Product Description

Slim, stylish and pocketable, Rough Guide DIRECTIONS Dubai is a brand new guide to the world’s most exciting tourist destination. Full-colour throughout, this guide highlights the best the city has to offer from traditional old Arabian souks to beautiful beaches, as well as day trips throughout the UAE, including Sharajah, Al Ain, Abu Dhabi and the east coast – giving you inspiration for things to do, 24 hours a day. The guide also features up-to-date listings of all the hottest new places to stay, eat and drink in this fast-changing city, and comes complete with comprehensive maps to help you find your way around. The introductory ideas section provides a carefully chosen rundown of key sights to get you up and running in Dubai as quickly as possible, while the “essentials” section provides all the necessary practical information. Rough Guide DIRECTIONS Dubai is like having a local friend plan your trip!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #116518 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 212 pages

Amazon.co.uk
If you're one of the many people who have fumbled with an ungainly travel guide, only to fail to find what you're looking for, perhaps you should be picking up the Rough Guides series. Rough Guide Directions: Dubai is the perfect exemplar, with everything the traveller will require to ensure that they don't miss a thing in the city, from accommodation to restaurants and bars and (of course) shopping.

Dubai is in many ways quite unlike most cities on the planet, changing with breathtaking rapidity in the last 20 years or so. No longer a minor Gulf trading town, it is now in one of the most jawdroppingly wealthy of cosmopolitan destinations. Every aspect of its gaudy pleasures is examined here, and (as one would expect from this publisher), we are told the truth; and there is never an attempt to gloss over aspects that some might find controversial (as, for instance, this sentence: ‘This is one of the world's most glamorous, spectacular and futuristic urban destinations fuelled by a heady cocktail of petrodollars, visionary commercial acumen and naked ambitions’). It's this clear-sightedness that makes Gavin Thomas’ guide so valuable -- who, after all, doesn't want to know all the truth about the city they are visiting? Everything here is treated with enthusiasm and intelligence, and the carefully chosen photos (notably of the Arabian antiques) are eye-catching. But even here, the honesty shines through: the fact that the city is famous for the kitschest of kitsch souvenirs is celebrated, along with the respectable artefacts. If you're planning a trip to Dubai but not planning to take this guide along with you, you'll be doing yourself a disservice. With the dizzying profusion of restaurants alone, the kind of sympathetic guidance provided here is very valuable indeed. --Barry Forshaw

About the Author
Gavin Thomas is author of Rough Guides to Sri Lanka and Rajasthan, Delhi & Agra

Customer Reviews

Bought by Channce and really impressed
Bought the guide by chance looking for a small guide that tells us everything we need for a short trip to Dubai. Very useful are the maps in the front and back as well as the top tips. Easy Navigation throughout and ideal for a short visit in Dubai.
Will look out for 'Rough Guide's' next time I need a travel guide.