Hey, what's up guys? It's H here. Welcome back to another video.
In this video, I want to talk about my experience of living in Dubai as a Canadian. So, I moved to Dubai with my family last year, October 2024, and have been living there for the past 8 months. We're back in Vancouver.
That's behind me. This is not a green screen, by the way, guys. I'm at my buddy Tony's house.
This place is insane. Yeah, I just want to have a chat with you guys. You know, I wrote a bunch of bullet points down.
I think Dubai everybody thinks it's like that's a glamorous place, but since I've been there for close to a year now, I can give you guys the honest truth of the pros and cons of living in Dubai as a Canadian. Okay, so let's talk about the pros of living in Dubai. Again, I'm going to be looking at my screen here, so excuse me, but let's talk about and these are not really in any particular orders.
Okay, number one, safety. Insane. Okay, I'm talking about safety in a level that you don't even need to worry about really anything.
Okay, that the thought of like, hey, is someone following me? The thought of like, hey, I left something valuable in my car. You know, these little thoughts, you don't have any of them.
They're not there. For example, I can leave my laptop, my golf bag, in my car, which is a G Wagon, and it's pretty expensive car, and I don't have to worry about it. You know, there's nothing.
And by the way, the key is in the car unlocked. So, literally, anybody can open the door, grab whatever they need to grab. They can even drive the car off if they want to.
But things like that just doesn't happen in Dubai. It's not a thing. Okay.
In the mall, if you are by yourself, you go to a coffee shop and you know you got to go use the washroom, you can leave your laptop, your wallet, your phone, money, whatever you want there. Go to the washroom, come back, it will still be there. Why?
Because the punishment for crime is pretty massive. Wild concept. If you disobey the law, you get punished.
Wow. I personally agree with it because, you know, I'm a law-abiding citizen. Like, I don't really mess around.
You know what I mean? I'm all for sacrificing your personal whatever you want to call it, privacy or something for the greater good of a society. Really, that's kind of my personal thought.
And Dubai, they fear the laws, which I totally agree with. I think in the western world it's becoming a little bit lawless. Anybody can do whatever the the f they want.
And the punishment for crime very very little. I saw someone's like someone killed someone the other day and they're going to jail for 5 years. That's insane.
That is absolutely insane. Anyways, so safety top-notch. Dubai wins all day every day over Canada.
Healthcare access. This is pretty crazy. In Dubai you got these different hospitals.
Okay. And these different hospitals are ranked by different tiers. So the top tier are mostly westernized hospitals.
So you got King's College, you got what's it called? The clinic media. I forget the name of it.
Anyways, it's a big US hospital and you can literally go on the hospital's website and you can type in whatever you need to find. For example, I had a concussion. Okay, I'm going to go see a neurologist or I'm going to see a neck doctor or I'm going to see a spinal doctor.
Whatever it might be. And then you click on it. It will list you a list of doctors that you can choose from.
And then you click on the doctor's name and they'll give you a list of availabilities usually on the same day or the next day. And you can literally book an appointment there and then. And everything's covered under insurance if you have insurance.
Uh insurance is actually quite cheap. So depending on which tier of hospitals you want to go see, it can range anywhere between I would say $5,000 Canadian per year for a whole family down to $1,000 per year Canadian for a whole family. So it's not expensive.
Yeah. You get to pick which hospitals you want to go see. So my very first experience of being in Dubai, I had some nose issues, sinus issues, and I want to go see an ENT.
You know, in Canada, if you want to go see an ENT, okay, first you good luck finding a family doctor. Then once you find a family doctor, they're going to refer you to an ENT, which you have to wait for 6 months. Then once you wait for 6 months, your issue might get worse or better.
And then let's say if it gets worse, you go see an ENT. Honestly, they're probably just going to be like, "All right, take some antibiotics. " That's pretty much it.
Whereas in Dubai, my experience was like at 9:00 a. m. I booked an appointment.
At 12:00 p. m. I saw a doctor and then they basically said, "Okay, we're going to do this, this, this, this test.
