Fodor's Dubai 25 Best (Full-color Travel Guide)

The book is small, travel size, but packed with a lot of useful information and maps.

Great read, very informative, large map of Dubai very helpful. Was very helpful for my trave to Dubai

Great guide. Nice photos.

Maybe a little more information about fees, reservation recommendations would be helpful.

We got this book to assist my elementary school aged son with a school project. He got an A and I got a yearning to go to Dubai. The book is a must for anyone looking to travel to Dubai. It is a well written book with a lot of information so without all the unnecessary descriptions. It is the highlights but leaves a lot for you to discover on your own. It would be a valuable resource for both the planner and the spontaneous traveler. The book includes several color coded maps that are consistent throughout the whole book. This makes locating places very quick and efficient. It even has one large folding street map that is laminated and can be separated from the book. The front cover also opens into a map for easy access. The book starts with an introduction and some interesting facts and history. Then there is a short 2 day stay itinerary that includes many of the must see attractions, places to eat and the best way to get from place to place. Next is the top 25 attractions of Dubai surrounding a color coded map of where they are all located. This would very valuable in maximizing your time. It breaks the city up in 5 different regions. There is nothing about Dubai that is not covered. Each region starts with a map of the district it then gives you a history, the attractions, places to eat, nightlife places and even some walking tours. It doesn’t just list the places but it gives you the the highlights, where it’s located on the map, pictures, days and hours of operation, cost to get in, and even their phone numbers. It even gives you an idea of how expensive the different hotels and restaurants are. There is very little that they haven’t thought of and the book is littered with useful tips and information throughout. The last chapter is a good place to start if you are planning a trip. It was useful for my son’s project. It gives you important information about weather, holidays, transportation tips, travel requirements like suggested vaccines and travel Visa info, hospitals, the best places to exchange money, etiquette (did you know it is disrespectful to hold hands and kiss in public), and even useful phrases in Arabic. This book has put Dubai on my top 10 places I would like to travel. I wouldn’t leave home without it either. It is small enough to fit in your purse and is very compact in size. I originally was going to give it 4 stars due to the small font, but understand it was necessary in order to fit it all in. I would get a magnifying bookmark if you have trouble with small print. It is too great of a book to not be 5 stars. When traveling I will start looking to see if Fodor’s offers a travel companion because it is clear it would maximize your trip!

FODOR’s 25 BEST. Dubai. Fodor. 2002. 128p + foldout maps. (pb) My personal acquaintance with Dubai is old now. It’s been eleven years since I visited. I lived and worked there from 2001-4 and our son worked in Sharjah, the next emirate over, from 2004-2008, where we visited him. I’ve never lived in a city that changes as rapidly and constantly as Dubai so a guide like this is especially useful for someone planning a visit, even someone who knew the city and region earlier. Nothing stays the same in Dubai, not the hotels or restaurants, not even many of the tourist sites. Everything I remember about the city checks out. The recommendations will help the occasional visitor to use his or her limited time the pleasurably and profitably. My recommendations? 1. Check out the architecture, maybe on a taxi tour. Dubai is an architect’s mad dream where almost anything can be attempted. 2. Hit the souks, in particular the gold and spice souks. Bring your wallet. 3. Go dune bashing. It isn’t just the experience of driving up tall dunes and then coming down the other side in a controlled slide. It’s the feeling of being in a desert –solitary, quiet, still. 4. Try as many restaurants as you can. Dubai is a restaurant paradise. 5. If you have extra time, visit the next emirate over, Sharjah, to see any of its several museums or drive down the Versailles-like entrance road to University City. Maybe hit the Blue Souk to shop. While you’re at the souk, have a chilled fruit juice. My favorites were watermelon juice and kiwi juice. Oh, they’re good. Above all, enjoy the interesting blending of Gulf Arab and generic Western culture on display there, where through much of the city, street signs are in English and Arabic both.

I generally like to browse guides of places I expect I might someday see. This guide for Dubai is an exception -- my guess is that I'll never get there. If I don't, I won't have any major regrets about it. But from browsing this guide, I can see that we should have gone when our son was younger. The city must be exciting to the generation for whom tech is their life. The unabashedly modern city would have appealed to him more than the creaky historic American cities we went to or the charming small towns the 'rents loved. In any case, I think a brief guide like this would be great to accompany someone going on a tour. My guess is that I wouldn't feel comfortable as an independent traveler to this city. The guide says almost nothing about safety (two sentences) or about the cost of things (just the relative $, $$, or $$$). I've heard it's an expensive place to visit. I do like that the guide isn't overly segmented. Up front is the usual few "best of" pages for a short stay, and then the areas of the city and surrounding country are broken down. I like that the hotel recommendations are all in one place instead of split up to accompany the regional chapters. There's a glossary of helpful terms in the back whose pronunciation is spelled out phonetically. Even so, it's going to be hard to make yourself understood. My spouse studied Arabic for a year and still had only an elementary grasp of the language. As an armchair traveler, though, I liked this brief, uncomplicated guide.

The print in these books keep getting smaller and smaller. Content was excellent.