15 of 17 places fit
See a 16th-century defensive fort built with stone, mud brick, and plaster that overlooks the old town.
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 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 museum built around a Bronze Age tomb, with guided routes out to ancient burial sites and Fossil Rock in the desert around it.
About 30 restored mud and palm-frond buildings, an 1896 fort with a weapons display in its tower, and a date-syrup press, free.
An abandoned coral-stone pearling town, mosque, fort and souq included, that you can walk through freely, with a free guided tour on weekends.
The only hilltop fort left in the UAE, reached by 239 steps, with a view over the palm groves and the sea.
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.
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 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.
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.
Built for Sheikh Zayed the First in the 1890s, it now holds a permanent exhibition of Wilfred Thesiger's Empty Quarter photographs.
The first traditional carved-stone Hindu temple in the region, and the evening Ganga Aarti at 7:30pm is worth timing your visit around.
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.
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.