" And they did everything. And they even try to upsell me on more stuff, x-rays, and this and that. Uh, which I declined because at the time I didn't have insurance.
And I was out of the office by 1:00 p. m. So, I think Dubai healthcare access wise, 10 out of 10.
Canada, as you guys know, not so good. I've heard people having surgeries that have to wait for a year, two years. And by the way, it's not really free healthcare, is it?
If you're paying the taxes for it. So, I don't think it's free healthcare. So, Dubai wins there.
No income taxes. Yes, that is right. No income taxes, no capital gains.
They do have a 5% VAT that they have uh on purchases and stuff like that, but uh that's very, very minimal. By the way, no tipping at restaurants either, so that's kind of nice. And for corporate level, there is a 9% corporate tax now, but there are ways to only pay 9% after the first million dollars in profit.
So if I made a million bucks this year, I don't mind paying $90,000 for it, right? So again, Dubai, w there for sure. Canada on the total opposite, right?
50% of your money goes to taxes, which is insane. And then you got to pay more money on the money you make, the money you keep, the money you save, the money you invest, the money you spend, the money you like, it's wild. There's like there's literally a 50 different taxes in Canada.
So yeah, Dubai wins there all day every day. Now, let's talk about convenience. Dubai is probably the most convenient place I've ever lived in my entire life.
I'm talking about a level of convenience that whatever you want at your fingertips, it will get delivered to you in 15 minutes or less. I've actually only went to the gas station one time when I was in Dubai or maybe two times. Why?
Because they have a service called Kafu and they deliver gas to your door. You just leave your cars unlocked and then you choose what time of the day you want the service to come and they'll come to your house, fill up your car and that's that. I don't have to go to the gas station.
Delivery, you know, 24/7. You can get whatever you want 24/7. So convenience.
Dubai wins 10 out of 10. We got roads. The roads are immaculate, by the way, guys.
I'm talking about there's absolutely zero potholes. If there is a pothole, you have an app. You can take a picture of the pothole and you can submit it and it will get fixed within the next 24 hours.
The roads are immaculate. I'm talking about like roads that are smooth as glass. So, you know, not everybody care about that, but I think it's pretty cool that all the roads are fantastic.
Services are insane. A lot of the service workers are from third world countries or developing countries, Philippines, uh parts of Africa, you know, so on so forth. and they come to Dubai because they want to be part of the service industry just because there are so many restaurants and hotels and the service are incredible.
You go to a restaurant, it's very very high level. They also really love kids there which is really cool because if I bring my daughter to a restaurant, it doesn't seem like it's like a big hassle. They want to hold your baby.
They want to say hi to your baby. They're like smiling and playing with your baby. Whereas here, I feel like sometimes if I go to a restaurant with a baby, people look at me funny.
They're like, "Oh, why would you bring a baby to a restaurant? " whereas there it's I guess it's the culture the Middle Eastern culture where it's very very family oriented. So I think that's pretty cool.
Again very kids friendly as I mentioned. So I'm talking about going to the malls, going to the playground, going to the events. There is, you know, you can drop your kids off in the mall.
Even at some golf clubs, there are daycarees of golf clubs which is amazing, right? So it's very very kids friendly everywhere. And this ties back into the safety.
Whereas I don't need to worry about anything weird happening to my daughter or dangerous happening to my daughter in Dubai because it's so damn safe. Whereas here, I walk past by the playground in downtown and there's like a crackhead that's sleeping on the side. There are needles on the playground.
Not saying every single playground, but there's definitely people doing drugs out in the open. Right. I was on the corner of Davey and Richards.
There's a playground there. If you're from Vancouver, you know what I'm talking about. Literally, I saw someone shooting up and there's kids playing less than a block away.
So, you don't see that type of stuff happening in Dubai at all. Great for business and startups. It is so pro business in Dubai.
