Dubai is one of the most expensive cities in the world. When I told my friends I was visiting for a few days, they asked me to keep track of my expenditures, curious to know just how expensive Dubai really is.
So, for the three days I was there, I logged every single cent that I spent. In this article, I’ll tell you the results and provide you with an analysis of my expenses.
Travel Tip: Save Money with a Stopover
Why go to Dubai at all? It’s certainly a very cool city with global acclaim, but with a reputation for more glamor than culture, I personally wouldn’t go out of my way to visit. Instead, I took an Emirates Stopover, adding a few days of layover to my flight itinerary for free on my way back to Thailand.
Free airfare is a compelling reason to visit anywhere for a few days, and you’ll note flights are not included in my expenditures below. On top of that, Emirates even does a promotion where your boarding pass is good for discounts and freebies in their hub city.
Next time you fly an airline through its hub, consider taking a stopover, as it can be a good way to see a new city at a lower cost. Please, please never pay for a ticket to Dubai — just fly Emirates somewhere else, and add a couple days of layover for free.
If you ever visit Thailand or Southeast Asia, you might have a scheduled stop in the Middle East or Singapore. The airlines vary (Etihad, Qatar, etc.), but you can take a layover in almost all of their hubs. It’s also a great way to mitigate jetlag.
How Much I Spent in Dubai on a 3-Day Layover
The U.A.E. uses dirhams as currency, pegged at 1 USD = 3.6725 AED. For convenience and relatability, I converted everything into USD. Here’s how much I spent during three days in Dubai.
Short answer: $650.58.
Longer answer:
Accommodation $317.58 (49%)
Transportation $113.02 (17%)
Admission fees $104.00 (16%)
Food & drink $81.95 (13%)
Gifts $17.70 (3%)
Misc. $16.33 (2%)
Longest answer:
Accommodation was my largest expense by far, accounting for nearly half of my total expenditures. Even the cheapest hotels in Dubai start around $100 per night. My room at Pearl Marina Hotel Apartments was around $105 per night, although to be fair, it was an extremely nice hotel room; dare I say it might have been worth it.
I suspect that Dubai is like Singapore, where accommodation is very expensive and everything else is a bit more reasonable. Couchsurfing is another great way to keep costs down, but I wanted a bit more personal space this time around.
Transportation was my second biggest expense, which can be divided further:
Metro (seven rides) $15.79 (14%)
Taxis (six rides) $97.23 (86%)
Generally, the metro system in Dubai is very cheap. Each ride was about $2. There are many places far away from the metro, however, where taxi is the only option, like the Old Town (Al Fahidi), the Palm Jumeirah, and the amusement parks. Riding to and from these places can get expensive quickly.
Note that the metro connects to the airport, saving travelers a huge amount of money compared to airport taxis.
Admission fees made up about 16% of my total expenditures. In fact, I only paid admission at three places: IMG Worlds of Adventure amusement park ($65.75 after a 25% discount with my Emirates boarding pass), the Dubai Frame ($14.29), and the Dubai Aquarium ($23.96).
I also got a free 1-hour boat tour of the Dubai Creek on a traditional Middle Eastern wooden dhow boat using my Emirates boarding pass (probably worth around $30, I would estimate).
Food, snacks, and drink were around 13% of my total, or about $82 over three days. On average, meals cost $10-$15 at cheaper places. A friend and I split one big meal at a more expensive place; it cost us about $22 each after he got a 15% discount as an Emirates Platinum member.
Note that I only eat two meals a day (breakfast and lunch), as I do intermittent fasting and skip dinner. Even though I didn’t spend a lot on food, I would still consider food fairly pricey in Dubai.
I bought one gift, and I probably overpaid for it significantly. I haggled it down from $150 to $18, though I bet it’s only worth about $5. It was a good learning experience though, I suppose. Major props to the salesmen in Dubai — they’re total pros.
As for miscellaneous expenses, I went to the grocery store and bought croissants and laundry pods for $16 total. My hotel room had a laundry machine, so I was very pleased to be able to wash all my stuff. Eating croissants from the store also saved a bit on breakfast. I brought the extra laundry pods back to Thailand.
Is Visiting Dubai Worth It?
Let me put it this way: I don’t feel like I overpaid for my stay in Dubai, since it cost approximately the amount I thought it would. But I also wouldn’t go out of my way to go there. I think it’s worth it if you’re flying Emirates somewhere else and have a few days to spare.
