Dubai,I think is a big bore - a city deliberately built to appeal to tourism, and only built for that purpose, and not possessing a valid culture or history of its own.

I've always found that the best travelers are the very same people who are intensely interested in the history and culture of their own home city.

To travel best requires some time preparing for your visit to a particular location - that you don't travel anywhere without spending a few nights reading about the culture and history of the place you are visiting. This is what most of us don't do - we fling ourselves on an exotic destination hoping that someone will tell us what we are looking at, but by that time it's too late, and all the lectures and tour guides simply add to our confusion.

If I tell a hotel I'm a travel writer, I can't get out of there without spending a few hours looking at every single room!

I find, on my own travels, that the most depressing form of culture shock is experienced when you go into a country that is under the thumb of a dictator.

Dubai,I think is a big bore - a city deliberately built to appeal to tourism, and only built for that purpose, and not possessing a valid culture or history of its own.

Once abroad, I eat one meal a day picnic-style: Ive learned that no mature stomach can tolerate an endless routine of rich restaurant meals.