Kite Beach: the active one, with watersports and a running track

Getting there

This is the beach's one weakness: there is no metro station within walking distance, so it is a taxi or a car. From Downtown it is fifteen to twenty minutes, from JBR about the same in the other direction.

There is parking behind the beach and it fills at weekends, as everywhere on this coast. Weekday mornings are straightforward.

Watersports

The kitesurfing zone is at the northern end and it is separated from the swimming area, which is the arrangement that makes the beach work for both. Operators on the sand rent equipment and give lessons, and paddleboarding and kayaking are also available.

Wind is the variable. It picks up reliably in the afternoons through much of the year and the kite zone is busiest then; on a still morning there may be nobody on the water at all.

The running track and the gym equipment

A rubberised track runs along the back of the sand for several kilometres and it is genuinely used, early morning and after dark it is one of the busiest running routes in the city. Outdoor gym stations and volleyball nets sit alongside it.

In summer this only works before sunrise or well after sunset. Between November and March it is usable most of the day.

Night swimming

Kite Beach is one of the stretches of Dubai coast lit for swimming after dark, with floodlights over a marked section and lifeguards on duty during the posted evening hours. It is a genuinely useful thing to know in summer, when daytime swimming is unpleasant and the sea holds its heat.

Check the posted hours on the day instead of assuming, the lit hours are seasonal and the section in use can move.

Facilities and food

Showers, changing rooms and toilets along the beach, lifeguards with the flag system, shaded seating, and a long row of food trucks and small outlets behind the sand serving everything from coffee to burgers to fresh juice. Prices are lower than at JBR.

It is a less polished setup than The Beach and a more relaxed one. There are no shops, no cinema and no mall behind it, which some visitors count as the point.

What to bring

Water, more than you think, because there is no shop on the sand and the food trucks are at one end only. A mat or towel, the sand is fine and gets into everything, and the loungers here are fewer than at the developed beaches. Reef shoes if you plan to go in beyond knee depth, since the seabed carries the occasional shell bed.

Sunscreen is the one people underestimate. The reflected light off pale sand and water is stronger than the air temperature suggests, and in the cooler months when it does not feel hot is exactly when visitors get burnt.

The kites, and the name

The name is not decorative. This stretch was where kite surfing established itself in Dubai, and on a windy afternoon between roughly October and April the water off the beach still fills with kites. It is a genuine spectacle from the sand and costs nothing to watch.

The activity is regulated rather than free-for-all, with designated zones and set conditions, which is why the swimming area and the kite area do not overlap. If you want to try it, the operators working the beach handle lessons and equipment; if you do not, the far end of the beach is the calmer half.

Watching costs nothing and the best of it happens in the last two hours of daylight.