The king of Dubai, I think, you know, when you get off the airplane, you see kind of like the charter and the vision of Dubai. And that's something I really, really like, the UAE, whereas they have this 30-year vision, 40-year vision of what they want the country to be like. and you kind of ask like you know the Canadian government or Canadian people what is the vision of Canada over the next 30 40 years there is no vision no one has ever wrote anything down so I think that vision really attracts certain types of individuals and it also pushes away certain type of individuals and to me to be honest it's very inspiring to have that vision and this applies to countries like China so on so forth so I think it's pretty cool and they're very very pro business they want you to come and just make as much money as you can they will remove all the red tapes It's not like here if you want to build something as you guys know developers in Vancouver.
Okay, three-year waiting permit to build a house. No wonder we have a housing shortage. They think it's because of Airbnb.
It's not. It's because it's not rocket science, guys. I mean, supply and demand.
If there is if if it's too expensive, just build up supply. It's not rocket science. Anyways, so it's great for business and startups.
People are very very hungry there and people go to Dubai to make money. So very is very modern, very progressive. I think a lot of people I don't like it when people say, "Oh, Dubai is so fake.
Dubai is so there's no culture. There's no history. " Well, obviously it's a very new country, you know?
It's a very, very new country. We're not talking about you walking down European streets and then you find something built from the 1500s. I mean, Dubai wasn't around in the 1500s.
So, I think it just takes time. It's a new city. You know, this place only popped up in the past 30, 40, 50 years.
Yeah. I don't like when people, oh, it's fake. It's Well, I mean, it's just new.
I I don't think it's fake. It's just new. Everywhere you look, it's new construction.
It's new. And I mean, something that's 20 years old in Dubai is considered old already. So, yeah.
I mean, I I personally love it. I love the culture of Europe, don't get me wrong. It's in Spain and walking down the street, I love that.
But at the same time, I can appreciate modern beauty as well, right? Brand new buildings, brand new restaurants, brand new everything. So, you know, I really, really like that.
And there's always something new. And that's what I really like about Dubai as well is the fact that there's always something new that's opening. There's always a new restaurant.
Carbone's opening. The Atlantis is opening. Nou is opening.
There's Four Seasons opening. There's this got the Uber. Like it's just everything's happening.
You got, you know, amazing restaurants, events, buildings, hotels, everything is coming to Dubai. Everybody wants to be Disney. So, it's just exciting.
It doesn't get old. Whereas, I feel like in Vancouver, I'm like, "Hey guys, like, let's go out for food. Anybody want to go to a restaurant?
" It's like, "Sure. Where do you want to go? " And it's like you've been to all of them pretty much at this point, right?
Yeah. So, I really really like about that. Now, let's talk about the cons of living in Dubai.
Number one is just extreme weather. Okay. The summers are I've never been there during the summer time yet, but I from what I heard is pretty much unbearable from like June to September, right?
It gets 45, 50° is not uncommon. And it's not even just about the heat, it's the air quality. You see, Dubai is kind of like you got the ocean, you got Dubai, and you got the desert.
I think depending on which way the wind blows, if the wind blows from the desert into Dubai, you're going to get really really dusty kind of air quality. Whereas if you got the ocean breeze blowing into the desert, then it's actually clear. So we use an app, a weather tracking app, and yeah, it's not great most days.
I mean, it's moderate. It's like 50 IQ, AQI, whatever it's called, but some days can get up to 150, 200. We've even seen some days that are like 500, which is the worst in the world.
So on those days, we don't really go out or you wear a mask. We don't let our daughter go out. It's very, very unhealthy for them.
Obviously, Canada wins. I mean, you look at Vancouver, you got nature, you got ocean, you got trees. I'm looking outside right now.
It's all trees. So, of course, you're going to have really, really amazing air quality, which I really appreciate after living in Dubai now. So, the weather is not I think the summertime is not great.
And now the air quality again is a little bit of a concern for us. Number two, I mean, is lack of nature. I mean, it is a desert at the end of the day.
