{"id":27570,"date":"2026-10-28T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/czechin.ae\/?p=27570"},"modified":"2026-10-28T10:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T09:00:07","slug":"living-in-abu-dhabi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/czechin.ae\/en\/living-in-abu-dhabi\/","title":{"rendered":"Living in Abu Dhabi: Neighbourhoods, History, Pros and Cons vs Dubai"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Living in Abu Dhabi runs at a slower pace than in Dubai. The capital of the United Arab Emirates is calmer and more spread out, but it has no metro, its airport handles almost three times fewer passengers than Dubai’s, and its neighbourhoods are scattered across islands and the mainland, so you get around by car. From the centre it is about 77 minutes’ drive to Dubai Marina without traffic, and since 30 September 2026 a train runs here from Dubai too. Yet the property market is growing faster than Dubai’s: the value of transactions rose by 44% in 2025 according to ADREC<\/a>, compared with 20% in Dubai according to the Dubai Land Department<\/a>, and in the first half of 2026 transactions worth 117 billion AED went through, 112% more than a year earlier, according to the ADREC half-year report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This guide is part of our series on locations and reads differently from our travel tips. What to see in Abu Dhabi in a day, what tickets cost and how to get there by train is covered in our Abu Dhabi day trip guide<\/a>. Here we describe Abu Dhabi as a place to live: how it came about, what its neighbourhoods are like, what you will find there and what is missing, how far things are and how it differs from Dubai. Our office is in Dubai and we offer five off-plan projects for sale in Abu Dhabi, so at the end we also look at prices, rents and what is being built. Rents throughout are annual rents from long-term rental listings, not nightly rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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