Last week I drove to Dubai cuz I had some stuff to do. I hadn’t done that trip since the end of 2024 and the route seems to have changed since then, it’s slightly shorter and quicker.
For clarification, I always stop at Abu Dhabi for a night, so the trip info below is based on the journey from Kuwait to Abu Dhabi.
✈ KWI → BOM
Parts of the Saudi leg of the trip that previously involved some small roads and cutting through different areas seem to have been replaced by a highway route. I just compared the previous map I posted on the blog with the current route and it seems to be 60km shorter. And since a chunk of that route was small roads with limited speeds, it now shaved off more around an hour from the trip.
According to my car trip data, the journey took around nine and a half hours from my place to Abu Dhabi, but this is based on the amount of time the car was driving so doesn’t include when I switched it off at fuel stations, and at the UAE border when I had to go down to passport control. So add another 20-30 minutes and you get around 10 hours duration. It previously took me 11 hours for the same trip.
I also realized that the Saudi route had a small mobile speed camera every 5km. Other than the fact that thats A LOT of speed cameras, knowing they would pop up every 5km made it less stressful. I really think they need to increase the highway speeds in the middle of the desert for the Saudi roads, right now it’s 120 but they should be around 140. The road from the UAE border to Abu Dhabi is 160km, but their highway is a lot wider and also have lights in case it’s nighttime.
It’s a good time to go to Dubai btw since there aren’t many tourists at the moment. Hotels are a good value and the traffic everywhere seems less.
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