99 of 105 places fit
A small open-shelf public library with periodicals and electronic databases, one of the few free reading rooms in Ajman.
The museum fills the 18th-century fort that was once the ruler's residence, so you see the watchtowers and courtyard as well as the exhibits, for AED 5.
A hall of restored cars from the early 1900s onward, small enough to see in under an hour and rarely crowded.
Founded in 1925, the oldest library institution in the UAE, with Arabic and English lending collections and quiet reading space.
A free permanent collection of modern Arab art and Orientalist paintings, a short walk from the Sharjah Art Foundation buildings.
A free contemporary art space on the Al Qasba canal that also runs low-cost art workshops.
Housed in the restored Al Ali fort, it shows finds from Ed-Dur, one of the largest pre-Islamic sites in the Gulf, for AED 4.
A Saturday stand-up night on the creek, handy if you live in Bur Dubai, Deira or Sharjah and don't want to cross the city.
A woodworking studio that takes adults and children from age five, with a one-hour taster session.
A proper woodworking shop that runs a beginner trial class with tools and timber included, then courses in cutting boards, hand joinery and boxes.
A weekly after-work stand-up night in a DIFC bar, a short walk from the metro.
A free stand-up night from Dubai's long-running comedy school, often featuring its own graduates alongside regulars.
A weekly Mad Cat Comedy night that doubles as an open mic, where you see new local acts work out material, and can sign up to try a set yourself.
See archaeological finds, traditional weapons, manuscripts, and daily life artifacts from Umm Al Quwain's history.
A quiet Dubai public library devoted to art, architecture and design, with desks, exhibition space and computer rooms.
Beginner wheel-throwing and hand-building workshops, plus parent-and-child sessions on the wheel.
Two or three live jazz sets a night, five nights a week, in a hotel lounge on the creek.
An abandoned coral-stone pearling town, mosque, fort and souq included, that you can walk through freely, with a free guided tour on weekends.
Splatter-painting sessions where you throw paint at a T-shirt or cap and take it home the same day.
A Sunday stand-up night in a small speakeasy-style bar at Madinat Jumeirah, a rare weekly show on a work night.
A museum built around a Bronze Age tomb, with guided routes out to ancient burial sites and Fossil Rock in the desert around it.
Live jazz seven nights a week in a small DIFC lounge, so any night is a jazz night.
An open-plan glass library with study zones and shared workspaces that stays open until 11pm or midnight, free, with no membership needed to sit and work.
Five thousand objects across Islamic science, faith and craft for AED 10, under a gold-mosaic zodiac dome.
Contemporary art spread through restored coral-stone houses and courtyards in the old town, free, plus the Rain Room and the Flying Saucer nearby.
The restored old town, with Souq Al Arsah, Bait Al Naboodah and the Sharjah Heritage Museum in coral-stone houses, free to walk and about AED 10 per museum.
A warehouse concert space running since 2009 where many UAE-based musicians played their first serious shows, from orchestras and choirs to bands.
A grassroots Sunday open mic where musicians, singers, poets and comedians take turns, more like a living room than a stage.
For a few weeks each winter the abandoned pearling village fills with contemporary art in its coral-stone houses.
Musicians call it the nearest thing Dubai has to a proper gig room: rock, metal, punk and alternative bands, with original acts as well as covers.
The former Qawasim fort and ruler's home holds archaeology from Julfar and a room of pearling gear, for AED 5.
A free contemporary art museum on the creek with a research library you can sit in and a sculpture park outside.
The emirate's largest library, a building shaped like a Quran lectern on the creek, with silent reading halls, study rooms and fast free Wi-Fi.
A string of restored courtyard houses on the creek, each covering a piece of old Dubai, with a perfume house that lets you smell the oud and attar trade.
It stands on the spot where the union was signed in 1971, and the original Union House and the round guesthouse are part of the visit.
A cluster of blue-chip commercial galleries within a few minutes' walk of each other, free to enter, and easy to reach from the metro.
The only hilltop fort left in the UAE, reached by 239 steps, with a view over the palm groves and the sea.
Dozens of commercial galleries, project spaces and a cinema in converted warehouses, all free to walk into, in one block.
The oldest mosque still in use in the UAE, a small mud and stone building with four domes, and a short climb to watchtowers on the hill behind it.
A dedicated comedy club with shows most nights, in English and Arabic, from stand-up to improv and storytelling.
A library inside a philosophy research centre, opened in 2020, with Arabic philosophy, translations and classical works from Aristotle to Avicenna.
See a 16th-century defensive fort built with stone, mud brick, and plaster that overlooks the old town.
Bronze Age and Iron Age finds from the east coast, including weapons and pottery from Bithnah and Qidfa, for AED 5.
A sit-down listening room with jazz, soul, funk and tribute acts almost nightly, plus one of the city's longest-running jam nights.
A cooking school with themed one-off adult classes, like a full Sunday roast, where you cook and then eat what you made.
A Sharjah Art Foundation exhibition space in a restored former ice factory on the east coast, free, with a café.
See artifacts from prehistoric to Islamic eras, including weapons, pottery, and jewelry from local excavations.
