Dubai was recently named the #1 destination for 2025 by many travel sources. Since I wanted to visit it for at least the last five years, I treated it as a call to action - and Dubai became my first trip of the Year!
Dubai was also my first destination in the region of the Middle East, and I must say that after this trip, I’m crazy about exploring as much as possible in this part of the world.
Dubai inspires, Dubai surprises, and gives you a loooot of photo and video content —so I'm super excited to share some of mine with you here!
One important tip from me to be well prepared for sightseeing:
Before you travel to Dubai – take care of your back and especially your neck! Have a good massage session, because you’ll need to look up - and very far up - a lot! Just trust me, non-prepared necks may simply fail in front of Burj Khalifa!:)
Day 1. Starting with the Icons
We started exploring Dubai from the most famous touristic places - observing the highest building in the world, Burj Khalifa, walking in its neighborhood - Downtown Dubai, and visiting Dubai Mall - not so much for shopping, but rather for the feeling of the place.
This part of Dubai gave me the sense of being in the center of the world… first of all because of seeing people from literally every part of the world, and secondly because of the futuristic scenes, of course.
Dubai Downtown
In Dubai Mall and around, I enjoyed the musical fountain show that is beautiful to watch both—from the ground during the day and from top floors of Burj Khalifa at night.
Inside the mall, there is another beautiful water attraction - the famous Dubai Mall waterfalls, which represent one of the oldest professions in the region that is… pearl divers, and also the importance of water in the UAE. It is chilling out and hard to stop admiring it.
As a lovely bonus, a part of the famous Dubai Aquarium is available for Dubai Mall visitors for free. This aquarium was big enough to dive in with all your attention and enjoy imaginary swimming next to huge stingrays and sharks.
Sky Views and Adrenaline
For those whose necks get tired quickly from observing the 828-meter-high Burj Khalifa, the city offers a good alternative – Sky Views Observatory, where you can observe it and the whole emirate from the 53rd floor.
This place also has a 46-meter-long glass floor for walking and a wonderful glass slide attraction for brave visitors. With a loud scream and a lot of adrenaline, I tried the glass slide—and didn’t regret it for a second! Here is how it was:
I even saw braver people doing the Sky Edge Walk at the same height, but my knees were trembling enough already, so I skipped that part!
View from 124th Floor
Dubai Downtown can offer you everything to spend the whole day—views and attractions for every age, shopping for every pocket, and gastro pleasures for every taste.
We finished the first day by reaching the 124th floor of Burj Khalifa and observing a breathtaking 360º panoramic night view of the whole emirate and the musical-light fountains show from above.
What can I say about this experience?! It was impressive, it was different from everything I’ve seen and experienced - but still, if I had to choose just one panoramic point, I would definitely choose Sky Views Observatory, because from there you see everything the same plus the impressive giant Burj Khalifa itself.
Thanks for reading about my first day in Dubai!
P.S.
I would like to add that my Dubai story is just getting started! In the next posts I’ll write about my first-ever desert adventure with a wild jeep tour (yes, I screamed again:)))), share the fairytale photos of the Miracle Garden, step into the future at the Museum of the Future and much more. Come to my blog again - there’s so much more to come!