Unique Places to Stay in the UAE, by Format

The UAE has more genuinely unusual places to sleep than its skyline reputation suggests, and they are not evenly distributed. Almost all of them sit in five formats: the desert, the Hajar mountains, the islands and the coast, the old quarters of the trading cities, and a newer group of eco lodges and pod camps. This is a guide to the formats rather than a ranking, because the useful question is not which property is best, it is which format matches the trip you are trying to have.

Desert camps and desert resorts

Two different things share this label. A desert resort is a hotel that happens to be built in the dunes, with a pool, a spa, a restaurant and a room key. Qasr Al Sarab, deep in the Liwa dune sea in Abu Dhabi's Western Region, is the largest of them. Al Maha sits inside the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve with private pool suites and a strict no-day-visitor policy. Bab Al Shams is closer to Dubai and easier to reach on a whim. The Ritz-Carlton Ras Al Khaimah, Al Wadi Desert, does the same thing in a nature reserve at the northern end of the country. Telal Resort, near Al Ain, leans on an Emirati village aesthetic and is the easiest of them to combine with a Jebel Hafeet trip.

A desert camp is the other thing entirely: tents on sand, no permanent structures, and an evening built around a fire rather than a lobby. Some are shared sites hosting several bookings a night. Others are exclusive-use, which is where the format changes character completely, because silence is not a marketing claim once nobody else is on the site. Ours is one of these, a private camp at Al Khatim called Khayal Al Sahra, listed as an Airbnb desert camp near Abu Dhabi. The sorting logic across all four desert formats is laid out in our guide to desert accommodation types.

Mountain lodges and cabins in the Hajar range

The Hajar mountains run up the eastern side of the country and change the temperature, the light and the vegetation enough that people who have lived in Dubai for years are startled by them. Hatta, technically part of Dubai but an hour and a half inland, has the densest cluster: Damani Lodges Resort, the Sedr Trailers Resort with its restored Airstream caravans, and the Hatta Dome Park, where you sleep in a transparent geodesic dome facing the ridgeline. All three sit near the Hatta Dam.

Further north, Jebel Jais in Ras Al Khaimah is the highest point in the country and holds the Bear Grylls Explorers Camp, which runs guided overnight stays with a survival-skills programme rather than a spa. In Abu Dhabi, Jebel Hafit near Al Ain has the Mercure Grand hotel near the summit and, at its base, the campsite at Jebel Hafit Desert Park run by Bab Al Nojoum, which is one of the few places you can sleep beside 5,000-year-old tombs.

Mountain stays are also the answer to the summer problem. Elevation buys you a few degrees, which is not nothing between June and September.

Island and beach setups

Sir Bani Yas, off the Western Region coast, is a wildlife reserve with free-roaming cheetahs, giraffes and Arabian oryx, and Anantara runs three separate properties on it, including tented villas on the beach. Zaya Nurai Island, a short boat ride from Saadiyat, is a private island of villas that can be taken over entirely. Anantara World Islands puts you on one of the artificial islands off Dubai with a skyline view and no road access. Anantara Mina Al Arab in Ras Al Khaimah has overwater villas on a mangrove lagoon, which is a rarer format in this part of the world than the marketing suggests.

The common thread is that a boat transfer changes the psychology of a stay more than the distance justifies. Once you cannot drive away, people settle differently.

Heritage houses and old-quarter conversions

Al Bait Sharjah, in the Heart of Sharjah district, is a hotel built into restored merchant houses with wind towers and courtyards, and it is the most complete example of the format in the country. In Dubai, the Al Seef Heritage Hotel occupies a recreated creekside quarter, and the XVA Art Hotel in the Al Fahidi historical neighbourhood is a small courtyard house with a gallery attached, which makes it the most atmospheric budget-adjacent option in the city. On the east coast, Najd Al Meqsar in Khorfakkan is a cluster of restored stone houses in a mountain valley.

Heritage stays trade comfort for texture. Rooms are smaller, layouts are eccentric, and the buildings do things modern hotels do not, which is the reason to book one.

Eco lodges, domes and pod camps

A newer category sits between camping and hotels. Sonara Camp in Al Marmoom, Dubai, and Terra Solis on the edge of the Dubai desert are both permanent tented sites with restaurants attached. In Sharjah, Al Badayer Retreat sits at the edge of the Big Red dune belt, Al Faya Retreat is a five-room conversion of a petrol station and clinic in the Mleiha desert, and Moon Retreat at Mleiha is a small tented camp built for stargazing.

One honest note on treehouses. They are the format people ask about most and the one the UAE has least of, because the tree cover for it barely exists here. There are elevated cabins and dome stays that get sold with the word attached, and rather than name something we cannot verify, we would say the domes and the mountain lodges are the closest real equivalent.

How to pick between the formats

• You want silence and a sky: desert camp, exclusive use if the occasion warrants it.
• You want the desert with a pool and a spa: desert resort.
• You are travelling in summer: mountains, or a coastal property with shade and water.
• You want the trip to feel long: anything reached by boat.
• You are interested in how the country was before 1970: a heritage house in Sharjah, Dubai or Khorfakkan.
• You want somewhere unusual within two hours of home: a dome or pod camp, most of which sit inside that radius.

If a weekend rather than a full trip is what you are planning, our weekend getaways from Dubai guide sorts these by driving distance instead, and the overnight stays page covers how the tented end of it works in practice.

FAQs

What is the most unusual place to stay in the UAE?

By format rather than by name: a transparent dome in the Hatta mountains, a tented villa on a wildlife island, and an exclusive-use desert camp with nobody else on the site are the three that feel least like a hotel.

Are there treehouse stays in the UAE?

Not in any form we can verify. The tree cover for it does not really exist here. Dome stays and elevated mountain cabins are the nearest genuine equivalent.

Which unusual stays work in summer?

Mountain properties at elevation, and desert camps with cooling that runs through the whole night. Anything relying on open-air evenings between June and September will be hard work.

Can you book a whole property for a group?

On private islands and at exclusive-use desert camps, yes, that is the normal way they are sold. Resorts and heritage hotels usually sell by room and handle buyouts as a separate conversation.

Do unusual stays cost more than hotels?

Not reliably. Domes and pod camps often sit below a city hotel rate, while private islands and exclusive-use sites are quoted per booking rather than per room, which makes them expensive for two people and reasonable for sixteen.