The first traditional carved-stone Hindu temple in the region, and the evening Ganga Aarti at 7:30pm is worth timing your visit around.
The Hili Grand Tomb is more than 4,000 years old and 12 metres across, set in a park that also holds Iron Age falaj channels and village walls.
A restored hilltop fort with three round towers and one square one, and a heritage village of traditional houses and farm exhibits at its foot.
A restored mud-brick tower house shows UAE artists upstairs and Bronze Age finds in its archaeological basement.
Al Ain's art school in a restored mud-brick tower house runs single art workshops as well as longer courses.
Open until 10pm on Sundays, with its own children's library and Arabic and English periodicals.
About 30 restored mud and palm-frond buildings, an 1896 fort with a weapons display in its tower, and a date-syrup press, free.
Al Ain's main public library, near Sulaimi Garden, with reading rooms, a theatre and free wifi.
Sheikh Khalifa's birthplace, with a glass exhibition hall in the courtyard telling the fort's story next to Al Ain's smallest oasis.
The capital's big indoor concert hall, with Tarkan, Andrea Bocelli and Mariah Carey all booked between late November and mid-December 2026.
The Abu Dhabi Comedy Season brings arena names here: Anubhav Singh Bassi and Aries Spears on 21 November and Nemr on 22 November 2026, then Kevin Bridges on 9 January and Whitney Cummings on 31 January 2027.
An arena that books the big Arabic headliners, with Angham on 29 November and Elissa on 19 December 2026.
All Manner of Experiments, a survey of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, runs until 3 January 2027, with Saturday talks in the gallery reading room.
The only private art foundation in the Saadiyat Cultural District, free, quiet and a short walk from the Louvre.
Drop-in painting classes in oil, watercolour or anime illustration, so you can try one evening without signing up for a course.
Open every day until 8pm, with a 10,000-book children's annex and a rare books hall of about 1,900 titles.
Two shows run until 10 January 2027, Juma Alhaj's light installation Revelation and the group show Archipelago of Whispers, in converted port warehouses.
Weekend workshops change every week, from a free Tatreez Circle on 6 December to Al Sadu weaving with an Emirati weaver on 13 December.
A park library of more than 35,000 books that leans towards children and teenagers.
The only weekly stand-up night in the city: Mad Cat Comedy's team runs it every Tuesday, and the AED 99 door price includes two drinks.
A three-hour beginner hand-building workshop includes 1 kg of clay plus slip painting and glazing, so you leave with finished pieces rather than a lump.
A 5,250-square-metre library built to feel like walking into a life-size pop-up book.
Its renovated 900-seat theatre is the city's main room for recitals, with pianist Minsoo Sohn on 11 December.
Its visual arts halls show Emirati and regional artists for free, currently the Zuleya 2026 exhibition running to 15 January 2027.
A shared maker space with one-off classes across ceramics, woodwork, metalwork, fashion and digital fabrication under one roof.
A private gallery in a villa behind Al Bateen Mall, showing modern and regional work in house-sized rooms you can see in half an hour.
Reopened on 26 October 2026 after a rebuild, with artisans working at the old crafts and a view of the Corniche skyline across the water.
Comedy Kix's free Thursday stand-up set in the InterContinental's Belgian beer bar, so the only cost is what you drink.
Friday-night Latin jazz on the 36th floor, with a view over the Corniche.
Saturday night is Portuguese fado, something no other Abu Dhabi bar puts on, with Spanish and Latin singers on Thursdays.
The government-run music school where you can learn oud, qanun or Arabic vocals properly, and even build an instrument.
Built for Sheikh Zayed the First in the 1890s, it now holds a permanent exhibition of Wilfred Thesiger's Empty Quarter photographs.
Shaded lanes run through date palms still watered by the falaj channels that made Al Ain a UNESCO site, right in the middle of town.
The country's oldest museum reopened in October 2025 with pre-Islamic graves found during the rebuild now on show, and Sultan Fort is part of the visit.
The outdoor stage behind the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after-race concerts, with Kings of Leon, Imagine Dragons and Jennifer Lopez from 3 to 6 December 2026.
Three galleries host the city's biggest temporary shows, and from 19 to 22 November 2026 it holds the first Frieze Abu Dhabi.
An 18-metre reconstructed Bronze Age Magan boat fills the atrium, and the Abu Dhabi Pearl is in the galleries beyond it.
Full dinosaur skeletons and the Evolving World galleries take you through Earth's history, and under-18s go free, which makes it an easy family afternoon.
The watchtower inside is the oldest building in the city, and the fort's rooms trace Abu Dhabi from a pearling village to a capital.
A touring stand-up club night that stops in Abu Dhabi on its monthly circuit, with early-bird seats at AED 140.
You can book a single one-hour wheel or hand-building session with 500 g of clay, then build up to a 20-session certificate package if it sticks.
A six-piece jazz band with soul vocals and guest singers, a long-running fixture of Abu Dhabi nights.
Sheikh Hamad bin Hamdan's collection of around 200 vehicles sits in a desert pyramid, from rainbow-painted Mercedes to absurdly oversized trucks.
Three reading halls with more than 20,000 books, including an oil and gas collection, plus storytelling and puppet shows for children.