If you ever find yourself waiting at the airport during a layover, you know it can get really boring really fast. If you’re lucky and have enough time, you can actually leave the airport and explore the city before your next flight.

During our trip to the Maldives, we had a layover in Dubai both ways. On the flight out, our layover was about 8 hours. On our flight back, we had a very long layover in Dubai – 20+ hours. We’ve actually never visited Dubai before so we were excited to even get to spend time exploring the city.

Preparing & Planning

The first thing you need to research is whether or not you are even allowed to leave the airport, especially during COVID times. Make sure you check with your airline and the country guidelines. We flew with Emirates and confirmed that we could leave the airport here. Some countries even require a Visa so just make sure you are prepared!

The next thing you need to figure out is exactly how many hours you have – keeping in mind that for international flights you should be back at the airport at least 2-3 hours before your flight time. This will determine how many activities you can do.

Short Layovers

A layover of 8 hours or less(5 hours if I subtract the 3 hours we need to be at the airport) is a relatively short layover. During this time, you probably only have time for a few activities. For example, on one of our other trips we had a 5 hour layover in Singapore and really just had enough time to see the Gardens by the Bay.

If you have 8 hours or less in Dubai, we suggest booking a private driver/tour. We found a tour guide on this website that would pick us up, take us to some of the more popular locations in Dubai, and then drop us off as well. The total cost for both of us was about 330 AED (which is about $90 USD).

Some of the places we visited included:

• Burj al Arab
• Emirates Towers

• Dubai Mall (this mall is huge so be prepared to walk a lot!)
• Light fountain show at Burj Khalifa (this occurs every 30 minutes from 6PM to 11PM)

The great thing about this tour is that it is 100% private and customizable!

Long Layovers

A layover of over 8+ hours is long in our opinion. You are able to do much more during this time without feeling the pressure of having to be back at the airport for your flight. If your layover is at night, you can even book a hotel and stay the night!

Our layover in Dubai on our flight back was over 20 hours so we decided to book a hotel room at Address Sky View. The view from our room was spectacular!

These were some of the places and activities we did during our 20+ hour layover:

• Desert Safari with a camel ride and sandboarding for sunset (booked through Get Your Guide)

There’s also an option to use a quad bike for an extra fee
We got to ride a Camel for about 5 minutes or less.

• The Lost Chambers Aquarium (270 AED for 2 which is about $74 USD)

• Visit Burj Khalifa and go to the top for sunset or sunrise

There is so much more to do in Dubai and we definitely will be coming back!