19 of the Best Dubai Travel Apps To Download Before Your Trip

Ritzy, ostentatious, flabbergasting, awe-inducing, overwhelming: Dubai is not a city that elicits lukewarm reactions in travelers.

Whether you’re in town on a long layover or you’ve chosen to spend a few days exploring (or lounging beside the hotel pool,) arming yourself with a few useful tools will help you make the most of your time in the Emirate’s tourism hotspot.

These are the best apps for traveling in Dubai.

Transportation & Navigation

Careem

Essentially the Middle East’s alternative to Uber, the Careem ride-sharing app is one of the most useful for visitors to Dubai.

Dubai has decent public transport, but depending on your needs, the time you need to go somewhere, or even the weather situation (read: hot, hotter, or melting), chances are you’ll turn to a private ride at some point.

Prices are good too. A ride from Jumeirah to the airport will go for around 50 AED (~$13 USD), for example, and both cash and cards are accepted.

Wojhati

Even for those who love to walk, exploring Dubai on foot can be a challenge. Depending on the season and time of day, walking varies from merely uncomfortable to almost impossible. When it all gets too much, do as the locals do and rely on public transport instead.

Dubai’s public transportation network is extensive and reliable, including buses, water buses, monorail, trams, and metro. Navigating it all can be daunting, though, and that’s where Wojhati comes in.

This app, an official service from Dubai’s Roads & Transports Authority, helps you make sense of all five systems, with timetables and suggestions for the shortest route to your destination.

RTA Dubai Drive

If you’d rather sit behind the wheel, you can do that too: renting a car in Dubai is a straightforward process, and gives greater freedom of movement. You’re free from being tied down to a transportation schedule, or somebody else’s availability to take you where you want to go.

RTA Dubai Drive is also backed by the city’s transportation authority. The app helps deal with some of the most cumbersome parts of driving, including tracking down somewhere to park, paying for said parking, and finding your way around.

Food & Restaurants

Talabat

Don’t feel like going out tonight? No problem: Talabat is here to bring you whatever you’re feeling like for dinner (or lunch, or breakfast for that matter.)

Local cuisine and international offers are listed, including chains you may be missing from home (we all do from time to time) and delicacies you won’t find anywhere else. Advance ordering is available, so you can arrange for your food to be delivered to the comfort of your hotel room whenever you like.

Language

Duolingo

Intimidated by Arabic? You shouldn’t be. Not only because in Dubai you’ll have virtually no problem getting by in English, but also because you can pick up some local words on the plane ahead of time.

Duolingo makes it easy to get acquainted with the Arabic alphabet and learn the basics of the language before you set foot in Dubai. With integrated lessons, flashcards, and quizzes, the app will help you learn to count from 1 to 99 and read Arabic text (even if you have no idea what it means!).

Bravolol

If you’d like to take your language learning a step further, get your feet wet with listening and speaking Arabic using Bravolol.

This app focuses mainly on teaching you how to correctly speak and understand the language. An animated parrot guides you through the modules, focusing on commonly-used Arabic words and phrases.

Information

Visit Dubai

The official app from Dubai’s Department of Tourism is a wealth of information, and should be your first stop when planning a visit.

There’s plenty of info on sights and attractions, which you can then combine to create your own customized itinerary. The app also includes a currency exchange feature (powered by XE), which will come in handy for working out menu prices during dinner or haggling at the souk.

Dubai Travel Guide

For more in-depth information, turn to a bonafide digital guidebook like Ulmon’s Dubai Travel Guide.

The biggest draw of Ulmon’s city guide apps is their maps. Detailed, comprehensive, and easy to use, they’re also fully downloadable for offline use.

GulfNews

Stay up to date with the latest city and regional news via Dubai’s largest media source, Gulf News.

You can filter and organize the app’s home page with the topics that interest you most, including news from back home if you like. The site and app have a comprehensive international section, as well as business, arts, and sports.

DubaiNow

Run by the city’s eGovernment Department, DubaiNow is geared mostly towards residents and long-term visitors, but many of its services come in handy for travelers as well.

The app has useful information on urban services in general, from housing to visas. It’s the practical listings that are more useful for tourists, however, such as the location of the nearest ATMs, which health centers or pharmacies are open, weather conditions, and prayer times for any specific days.

Entertainment & Attractions

Dubai Maps and Walks

Feeling antsy and need to explore? If our comments about the weather didn’t put you off earlier, download Dubai Maps and Walks and head out onto the streets.

The app includes several self-guided walking tours around the city. Choose between orientation walks (for those who’ve just landed) to those focused on one area or an aspect of the city like art and culture or nightlife.

ClassPass

Feeling energetic while in Dubai? If getting a sweat on just by walking around isn’t enough, grab ClassPass and hit the gyms and fitness studios instead.

ClassPass lets you take classes in different studios around the city. Whether you feel like yoga, pilates, spinning, HIIT, or boxing, you’ll find it in Dubai, and ClassPass will get you a spot in any of them.

Anghami

Can’t work out without music? Want to have a backing track to your explorations of the city? Give your usual streaming service a break, and use local app Anghami instead.

Described as the “Spotify of Arabia,” Anghami is the first legal streaming service in the Middle East and North Africa, with an impressive catalog of over 30 million songs.

Both international musicians and Arabic artists are available, so you can listen to some of your favorite bands as well as finding new ones while on the road.

You can create playlists and download songs for offline listening even in the free version, albeit with some limitations. Who knows, you may even ditch your usual music app even when you get home!

The Dubai Mall

“Dubai: a city where we do buy.”

This play on words, uttered by my English teacher when I was eight, was the very first time I heard about Dubai (true story), and it’s stuck with me since.

Whether you’re there specifically for shopping or it’s just a side activity, Dubai is a bustling hub of retail activity. Nowhere is that more obvious than the Dubai Mall.

The mall may no longer be the largest in the world by total area (that accolade was taken by China’s New Century Global Center in 2013), but it is still pretty damn big. With over 13 million square feet and some 1,200 stores, indulging in retail therapy there is a serious business.

Dubai Calendar

While it may seem that all there is to do in Dubai is eat and shop, that’s not entirely true. Sure, you’re bound to do a little (or a lot) of both, but there’s more to the Emirate than meets the eye.

Dubai’s Department of Tourism makes it easy to know what is going on in the city with its Calendar app. From concerts to temporary exhibits and conferences, or to just generally find out what’s going on while you’re in town, the app is your one-stop resource.

WithLocals

Don’t you often wish you had a friend showing you around their hometown? We can’t always count on having a friend living in the places we visit, but we can count on the next best thing: an app that lets locals show off their city to visitors.

Accommodation

Rehlat

A one-stop service, Rehlat allows you to plan your entire trip right from the app. The online travel agency lists hotels and rental cars, along with flights and full travel packages.

The app is especially useful for flights, including over 300 airlines from large international carriers like Etihad or Emirates that will take you to Dubai, to smaller regional providers like Salem Air or Fly Dubai to help expand your trip to another part of the Gulf.

Clear Trip

Clear Trip is a similar, comprehensive travel booking service, but it skews more towards the budget-conscious crowd. If you’ve been brave enough to come to Dubai with the intention of keeping your costs under control, be sure to download their app.

A not-so-affordable city in general, if you are hoping to stay under budget you’d be right to look away from the Marina and seek something a little different. When you do that, Agoda’s right there to help.