8 of 10 places fit
A central Al Quoz warehouse with a MoonBoard and campus board, and weekend ladies-only climbing before the main doors open.
Close to 400 square metres of bouldering inside a mall unit, with overhangs, slabs and comp-style walls reset by a full-time setting team.
The most popular of the RAK crags past the Wadi Bih turn, with sport, trad and top-rope lines on fairly solid limestone close to town.
A circuit of more than 100 logged boulder problems right beside the mountain road, so the walk-in is a few metres.
The one Dubai gym with lead, top-rope and auto-belay walls as well as bouldering, so it's where you learn to tie in.
The UAE's longest-running bouldering gym, with a tension board and hang boards for when you start training rather than just playing.
A proper university climbing gym with routes from beginner to hard, a year-round bouldering area and inclusive sessions run with the Rab3i Association.
A standard climbing wall, game-style Valo Climb walls, a via ferrata and a rappelling wall share one roof, so a first-timer can try four kinds of climbing on a single pass.