There is a nice beach there, ocean, which is helpful, but the rest of the city, you have to plant trees. You have to plant, you know, grass. And what's really interesting is you look at the trees, there's irrigation system all underneath, right?
So, every single tree underneath you see irrigation system because it doesn't rain that much. When we're there, it probably rained about 2 days. I know it's very, very quick.
And it's quite refreshing actually when it does rain. lack of nature, you know, that's uh to be expected. I would say it's also hard to make deep friendships being there for eight months.
It's interesting because I haven't had the need to make friends in a long time. I grew up in Vancouver. We made, you know, you make friends organically through friends with a friend or whatever.
And I haven't had the need to make friends in a long time. And it's interesting because it's like kind of like dating again. It's like you see someone, you go out for coffee with them.
Oh, where are you from? Where you from? Oh, what do you do?
What? And it's like, you know, very very shallow like topics. Then you meet the next person.
Oh, what do you I guess to be honest, like pretty exhausting. So yeah, I would say I haven't really I mean I met some great people, don't get me wrong, but I also think that like good friendships takes a long time to build, right? Like some of your own friends probably you've known them since high school, elementary school, like just like my friends.
So you know, it's fine. You know, maybe if I'm there for 20 years, I'm going to meet some good friends. But also like I feel like I met a lot of entrepreneurs and to be honest, entrepreneurs are busy people, right?
Yeah. Anyways, that's to be about that. You know, I feel like a lot of people come in and leave Dubai as well.
Like they will come in, spend the winters, and they'll leave somewhere else during the summers, which is very common. And maybe they're there for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, and they go back to their home country or they go live somewhere else. I don't know.
But I just feel like it is kind of like a transient place where people come in and people go out. I've also met a lot of people that been living in Dubai for 30, 40, 50 years already. So, that's pretty cool as well.
The other uh con I would say is the construction noises. So construction go all night in Dubai. You know, right now the place we're at is literally facing a construction building.
And I thought, oh, maybe they stop construction at 6:00 p. m. 7:00 p.
m. No, no, no. 2:00 a.
m. 3:00 a. m.
Sometimes you hear banging and banging. So, and if you take a look, you know, right now I'm looking at Vancouver, I see some cranes in a certain areas. But in Dubai, if you have if I'm if if I'm in a tower like this right now and I look into the distance, you just see cranes on cranes on cranes.
Why? Because it's developing. It's happening.
It they're building, right? They're in the building phase right now of Dubai. So, I think in like 5 10 years, maybe there'll be less cranes maybe.
But right now, you just look aside, it's all cranes. So, it's not the prettiest thing to look at to be honest with you. I mean, compared to Vancouver, obviously Vancouver's Vancouver is most beautiful city like in the world, I think.
I mean, take a look at like literally behind me. This is not a green screen, guys. This is insane, right?
It's beautiful mountains, so on so forth. So, Canada definitely wins from that perspective. I love golfing, as you guys know.
The golf courses are great conditions, but they get a little bit boring just because uh they're all the same. Desert golf. I won't talk too much about that.
And then you got the time zone mismatch. That's another con. If you're working with EST, PSD, Europe is fine, but North America, good luck.
I was sleeping at 1:00 am, 2 am, 3:00 a. m. to keep up with PST because sometimes literally 12 hour difference.
So if it's 3:00 a. m. there, it's 3 pm here.
So it's, you know, depending on where your customers are, where your team is, uh, it's pretty hard for that the time zone. Again, with the rest of the world, it's fine, but with North America, it can get a little bit challenging. Even is fine to be honest with you.
Let's talk a little bit about cost of living in Dubai. So I would say it's actually overall quite comparable to North America cities. So I would say housing is expensive.
Okay. We live in an area called Dubai Hills. We pay like close to like 13,000 Canadian per month I think.
And to be honest with you, like we don't get a whole lot for it. We get the great location, but we live in like a townhouse, three bedrooms with a maid. And it's nothing special.
Like you don't get any special features or anything like that. It's just the location itself is really, really good. It's very soughta.
