UAE: Beyond the Glitter
- Adam Rogers
- Feb 21
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 22
I had been to Dubai several times before finally venturing beyond the glass towers and beach clubs to properly visit the rest of the United Arab Emirates. This time, I flew into DXB, cleared immigration, picked up a rental car—and didn’t even glance at the skyline. Instead, I pointed the car north and drove toward Ras Al Khaimah.
Visiting the UAE and only seeing Dubai or Abu Dhabi is like going to France and only seeing Paris, or the United Kingdom and only going to London. There is so much more. My short visit only touched the tip of the sand dune.
I left the airport in the early evening after a long United flight from Newark. The highway out of Dubai is a study in contrasts: immaculate lanes, soft amber lighting, and the faint hum of commerce that never seems to sleep. As the city thinned behind me, the towers gave way to wide-open desert. The road stretched forward in a straight, hypnotic line. On either side, the sand shifted from pale gold to deep rust as the sun slipped below the horizon. Occasional mosques, gas stations, and low-slung industrial compounds punctuated the emptiness. It felt like driving into a quieter version of the Gulf—one that existed long before power lunches and rooftop lounges.
An hour later I checked into the Hilton in the city of Ras Al Khaimah—RAK, as everyone calls it—grabbed a quick bite, and turned in early. I had a date with a mountain in the morning.
Up to Jebel Jais
At dawn, I headed toward Jebel Jais, the highest peak in the UAE, rising to 1,934 meters at the northern edge of the peninsula. The road up is a marvel in itself—freshly paved, engineered in elegant curves that cling to the mountainside. Each turn revealed another layer of jagged rock and plunging valleys.
Geographically, the mountain straddles the borderlands of the northwestern Hajar range, brushing up against Oman and not far from the Strait of Hormuz—the narrow corridor next Iran through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply flows each day. Seventeen million barrels pass through those waters daily. It’s an astonishing statistic when you’re standing among silent cliffs that feel utterly detached from geopolitics.
Despite all that oil moving nearby, the mountains themselves are raw and ancient. They look almost aquatic—as if some colossal tectonic hand had lifted the seabed and left it exposed to the sun. The rock is layered in folded bands of sediment, compressed and twisted over millennia, interrupted by dark veins of igneous intrusions that once forced their way upward in molten form before hardening into sharp, resistant spines. The effect is dramatic—ridges stacked upon ridges, their surfaces cracked and fractured, like a geological textbook left open to its most violent chapter.
And somewhere up there, strung between two cliffs, was the world’s longest zipline.
Into the Void
The Jebel Jais Flight stretches 2.83 kilometers and reaches speeds of up to 150 km/h. I arrived without a reservation—optimistic, perhaps foolish—but the staff calmly explained that I could book online from the parking lot below. A few taps on my phone, a credit card charge (around 300 AED - USD$82, if memory serves), and I was officially committed.
At the launchpad, the team was impressively professional—methodical, safety-focused, and unflappable. I paid a bit extra to have a camera mounted on my helmet. Presumably knowing I was being filmed would help me avoid outright panic. There is something about documentation that forces composure.
Suited up in a harness and helmet, I was clipped in face-down, Superman-style, the cable attached at my back. The staff counted down, and before my brain had fully processed what was happening, I was thrust forward—out into the void.
There is a split second when gravity takes over and your stomach lags behind the rest of you. Then the cable tightens, and you’re flying.
The desert floor dropped away beneath me. I soared over a jagged ridge and a sunburnt canyon, wind roaring past my ears. The experience lasted only a few minutes, but it stretched in my mind like an hour. Exhilarating, yes. Beautiful, absolutely. But I’ll admit—somewhere halfway across, I found myself thinking, This is far enough.
At the other end, I was gently reeled into a suspended platform hanging over a cliff edge, greeted by a cheerful crew member who seemed entirely unaware that I had just had a minor existential reckoning midair.
To calm my nerves, I retreated to the mountaintop restaurant for a light pasta and cream cheese dish—simple, comforting, and oddly grounding after flying like a human projectile.
A Deeper History
Later that afternoon I drove back into town and visited the National Museum of Ras Al Khaimah, housed in a former fort with thick coral-stone walls and watchtowers that once guarded the coast.
Ras Al Khaimah is one of the few places on earth that has been continuously inhabited for thousands of years, making it among the longest-settled regions in the world. Archaeological evidence shows that sophisticated trading communities thrived here as far back as 5000 BC. In fact, more than a thousand archaeological sites are scattered across the emirate—remnants of settlements, tombs, and trading outposts that speak to an ancient and outward-looking society.
Its location made it a crucial link in early trade routes connecting different parts of Mesopotamia between roughly 5500 and 3800 BC. By the 10th century, merchants from this coast were sailing as far as India, China, and Zanzibar. Standing inside the museum, looking at pottery shards and navigational tools, it struck me that this quiet emirate has long been connected to the wider world—just in very different ways than its flashier southern neighbors.
The Beaches of RAK
What surprised me just as much as the mountains were the beaches. Ras Al Khaimah’s coastline stretches along the Arabian Gulf in long, quiet arcs of pale sand, far less crowded than Dubai’s manicured stretches. The water is warm, almost bath-like for much of the year, and remarkably calm—more gentle lapping than crashing surf. From certain angles, you can see the silhouette of the Hajar Mountains rising inland, a stark backdrop to the flat sea horizon. It’s an unusual pairing: rugged peaks behind you, open Gulf ahead. I walked along the shoreline in the late afternoon, shoes in hand, watching small fishing boats drift lazily offshore. There were no DJs, no jet skis buzzing past every five minutes—just families picnicking, couples walking hand-in-hand, and the slow rhythm of the tide. It felt understated, and that’s precisely the charm.
Driving back to the hotel that evening, the mountains silhouetted against a fading sky, I felt oddly grateful I had skipped Dubai this time. The UAE is more than skylines and superlatives. In Ras Al Khaimah, I found something older, wilder, and unexpectedly humbling.
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