Dubai Desert: Quad Bike, Sandboarding & Camel Ride with Pickup

4.84

(25 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

“You sure you’ve driven one of these before?” our guide grinned, handing me the helmet. I laughed — honestly, I hadn’t. The air out here in the Dubai desert felt dry and sharp, like it could wake you up from the inside out. The quad bike was bigger than I expected, a 350cc Yamaha that rumbled under my hands. My friend nudged me — “Just don’t crash.” We set off, engines buzzing over the sand, and for a second all I could hear was wind and that low growl from the bikes. There’s something about seeing nothing but gold dunes ahead that makes you feel both tiny and weirdly bold at the same time.

Our guide — Ahmed, who grew up nearby — pointed out how the light shifted on the dunes as we rode. He told us stories about his cousins racing here as kids (he swore he never lost). At one stop, he handed around cold water from a cooler in the back of the Land Cruiser. It tasted almost sweet after all that dust. We tried sandboarding next; I fell twice before getting any kind of balance, which got a laugh from Ahmed and this older couple from Manchester who were somehow way better at it than me. The sand stuck to my shoes for hours after — still finding grains in my bag now.

Afterwards there was this short camel ride — not long enough to get sore but just enough to feel how slow everything gets when you’re up high like that. The camels made these deep snuffling sounds; one kept turning its head to check me out (or maybe it just wanted my drink). By then the sun was dropping lower and everything looked softer somehow. We piled back into the 4x4 for the drive back to town, still brushing sand off our arms and laughing about who’d wiped out hardest on the boards. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about those wide open spaces when things get noisy back home.