Dubai Desert: Vintage Mercedes Safari, Camel Ride & Stargazing

4.95

(272 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

It started with Khalid handing me a tiny cup of gahwa—cardamom coffee that smelled both earthy and sweet. He grinned and asked if I’d ever ridden in a 1980s G Class Mercedes before. I hadn’t. The seats felt stiff but somehow right for the desert, and as we bounced over the sand outside Dubai, I realized how quiet it gets out there. Just the wind and our laughter when someone’s sunglasses nearly flew off.

We stopped by a lonely Al Ghaf tree—Khalid called it the “old soul” of the UAE—and he pointed out tiny tracks in the sand. Gazelles maybe? The air tasted dry, almost metallic. At the Bedouin village, women in bright scarves pressed sweets into our hands (I still don’t know what was in them, but they were sticky and good). The camel caravan was slower than I expected; you feel every sway. My guide told me to relax my hips—I probably looked ridiculous but nobody cared.

The sun dropped fast behind those dunes. Suddenly everything turned gold and pink. There was a falcon show—honestly, I flinched when its wings whooshed past my ear—and then we sat cross-legged for dinner. Five courses is a lot after a day like that; I tried everything even though I couldn’t pronounce half of it (Li laughed when I tried to say “luqaimat”). Later, someone painted henna on my hand while telling stories about growing up in the desert—her voice soft under all that open sky.

I didn’t expect to care much about stargazing but when they switched off the camp lights and handed us the telescope, it got really quiet. You could hear people breathing. Someone pointed out Orion’s Belt and said their grandfather used it to find his way home. That stuck with me for some reason—maybe because city lights never let you see stars like this. We rode back to Dubai tired and sandy, but honestly? I keep thinking about that silence.