Part of me doesn’t want to promote it because I want it to be the same when I return…which will hopefully be soon.

I’m glad he mentioned Abu Dhabi! I’ve been saying it’s underrated for many years. We’ve long been writing on the city (most recent piece in National Geographic Traveler in October), and I wrote and my husband photographed the first guidebook to the place, DK’s Top 10 Eyewitness Guide to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, 4 years ago.

We moved there in 1998 and fell in love with it immediately, but we loved it because it was so ‘real’. We lived in a shiny skyscraper in the heart of the downtown, but the backstreets just behind us were gritty, often dirty, and in many places ramshackle, but they were so real. We’d hear the call-to-prayer from the mosque on the corner, we had our local Lebanese bakery we’d go to on weekends to buy our fresh baklava, and in the afternoons we’d walk through these laidback, authentic neighbourhoods to the Corniche where we’d rollerblade along the waterfront. I taught film and writing at a women’s university to Emirati girls so we also had a great insight into the rich local culture and Bedouin heritage/society.

There were no tourism plans then, no 7-star luxury hotels and no ambitions to become a global cultural hub although it has long had a low-key cultural scene. In many ways we loved it more then.
We’re on the road permanently now but every few months or so we get back and while I always love returning, I am surprised when I read about the city in other travel magazines and see bloggers like Johnny talk about the place… while I have a great affection for the place, I wonder how much others who travel there will really like it. Because there is actually very little to *do* and the things that are really special are the authentic local things that most people staying in 5-star hotels will never see or experience. It will be interesting to hear your other readers’ thoughts…