48 places
A free stand-up night from Dubai's long-running comedy school, often featuring its own graduates alongside regulars.
A quiet Dubai public library devoted to art, architecture and design, with desks, exhibition space and computer rooms.
A free contemporary art space on the Al Qasba canal that also runs low-cost art workshops.
One of Dubai's biggest book clubs (5,000+ on Meetup), alternating fiction and non-fiction, with members voting on the picks.
The ping pong table at Dubai's big indoor sports complex is free to use.
Sharjah's fish, meat and produce market, where the day's catch is auctioned from about 6am.
A free permanent collection of modern Arab art and Orientalist paintings, a short walk from the Sharjah Art Foundation buildings.
A coffee, board game and tabletop role-playing spot that runs regular public game nights you can join solo.
Founded in 1925, the oldest library institution in the UAE, with Arabic and English lending collections and quiet reading space.
A small open-shelf public library with periodicals and electronic databases, one of the few free reading rooms in Ajman.
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.
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.
Dozens of commercial galleries, project spaces and a cinema in converted warehouses, all free to walk into, in one block.
Buy fish straight off the boats, about 70% from UAE waters, have it cleaned on the spot and grilled in the same building.
Over 600 shops on two floors, with carpets, kilims and handwoven textiles upstairs and Bedouin silver and gold along the lagoon side.
One of the oldest souks in the country, covered and air-conditioned, with copper coffee pots, pearl chests, oud and a halwa shop.
Contemporary art spread through restored coral-stone houses and courtyards in the old town, free, plus the Rain Room and the Flying Saucer nearby.
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.
The first traditional carved-stone Hindu temple in the region, and the evening Ganga Aarti at 7:30pm is worth timing your visit around.
Open until 10pm on Sundays, with its own children's library and Arabic and English periodicals.
Tuesday night karaoke at a sports bar by the F1 track, with no limits on song choice.
A library inside a philosophy research centre, opened in 2020, with Arabic philosophy, translations and classical works from Aristotle to Avicenna.
A Sharjah Art Foundation exhibition space in a restored former ice factory on the east coast, free, with a café.
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.
A restored mud-brick tower house shows UAE artists upstairs and Bronze Age finds in its archaeological basement.
The city's specialist game shop runs in-store events and tournaments, the easiest way to find regular players for card and strategy games.
The square fort where Sheikh Khalifa was born, with a glass exhibition hall inside the courtyard and a 21,000-palm oasis behind it.
Sheikh Khalifa's birthplace, with a glass exhibition hall in the courtyard telling the fort's story next to Al Ain's smallest oasis.
A free weekly sketching session where paper and materials are provided, so you can turn up with nothing and draw for three hours.
Al Ain's main public library, near Sulaimi Garden, with reading rooms, a theatre and free wifi.
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.
Open-stage karaoke in a British pub where the room sings along to the big choruses.
A 5,250-square-metre library built to feel like walking into a life-size pop-up book.
Its visual arts halls show Emirati and regional artists for free, currently the Zuleya 2026 exhibition running to 15 January 2027.
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.
A free weekly writing group where you can bring a chapter, poem or blog post and get honest feedback, with a separate Arabic session.
Comedy Kix's free Thursday stand-up set in the InterContinental's Belgian beer bar, so the only cost is what you drink.
Three galleries host the city's biggest temporary shows, and from 19 to 22 November 2026 it holds the first Frieze Abu Dhabi.
A modern souk on the canal facing the Grand Mosque, with waterside terraces for dinner after browsing.
Built for Sheikh Zayed the First in the 1890s, it now holds a permanent exhibition of Wilfred Thesiger's Empty Quarter photographs.
An 1890s mud-brick fort with a room of Wilfred Thesiger's Empty Quarter photographs, set in a park you can picnic in.
Foster + Partners' modern take on a souk sits on the site of the old Central Market, with carved timber lanes and oud and spice stalls.
Three reading halls with more than 20,000 books, including an oil and gas collection, plus storytelling and puppet shows for children.