Dubai Travel Tips Metro: All About Traveling Through Dubai
Dubai is a very modern city. Not only with its skyscrapers and nice hotels, public transport is also organised well. We mainly used the metro network in Dubai and were very satisfied with it. We collected the best tips to travel in Dubai by public transport/metro.
Use the Metro in Dubai
Almost all interesting places can be visited perfectly by metro. From the airport you can easily board the red line, which then continues all the way to the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Marina. You can also transfer to the Green Line, especially useful for the old city center and the souqs.
Tip: turn on public transport in Google Maps, you will then see the metro lines on the map, even with its correct colors! In addition to the green and red metro lines, a tram also runs in the Dubai Marina area. We also created a Google Maps guide for Dubai.
Prices for Metro in Dubai
For a day ticket we paid 22 dirhams in August 2023. It has unlimited fare for that single day. Please note, the first time you pay a little more for purchasing the NOL-card, after that the card can be topped up. Individual rides are also possible, but our experience is that that would be more expensive quite fast. You can top up at almost all metro stations. And do not forget it can get quite busy in the metro, especially at peak times. So don’t be surprised if you have to stand.
Palm Jumeirah Metro
Palm Jumeirah can only be visited by the monorail, which is not included in the general Dubai metro and tram network. The monorail is quite expensive at 30 dirhams for a return trip. Further, the question remains how long it will continue to run. We heard some rumors that the monorail will be closing soo. We just enjoyed riding this monorail (especially for the beautiful view of the Atlantis hotel!), but it is actually much faster (and cheaper) to just take an Uber. And for those other few places you can’t get to by metro, Uber is certainly a great option as well. A rental car is absolutely not necessary.
Where to Stay in Dubai
The tourist attractions of Dubai are spread out a bit along the length of the city (along the coastline), more or less all along the metro lines. So the most convenient place is a central location near a metro station (unless you just want to sunbathe, then look for a hotel on the beach obviously). We chose Mercure Hotel Barsha Heights, an excellent hotel for a reasonable price, located directly at Dubai Internet City metro station.
