Before I went to Dubai on a business trip last week, I went hunting for a “woman professional’s guide to Dubai” and turned up short. So after networking with a friend of a friend who had been to Dubai before the pandemic and gathering my own data, I decided to write the quick guide I wish I had before I went. 

Dubai is a very safe, cosmopolitan, and beautiful city. It is more diverse than almost anywhere I have ever been, and felt a lot like Singapore that way except without all the greenery growing up the buildings. I was in Business Bay, so it’s strange to be in a city that has no history older than about 20 years ago. No old buildings interspersed with new ones, and the architecture all had a similar style and level of polish.

A bit of a disclaimer: this article is written as a woman who presents as female from the Midwest US traveling to Dubai in 2024. I happened to be there right across their record rainfall of the most rain they had in 75 years, which was a bit of an adventure.  I was traveling alone but had a host in Dubai to meet for business who had lived in the city for some time but was not a native to the area, nor was he American. This is intended to be a helpful guide, and the opinions and observations here are my own. Many of these thoughts may be useful to all genders, and I’ve tried to put more female-specific thoughts at the end. 

Travel and Communication Logistics

If you are flying into Dubai, chances are good you are flying Emirates. While Emirates really struggles to deal with any weather event (they don’t have many of them), I generally like them and find them to be a good airline. At the time of writing this, they fly directly to New York, Miami, Chicago, Houston, and a few other places in the US. The flight from Chicago to Dubai is a little over 14 hours, simply for a sense of scale and planning. Dubai is 9 hours ahead of Chicago in time zones (noon in Chicago is 9 pm in Dubai). If you’re flying Emirates, chances are extremely good you are connecting through Dubai anyway even if you’re going elsewhere. It is a “silent airport”, so there aren’t intercoms buzzing or boarding announcements and the only thing that gets broadcast is the Muslim call to prayer. So be on top of your gate info and realize they won’t be calling your name across the airport if you’re late. 

Note also that Emirates has a different bag policy than most items in that you can have one carry-on. Not a personal item and a carry-on, one bag total that is less than 7 kg (15 lb). I found they were willing to wiggle to as much as 9 kg (20 lbs) if that was all you had, but they really push checked bags. I have details on what I packed for my 2-day trip below in the last section. 

When you’re going through customs and entering Dubai, they have a program where they will hand you a SIM card with 1 MB of data for 24 hours on it for free if you ask (yes, I know that’s not what the sign says. But that’s what you get). It’s called a Du card. The customs agent is the person to ask, and it’s basically enough to get you out of a jam if needed. I picked mine up, but didn’t get a chance to try it. 

Important note: This is a government-owned network with restrictions accordingly. That includes no voice-over IP calling.

That leads to my point about video calls. You can’t make them from Dubai, they are blocked. So your FaceTime, WhatsApp calls, etc. will not work. The chats will work fine, but the video using data will not. The best way around this is to send a link to a Zoom call via chat or email (40 minutes are free, and if you go over you just rejoin the same Zoom link when it kicks you off) and both join the Zoom. That’s not blocked and works fine. 

It is also worth knowing that Dubai is like Singapore – everyone speaks English and signs are in both Arabic and English. This is handy for getting around, including for attractions during your downtime. Even restaurant menus tend to be in multiple languages. 

Uber runs in Dubai just like in the US, and I found it to be seamless with my app. I had long wait times due to flooding, but that’s not necessarily the norm. Note from the Dubai mall there are set places to pick up (just like any busy place in the States), so be aware of your pickup spot. 

Food and Entertainment

If you want to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa, know that tickets do sell out and pay attention to which tickets you book. Book ahead if you can, and you’re looking for one of the “At the Top” tickets. The “Sky views” ticket won’t get you there and is located elsewhere. The entrance is in the BASEMENT of the Dubai Mall; look/ask for “At the Top”. Other requests tend to confuse people. 

People (both locals and tourists) really do tend to hang out at the mall. The main Dubai Mall under the Burj Khalifa is lovely and has a beautiful fountain that makes the one at the Bellagio in Las Vegas look a bit quaint. There are fancy fountain-view restaurants with balconies if you’re looking to really lean into the whole experience.

Note also that there isn’t much alcohol in Dubai, and in some places you can’t find it if you want it. Hotels tend to have alcohol, but you have to keep it within the hotel. I found that many restaurants had amazing juice options, and I highly recommend trying some. I had the best carrot-orange juice of my life at a place that was basically fast casual and not even fancy. 

