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Dubai and the Gulf: why after 40 years I keep going
And, once again, my destination will be the Gulf.
Again?
The question is understandable. The Middle East is going through a complex period and the news of these weeks cannot be ignored. I follow it closely myself, I stay informed, I check flights and connections and I assess the situation day by day.
Traveling a lot doesn’t mean feeling invulnerable. Quite the opposite.
I believe experience teaches above all not to underestimate, to observe and to make informed decisions.
Yet, even this time, as I pack my suitcase for the Emirates, I feel a sensation I know very well.
I’m coming home.
A relationship that began almost 40 years ago.
My relationship with this part of the world didn’t start yesterday.
For almost forty years I’ve been returning regularly to the Emirates and the GCC countries. There have been hundreds of trips, at very different moments in my life and in their history.
When I first started coming to this region, what we see today simply didn’t exist yet.
I’ve had the privilege of witnessing the transformation of the Gulf countries not through photos, documentaries, or stories, but one trip after another.
I watched roads reach places where there used to be desert. Neighborhoods being born and growing. Skylines reshaping the landscape. Airports becoming some of the world’s most important hubs. I watched Dubai transform before my eyes. And every time I came back there was something new. Maybe that’s exactly why, even today, I can’t see it as just a destination.
I know its “before”. I lived its “during”. And I’m still curious to see its “after”.
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Why do I keep coming back?
I could answer by talking about the climate I love, the sea, the desert landscapes, or the cities that seem to reinvent themselves constantly.
I could talk about the food, which tells far more about the region than it might seem.
Or about the traditions, which fascinate me precisely because they coexist with a sometimes surprising modernity.
But that still wouldn’t be the full answer.
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I keep coming back mostly for the people.
Over the years I’ve come to know a hospitality I don’t forget, a kindness that often lives in
small gestures, and a way of welcoming that is deeply part of this region’s culture.
I’ve met people of completely different nationalities, cultures, and stories.
Because this, too, is the Gulf I know: a place where very distant worlds end up meeting every day.
And it’s probably this mix — tradition, multiculturalism, ambition, hospitality, and constant change — that keeps fascinating me.
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“Do you feel safe?” Yes.
Me, personally,
in the Gulf I feel safe.
And it matters to me to use exactly these words.
I’m not saying the place is immune to what happens in the world. I’m not suggesting others ignore warnings, official information, or their own sense of risk.
I’m sharing my experience.
When I travel alone I want to be able to move around calmly. I want to go out, walk, take a taxi, step into a restaurant and get back to the hotel without constantly living in a state of alert.
In the Emirates this feeling of peace of mind has always had huge value for me. And it’s probably one of the reasons why, trip after trip, I’ve developed that special familiarity that today makes me feel so at ease.
Safety, for me, isn’t just a statistic.
It’s also how you feel in a place.
I went back even when traveling was hard.
It’s not the first time I’ve left in a complicated moment.
There have been periods of international tension, crises, and times when traveling required a bit more thought. And then there was Covid.
A period that deeply changed our relationship with travel and that, for a while, made extraordinary even something we once considered normal: taking a plane. Even then I went back to the Emirates as soon as conditions allowed it.
Not as a challenge. Not because I thought nothing could happen.
But because traveling consciously is very different from traveling without fear.
I listen to fear. I look for information. I assess situations.Then I decide.
It’s how I’ve always traveled.
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Going back doesn’t mean stopping discovering …
There’s a question I get asked often:
“Why do you always go back to the same places? Why don’t you visit something new every time?”
It’s true. If I had chosen a different destination for every trip, probably today the number next to my visited countries would be far higher than 111.
But I’m not interested in collecting countries.
I’m interested in knowing them.
And truly getting to know a place takes time. You have to go back. You have to see it in different seasons, cross it at different times, talk with people, step off the streets we know, change neighborhood, try an unknown restaurant, walk into a market, watch everyday life.
You also have to allow yourself the luxury of not always having something to “visit”.
That’s my idea of Slow Travel.
Not necessarily traveling slowly. Rather, traveling slowly enough to be able to feel the place we’re in.
This too, for me, is Travel Wellness
When I talk about Travel Wellness I don’t think only of a spa, a resort, or a treatment.
I think above all about how a trip makes us feel.
About comfort, of course, but also about peace of mind.
About the freedom to move at our own pace.
About the pleasure of sitting in front of a coffee without looking at the clock.
About the chance to return to a place we know and realize that, precisely because we no longer have to rush to see everything, we can finally observe.
For me the Gulf is this too. A place where I can be curious and, at the same time, feel at ease. A balance I don’t find everywhere.
And now I’m going back once again
In a few days I’ll be in Dubai again.
This time the trip will also have a special professional dimension: I’ll be attending the Arabian Travel Market 2026 with PATTYLU TRAVEL.
I’ll go to meet people, listen to ideas, discover new projects and get to know local professionals with whom, perhaps, future collaborations may be born.
But I already know it won’t be just work. Looking out of the window during landing I’ll recognize roads, lights and places that are part of my memory.
And I’ll probably discover something that wasn’t there last time.
It’s happened almost every time over the last forty years.
And that is, perhaps, the simplest reason why I keep coming back.
Because I know the Gulf well enough to feel at home.
And not yet well enough to have stopped being curious.
