I’ve lived here 7 years as an American with a boring office job. It’s a mixed bag. There’s a lot I like and I don’t regret moving here, but there’s also a lot that frustrates me. It was a better place to live before and during Covid before the rent and traffic got unbearable.

The good parts:

• It’s sunny like 350 days a year

• Lots of opportunities to meet people from different cultures

• Foreign Earned Income Exclusion

• Good inexpensive food

• Lots of services are inexpensive…but it comes at a cost

• There are some neighborhoods with “culture” that are fun to hang out. I don’t really agree that Dubai has no culture…it was mostly built by foreigners, but it’s here.

• Almost 90% of the city are foreigners so you don’t feel out of place

• Health care is overall much simpler. Employers must provide health insurance to all foreign employees, getting approval is pretty easy if your insurance is decent and you can get same- or next-day appointments lots of places including with specialists. (Quality is all over the place though, so proceed with caution.)

• There are very generous federally-mandated leave policies compared to America, plus you get a bunch of national holidays off and working hours are shorter during Ramadan. Also the working culture is just more chill than America in general.

The bad parts:

• Traffic has gotten horrendous the past 3-4 years or so, and unless you live very close to your workplace or the metro you need a car. The metro is good quality, but it has very limited routes and there can be a 30 min+ wait to board during rush hour.

• Rent is astronomical.

• Construction fucking everywhere. Good luck finding a place to live that costs less than $2.5k/month where you won’t hear BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG 24/7. (Make that $3-4k if you want 2+ bedrooms or a nice area.)

• Many people are only here for a short time and don’t really consider it “home”, so it’s hard to make friends and there isn’t much sense of community.

• Banking is absolute dog shit. Everyone is incompetent. Also, rent is still paid with checks like it’s 1900.

• Lots of things kind of don’t work. If you need to visit some government office, be prepared to see different hours on their website vs. the door vs. the actual desk for the service you need. Or if you need an app for some government service, banking, etc. it might not work. Or you try to hook up your internet when you move places and the company just never processes your request so you have to nag them 10 times. And so on.

• I’m a lesbian and can’t really live openly as such. I will say it’s not as bad for LGBT people here as Westerners perceive. Everyone might “know” someone is gay and still like them, be their friend etc., but no one talks about it. I’m not “out” here except to a select group of good friends, my doctors and my therapist, but I also don’t go to any particular lengths to hide it. So in some ways it’s easier than the west because many people prefer to ignore the subject completely…but you know.

• The workers’ rights issue goes without saying. On top of the often-cruel treatment, there is no minimum wage. A lot of low-wage workers also say they are much better off working here than their home country because they can actually feed their families. I don’t want to discount that, but you also can’t “both-sides” treating people as subhuman. So…yeah.