It’s no trouble to find a place to stay overnight in Dubai. Hotels and luxury is begging and calling. But what if you are the green and eco persuasion? You’ve promised to replace your polluting air miles with a softer landing. Green Prophet gives you 5 earth friendly hotel alternatives in Dubai.
1. Surf couches in Dubai. Yes it’s possible. Not all Dubai couches are lined with gold. Well, maybe faux gold (not like the white gold Mercedes here). Read our backgrounder on couch surfing in the Middle East and surf away. Who knows maybe you’ll meet a Middle Eastern prince. Tafline shows you how it’s done.
2. Camp in Dubai. Pack your tent on the plane and get set to camp in Dubai. You might feel out of place running into the jet set with sand under your fingernails, but you will feel what it’s like to be a desert nomad, for a least a couple of days. For the spoiled ones, this list even suggests some place where you can do 5 star camping. Our fearless traveller Tafline has even spent nights out in her car, while travelling in the United Arab Emirates.
3. Rent a house, apartment, yacht, cave, caravan… you name it, on AirBnB. In the real world, most of the actual listings in Dubai are for rooms with views (like of Burj Dubai) in luxury buildings, but it’s certainly softer to tread on the planet this way.
4. Hostel it. Some of the rooms offered are at a school campus in Ajman for about $15 a night. Other rooms in small hostels are from $50 to about $100 a night. My experience with youth hostels in the Middle East is that they are not only used by youth but also by foreign workers and male travellers from other Middle East countries. If you are comfortable with the clash of cultures, go for it.
5. Like Green Prophet’s Tafline who has been on a sailing journey for months, it is possible to sail or boat into Dubai on a modest sailboat or a luxury cruise ship. We prefer the modest options, obviously, but we’d be okay with your ship if it were powered by renewable energy like this one.
Author: Karin Kloosterman
Karin Kloosterman is an award-winning journalist, innovation strategist, and founder of Green Prophet, one of the Middle East’s pioneering sustainability platforms. She has ranked in the Top 10 of Verizon innovation competitions, participated in NASA-linked challenges, and spoken worldwide on climate, food security, and future resilience. With an IoT technology patent, features in Canada’s National Post, and leadership inside teams building next-generation agricultural and planetary systems — including Mars-farming concepts — Karin operates at the intersection of storytelling, science, and systems change. She doesn’t report on the future – she helps design it. Reach out directly to [email protected]
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