I also had one lunch picked up from the grocery store Spinney’s, which was excellent. They have ready-made food similar to the kind of counter you find at Whole Foods, of all different nationalities. Chicken salad, kebabs, and pizza were all common. They could warm it up for you or you could take it back to the office and heat it in the office microwave (some things are universal . . . ). Prices were also reasonable.

Tipping in Dubai is not expected, although it’s also not considered rude if you have exceptional service. Do not expect restaurants to have a line for tip amount on the bill, but if you are a person who likes to tip, have some Dirham bills on hand. The currency is the Emirati Dirham, Dirham (Deer-ahm) for short, and is abbreviated AED. I didn’t try to have anyone accept US Dollars as I generally don’t when I’m traveling. 

Clothing

Many guides I did find cited that it was appropriate to use modest dress in Dubai for both men and women. While people were certainly more modestly dressed than places like Los Angeles or Las Vegas, I didn’t find this rule to be hard and fast. Modest dress here means covering shoulders and knees. That being said, I saw some very short dresses, a few spaghetti straps, and at least two morning jog outfits in various places in the city. Depending on who you are meeting, you may or may not need to observe this strictly. I tend to err on the side of caution and kept my dress modest, but note that it seems to be relaxing a bit in the tourist areas and business districts. I saw only three women covered all the way to their eyes, but saw countless shoulders and knees. If you are doing business with more conservative business partners who are native to the area, definitely still observe the “modest dress” rule. 

Like many desert climates, the people in Dubai are addicted to their air conditioning. That means if you’re like me and are often cold, you will actually be cold inside even if it is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside. This works hand-in-hand with the modest dress, but be prepared for it to be cool in buildings. 

Traveling as a Woman

One of the most interesting things about traveling as a single woman in Dubai was that they did treat me differently. When possible, I noted they paired me up with women to talk to at service counters, customs desks, etc. There is also a level of deference paid to women not found in Europe or the US. I didn’t ask about being on a restricted floor as a woman traveling alone, they just took one glance at me and let me know they upgraded me to a floor requiring a key card to access. There’s a fine line between chivalry and feminism, and I was fine with this approach but found it interesting. 

I’ll also go into detail here on what I packed for a trip with two days of work. I hate checking luggage and that ended up being very helpful in escaping the crazy Dubai airport post-flooding, so I had to get everything into one backpack under 15 lbs. I flew on Sunday, arrived on Monday, worked on Tuesday and Wednesday, and flew out on Thursday (which if everything had been on time I would have landed in the States on Thursday still due to time zones). With rolling up outfits and wearing some of it to check in (both my blazer and my hoodie), I made it under the weight limit. I had to leave my planner at home because it was too heavy! Note for travel I tend to purchase more expensive, high-quality pieces because I know they will hold up and look good. Most of these items I’ve accumulated over years and have owned since before the pandemic.

For the plane there and back I wore:

-Jeans

-My Wool& shirt, because I can hang it in the shower at the hotel and get it clean enough to put on for the trip back

-Compression socks (recent discovery, love them)

-My hoodie, with my blazer underneath if they were weighing my bag (shhhhh). 

-My Tieks, the only shoes I brought with me

I packed:

-2 M.M. LaFleur shirts

-2 pairs dress pants, these happen to be Express because that’s what fits me best

-My blazer from M.M. LaFleur, which is one of their machine washable no-wrinkle amazing miracles. This thing went through the downpour and still looked good on camera for recording training, even though it was still damp. Then it looked good again the next day. 

-A dress to change into for dinner or casual time. This was a godsend because I ended up changing into it after getting caught in the downpour on my walk into the office. This is the only “inexpensive” piece I had, and I purchased it to meet the modesty requirements for both this trip and one to Rome later this year. (It’s this dress, but I expect this link to break almost immediately because it’s from Amazon and the inventory changes.) The important part of it was that it was knit, with pockets, had sleeves and went past my knees, and rolled up into a small package in my backpack.

-2 t-shirts to sleep in

-Underwear and bras (not pictured)

Hopefully this post was helpful, or even simply interesting as a glimpse into the differences with other cultures. If you get a chance to travel to Dubai, I recommend it as it is a lovely city and is a fairly “easy” one to travel to for Americans.