Abu Dhabi desert safari with BBQ camel ride and sandboarding

Overview

An evening desert safari from Abu Dhabi combining a four-wheel-drive run across the dunes, a sunset stop, a camel ride and a camp dinner with live entertainment.

What to expect

• Collection and the drive out of the city to the edge of the sand.
• The dune run itself, once the vehicle has been prepared for soft ground.
• A stop for the sunset over open desert.
• Camel riding and sandboarding at the camp.
• A barbecue dinner with traditional performance before the return.

The first thing the driver does is let the air out of the tyres

You will probably see it and not know what you are watching. Before the vehicle leaves the tarmac, the driver stops and deflates every tyre — often from around thirty-five pounds of pressure down to roughly fifteen.

This is the single technical fact that makes the whole outing possible. A hard, narrow tyre cuts down into soft sand and the vehicle digs itself in. A soft tyre spreads under load, widening its footprint, so the car floats across the surface instead of ploughing through it.

Everything that follows — the climbs, the sideways slides down a dune face, the ability to stop halfway up a slope and start again — depends on that one adjustment. It is also why the driver re-inflates before rejoining the road: those same soft tyres are unsafe at speed on tarmac.

Why it runs in the evening

Not for the photographs, though those are the visible benefit. Open sand in this part of the world reaches temperatures during the day that make standing around outside genuinely unpleasant and riding an animal unfair to the animal.

By late afternoon the surface has begun to give its heat back to the sky, and the desert becomes usable. The light everyone books the trip for is a side effect of the timing, not the reason for it.

What the dunes are actually made of

The sand runs orange-red rather than pale, and that colour is iron. Each grain carries a thin oxidised coating — rust, in effect — built up over an extraordinarily long time.

The dunes also move. The shapes you drive across are not landscape in the fixed sense; they migrate with the prevailing wind, which is why a driver reads the terrain each time rather than following a route.

Things worth knowing before you go

Dune driving is genuinely physical. There is real lateral movement and there are sharp descents, and if you are prone to motion sickness this is not a mild version of it. Eat lightly beforehand rather than heavily.

Camel riding at the camp is short and led, not a trek. Treat it as a photograph rather than a journey.

Sand gets into everything: cameras, shoes, hair, phone ports. A bag that closes properly is worth more than any other item you bring.

Practicalities

The evening runs to several hours by the time the transfers at both ends are counted, and much of that is spent outdoors after dark, when desert temperatures drop faster than people expect. Bring a layer even in summer.