How a route note is built

Every note on this site goes through the same five steps. It is a slow process, which is why there are six routes here rather than sixty.

Read the map properly first

Before driving anything, the route is broken into stages on paper, with the junctions, the fuel stops, the service areas and the points where the road character changes all marked. This first pass is deliberately pessimistic: it assumes a stop is closed, a junction is missed, and the last stage takes longer than it should.

Drive it slowly, then drive it again

The road is covered at an unhurried pace with frequent stops, and notes are taken at the roadside rather than from memory afterwards. Then it is driven a second time at a different hour, because a junction that is obvious at ten in the morning can be genuinely difficult at five in the afternoon with the sun in your eyes.

Check the surface and the hazards honestly

Where sand blows across the carriageway, where gravel washes out of the gullies, where the tarmac has been rutted by heavy traffic, where livestock appears near unfenced sections, and where a shoulder is too soft to stop on. These get written down specifically, with the place named, rather than as a general warning.

Test the stops as a passenger would

Each recommended stop is judged on shade, facilities, somewhere to sit, and whether the car can be parked out of the sun. A service area that is convenient for a lorry driver is not necessarily useful for a couple who want ten minutes on a bench in the shade, and the notes distinguish between the two.

Write it plainly and keep it current

The note is written in ordinary language with the timings that a relaxed pace actually produces, not the optimistic figure a screen suggests. Routes are re-driven across different seasons, and where conditions have changed the note is corrected rather than quietly left as it was.

Roads, services and border arrangements change without notice. These notes describe conditions as found on the drives behind them, and every one of them should be treated as a considered starting point rather than a guarantee of what you will meet on the day.

A specialist examining the paint and panel gaps of a pre-owned luxury car with a torch under showroom lighting.

The route index

Routes out of Abu Dhabi

Six long route notes, each driven at an unhurried pace and written down honestly. They cover the sands to the south-west, the coast to the west and the east, the mountain climb inland, the crossing into Oman, and the two conditions that shape every long drive here: heat and darkness.

Open the route index

A luxury coupe driving through a Gulf city after dark, illuminated towers reflected across its bodywork.

Tell me where you would like to drive

A short note about the trip you have in mind, who is coming, what you drive and roughly when, is enough to start with. The reply will be a plain answer about whether the route suits the season and the car, not a sales pitch.

Write to the Abu Dhabi desk