School trips to Abu Dhabi

Why visit Abu Dhabi?

Discover Emirati culture

As the capital of the United Arab Emirates, where better to explore Emirati culture than Abu Dhabi? On your school trip to Abu Dhabi, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to immerse yourselves in the local culture, from the modern to the more traditional.

If you are interested in traditional Emirati culture, we can highly recommend a visit to the Heritage Village. With reconstructions of a fort, a souk and a mosque, as well as traditional barasti houses and a Berber camp, this attraction offers a great insight into the traditional way of life in the desert.

You’ll be able to see how people used to cool buildings before air conditioning was invented and see how they still irrigate their fields to grow crops in a desert landscape.

Explore Islam in the UAE

Abu Dhabi is also a great choice of destination for religious studies groups and groups from Islamic faith schools. Thanks to its unique socioeconomic development, Abu Dhabi, and the UAE in general, is much more tolerant of other religions than many of its more conservative neighbours.

In fact, Abu Dhabi is currently building an Abrahmic Family House which will include a church, a synagogue and a mosque, celebrating the shared beliefs and origins of these three major world religions.

And no school trip to Abu Dhabi would be complete without a visit to the magnificent Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. A stunning example of modern Islamic architecture, it references all the major Islamic empires while at the same time being a very contemporary building.

See the effects of rapid urbanisation

For any groups studying geography, Abu Dhabi is a really interesting example of rapid urbanisation and modern city planning.

Back in the 1970s, modern Abu Dhabi was designed for a population that was expected to peak at 600,000 – the urban area is now home to 1.5 million people. The city is well known for its skyscrapers, but it’s also known for its many green parks and gardens, which is remarkable when you consider that this area was once desert.

On your school trip to Abu Dhabi, your students will be able to explore the history of the city and the reasons behind its rapid development, as well as discover some of the issues that such rapid urbanisation has caused.