Like Singapore, I think a short trip like this is the way to go. On the one hand, I spent over $200 per day in Dubai, making it the most expensive place I’ve visited this year by far. On the other hand, I only spent three days there, so the raw sum is less than if I had stayed longer.
I think it’s worth considering how long the visit should be. I don’t think a seven-day visit to Dubai would be worth it, but would a one-day visit be enough to see everything? Probably not. I’d say two or three days is the sweet spot. In that amount of time, you can see what you want to see; after that, returns diminish. Hence, an Emirates Stopover is a pretty ideal way to go.
I went to Dubai with particular things in mind — I knew that I wanted to go to an amusement park, for example, since there aren’t so many where I live in Thailand. I had a lot of fun at IMG and got my fill of roller coasters.
I opted to skip the Burj Khalifa, on the other hand. As a former engineer, I would have loved to go to the top of the tallest building in the world — but the entrance fee is $200, and I think we can all agree that that’s completely ridiculous. Instead, I opted for the views from the Dubai Frame.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m okay with spending $650 to go to Dubai for a few days and enjoy it. It’s not a habit and it won’t kill me. But nobody wants to overpay for stuff. So how I feel about the amount is more a matter of principle than principal. You see what I did there…
All in all, I enjoyed Dubai, but I don’t have much of a desire to go back. I saw and did everything I wanted to in three days, and I don’t think I would get more out of the experience if I returned. I think my visit was worth it, but going back would not be.
What I Enjoyed Most in Dubai
I really enjoyed the culture of the Old Quarter (Al Fahidi), walking around the Dubai Mall (the largest mall in the world), and walking around the Marina. Walking around was a cool way to see the city’s many areas and was free, of course The amusement parks and aquarium were fun too, although they aren’t solely unique to Dubai. You could certainly skip these, especially if you’re heading somewhere with amusement parks or aquariums of its own.
Without a doubt, my most vivid, enjoyable memory of Dubai is the city’s skyline. Seeing the city beautifully lit up in gold at night was very special and unique.
I came to understand that Dubai was built to be inspiring. Its trademark, over-the-top glamor is merely the side effect of embracing a challenge to always reach upward toward ever greater heights.
On the one hand, Dubai is excessive, and it would be easy to call it wasteful. There’s not much utility in golden jet-skis and billion-pixel screens. But utility isn’t the point. Dubai is about beauty for the sake of beauty, and pushing further for the sake of pushing further. That was a surprisingly emotional realization for me. There’s a lot of reasons I wouldn’t want to live here, but I have a lot of respect for what the city represents.
How Much More Expensive is Dubai than Thailand?
After traveling to Dubai, I flew to Bangkok for three days, followed by Chiang Mai for another three. I was already in the habit of recording all my expenses, so I continued tracking in these cities. Thailand is a lot cheaper than the UAE, but I was curious to see just how much cheaper it would be.
In three days each, I spent:
Dubai: $650.58
Bangkok: $369.09
Chiang Mai: $199.91
Granted, I had lots of other expenditures in Thailand during these 3-day periods, like wedding gifts, clothes purchases, and baggage fees, so these are very rough estimates and not necessarily typical expenses.
Still, Thailand seems to be about half as expensive as Dubai. Interestingly, some of the cost breakdown was almost identical in all three places. In each city, accommodation was approximately half my budget, and food was about 15%. Transportation was significantly cheaper in Bangkok, which has a fantastic and cheap metro system.
Now, how does travel compare to living somewhere? My average monthly cost of living in Chiang Mai in 2022 (when I wasn’t traveling) was around $700. So my three days in Dubai cost nearly the same amount as an entire month of hanging out in Thailand. How crazy is that!
Nonetheless, one last reason I don’t mind how much I spent in Dubai is because I know it could have cost a lot more – like if I paid for airfare, stayed longer, or went to some of its more upscale attractions. I’d say $500 is the minimum budget for a few days in Dubai, but what’s the maximum? Between the 5-star restaurants, $1,000+ per night hotels, and first-class, white-glove experiences, the sky’s the limit for how much you could spend in Dubai.
Wherever your journeys take you, I hope you have a great trip!
Bon voyage,
Andrew
P.S. Have you visited Dubai? What did you think? What did you like, and was there anything you didn’t like?
