OpinionIn this series, My Happy Place, our writers reflect on the holiday destinations in Australia and around the world that they cherish the most.August 27, 2026 — 5:00amIn 2007, at the impressionable ages of 25 and 27 respectively, my sister and I jumped on a plane to spend Christmas in the Middle East. We’d never set foot in the region. A few months earlier my dad had taken on a position as Australian consul-general to Dubai. After his diplomatic postings in South Korea, Malaysia and China it was part of our cadence as a family to explore new places with curiosity and an open mind.Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah, the world’s largest man-made island, in more serene times. Over two weeks in the United Arab Emirates our interest was piqued in this exciting, emerging international hub. We devoured Arabic mezze, went dune-bashing in the desert and hopped on a Santa bus with new friends for a Christmas Eve pub crawl in Satwa. We partied all night in a villa for New Year’s Eve, watched dolphins swim from a dhow cruise in the Musandam Peninsula in Oman, and shopped for lanterns, hookah pipes and carpets in the Blue Souq in Sharjah. We began to envision a new life for ourselves full of opportunity. Tax-free, of course.The author (bottom) skydiving over Dubai. It’s been nearly 18 years since my sister, her then-boyfriend and I moved to Dubai, and although I’ve since departed, this city has never left me. I’ve been travelling to the UAE regularly since I left in late 2014, and with my sister’s family still based there I don’t see that ever changing. Dubai is one of my heart homes. Having been prevented from visiting this year in light of the US-and-Israel-led conflict with Iran, I’ve realised how much I miss it. (The Australian government’s Smart Traveller has now downgraded its travel advice for the UAE from “Do not travel” to “Reconsider your need to travel”.)It was just seven years after the terrorist attacks of September 11 when I packed up my world in Sydney for a new life in the Middle East during Ramadan, and most people thought I was mad. I could never have predicted I would still be there almost seven years later. It came with many peaks and troughs but one of my life’s greatest gifts has been having the opportunity to challenge my previous narrow views of this region and understand it from a lived experience.Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletterGet exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.I have so many memories tied up in this city. My parents’ villa in Al Barsha 3 became a lively share house where the five of us (two late-fifty-somethings and three twenty-somethings) lived harmoniously for 3½ years. The parties are still the stuff of legend. I landed the job of my dreams in Dubai and I vividly remember staring into the chocolate eyes of my firstborn niece there as I held her just hours after she was born in 2014.For some people, Dubai brings up big feelings. You either love it or hate it. Some hate it for what they believe it lacks or represents. And it’s not perfect. Nowhere is. We had numerous friends who got in trouble in Dubai for trivial reasons. And yes, the labour camps of poor migrant workers that come to the UAE to send money home is ethically concerning.Dubai has an enviable party culture.Getty ImagesBut for me, the good outweighs the bad. It’s safe. You interact daily with people from myriad cultures and ethnic backgrounds. The diversity of food in Dubai is unsurpassed, with restaurants representing most cuisines in the world. The luxury hotels in Dubai are in another realm. And yet if you want to go somewhere else, it’s right on the world’s doorstep. It was not unusual to fly to Sri Lanka or Lebanon for Eid long weekends. I travelled to Oman, Jordan and Morocco, and began to understand that destinations that once sounded scary, such as Syria (at the time), were, in fact, just deeply misunderstood outside the region.Dubai is family-friendly; you can ski, surf, camp, hike, mountain bike or charter a boat. It’s also a lot of fun. Despite the obvious contradictions, the emirate has an enviable party culture, with a large, social expat community and weekend brunches that get, ahem, loose. In Sydney it can take months to execute a catch-up with friends. In Dubai there’s always something stirring. I skydived over the Palm Jumeirah, attended a camel race, learnt how to off-road in a 4WD in the desert, and saw Paul McCartney and Kings of Leon play at the Abu Dhabi F1.Emiratis are incredibly generous and, for the most part, remarkably tolerant of the cultural and religious incongruences that the large international community and continuum of tourists can present. And while interactions with locals are rare, they’re not unheard of. I experienced six Ramadans in my nearly seven years there, and occasionally joined locals for the breaking of the fast at Iftar and suhoor events. Likewise, my mum was befriended by an Emirati neighbour and we three girls were invited in for Arabic tea and, later, to family birthdays and weddings.I’ve had the privilege to watch the Emirates evolve, grow and progress over almost 20 years, much like my own family. Dubai will always be a part of ours.From our partners