the Emirates. This beach resort lines villas along the shore, runs a long main pool through the property, and offers suites with vast bathrooms and open-air showers. One restaurant employs a fish sommelier, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your afternoon. Flamingos work the mangroves just beyond the property fence.

Five rooms, a saltwater pool, and a spa with no staff, just a sequence of spaces, a shower walk, an herbal sauna, a salt inhalation room, you moving through them at your own pace. This small desert retreat sits less than an hour east of Dubai, where Bedouin form meets precise modernist design. The rooms are compact but considered, and the absence of bustle is the whole point. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

The rooms here are styled around a concept that folds art, fashion, and retail into a resort stay, which sounds like marketing until you're poolside on a man-made island in the Arabian Gulf. This all-inclusive on Al Marjan Island runs ten stories, 257 rooms and suites, several with private plunge pools, plus multiple restaurants, an adults-only pool bar, and a standalone beach club about ninety minutes from Dubai.

Tented plunge-pool villas sit at the edge of the Arabian Gulf, their canopied ceilings and flowing drapes borrowing from Bedouin fishing-village tradition rather than the usual eco-resort playbook. This beachfront resort in Ras Al Khaimah runs as a fully self-contained stay, with private cabanas and daybeds outside each villa. Snorkeling and diving fill the days, and the neighboring desert sister property lends its spa when the sea loses its novelty.

On the Gulf of Oman side of the UAE, far from the Dubai crowds, the Fairmont Fujairah is a 181-room beachside resort where every room looks straight out to sea over the marina. The spa runs deep, the pools are plural, and snorkeling is on the itinerary if you want it. Dining leans maritime, with a seafood-forward restaurant and a kitchen doing a MediterrAsian thing that sounds like a portmanteau but apparently works.

Each villa has its own pool and outdoor shower, with the Hajar Mountains behind you and the Gulf of Oman out front. This all-villa resort on the UAE's quieter east coast sits a long way from the Dubai spectacle, which is rather the point. Whitewashed interiors carry Arabic design details without going overboard, and Snoopy Island's snorkeling reefs are just offshore. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Thirty villas scattered across a savannah, where the neighbors are more likely to be gazelles than other guests. This private-island resort on Sir Bani Yas pairs game drives and wildlife spotting with horse riding, watersports, and archery, so no one runs out of reasons to leave the villa, or excuses to stay in it. The spa draws on Arab beauty traditions, and four restaurants cover everything from South African grilling to Mediterranean.

A nature reserve five miles off Abu Dhabi doubles as a resort, which sounds like a press release but turns out to be accurate. Anantara runs it with the island-mellow ease of their Thai properties, so the scale is unmistakably Emirati (rooms large, suites lavish) but the mood is looser than the mainland norm. Game drives and trail hikes sit alongside the pool and spa, and you fly in on a small prop plane, which sets the tone nicely.