I got my bags packed on a roll heading out there and I'm ready to go looking real good

in my passport photo.

Amateur Traveler episode 513. Today the Amateur Traveler talks about mosques and pirates, the

world's tallest building and indoor skiing as we go to the United Arab Emirates.

I know that I should be heading home,

but maybe not, maybe not today.

Welcome to the amateur traveler. I'm your host Chris Christensen. Without further

ado, let's talk about the UAE. I'd like to welcome back to the show Zora O'Neill, Travel Writer, Guidebook

author, and recent author of the book All Strangers Are Ken.

Zora, welcome back to the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

It's great to be back.

And I say back to the show, Zorra's been on twice by my records, once talking about

new Mexico and once talking about traveling around the Yucatan. Zor I do want to say officially here that since

you have been on I have taken your advice and we did that trip we talked about to the Rue dupeuk and Marita and all of the wonderful things outside of

Cancun in the Ucatan and had a wonderful time.

I'm so glad to hear that.

It's always gratifying for a guidebook writer to hear when someone follows their advice and it actually turned out well.

Thanks. Now this time we are talking about some other place that is hot but we are going a little further afield. We're talking

about the United Arab Emirates today. Yes. And is that plural Emirates? Yes it is and

it's funny because before I went to the United Arab Emirates, I had to do some Wikipedia reading,

I admit, because I was totally not clear on what Dubai is as an entity and what Abu Dhabi is as an entity and I really had to clear that all up.

...