But here in Canada, I mean, for $13,000 Canadian, you can get something like this. You know, you can get a house on the water for rent. So, I think housing wise, it's quite expensive.
But if you came to Dubai like 5 years ago, it's not that bad. I met a guy who said he left Dubai for 1 year and came back. His landlord wanted 70% more for rent.
70% in one year increase, which is insane. So just because so many people are coming, but they're building more and more housing. So hopefully uh the place housing wise will slow down a little bit.
In terms of like groceries, dining, entertainment, I would say it's very very comparable to Vancouver. I would also say that Dubai has a very very large range of how much money you want to spend. So you can spend as low as like $1,000 per month if you want or you can spend a million dollars per month.
That is the wide variety because at the end of the day, there are a lot of service workers that don't get paid a whole lot. I'm talking about $1,000 a month in salary and they can survive. So yeah, I mean just kind of depends on what you're looking for.
You can spend $50,000 a night on dinner if you want to in Dubai or $5. So schooling and child care, I mean we don't have to worry about school yet, but child care is amazing. I'm talking about nannies for $1,000 per month, drivers for $1,000 per month.
So if you have three kids, you can have three nannies with a driver. That's going to cost you $4,000 per month. Whereas here, yeah, you're probably going to need $4,000 for one Annie if that that's like cheap on the cheap end.
So, I think that's quite crazy. So, domestic help is phenomenal. And then I want to talk a little bit about like the culture, lifestyle adjustments, the etiquette.
Okay. So, a lot of people I was speaking to a guy and he's like, "Oh, like I would never come to Dubai. They like the way they treat women.
You know, they can't drive. They can't go out after 9:00 p. m.
, you know. They can't wear certain type of clothing. There's no alcohol.
Guys, it's all BS. Okay, that's maybe Dubai from 10, 20 years ago. Now, if you go to Dubai, you actually feel like you're in Miami.
That's what I would say. Alcohol, yes, you can get it pretty much anywhere. In terms of women clothing, I Yeah, I've seen some women basically not even wearing any clothes at all.
So it's like totally I wouldn't say normal but like it's there. I would also say that if you go to other parts of UAE so Dubai is a city but if you go to Abu Dhabi then that's where it's a little bit more modest. So if you go to a mall they you know prefer if you cover up such as like women covering their shoulders and knees so on so forth.
But in Dubai it's like yeah pretty much like North America. Yeah. There is none of that.
Like I mean women can go out whenever they want. There is no rules around that at all. And in fact, if you're a woman walking down the street at 4:00 a.
m. in Dubai in a back alley, you would feel safe. Whereas in Vancouver, you're probably not doing that, right?
Drving is pretty crazy in Dubai. So, it's pretty aggressive. So, I'll just say that.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. I mean, I think some stereotypes are like, "Oh, it's only for the ultra rich. " Not really, to be honest.
There's different parts of the city that's for ultra rich. There's different hotels and the Palm and this and that. Yeah, it's where a lot of rich people have their houses, but same as every major city, right?
If you go to like LA, if you go to Balair, like that's where all the rich people live and Rodeo Drve and you see nice cars, but you also see parts of LA that's not where all the rich people live. Same as Dubai. So, it's not all that.
Like, there's a lot of just normal people working a 9 to5, earning a, you know, salary and just living like any any other cities. So, yeah, it's definitely not like that. Women have way more rights than what you ever think.
So that's a misconception. It's very diverse. 92% of people that live in Dubai are all expats.
So you're going to see people from like literally all over the world, which is very, very interesting. And it's very safe. It's very welcoming for families.
Like I said, I can't repeat this enough. It's so welcoming. It's so safe.
Yeah, I think that's really really interesting. All right. So those are all the pros and cons of living in Dubai as a Canadian expat.
Now, do I recommend someone to move to Dubai? I mean, that's completely up to you. But I would say if you're bored of where you live right now, moving to another place is an amazing experience.
I think stepping out of your comfort zone, going to a new place, meeting new people, just changing up your environment, I think, is a crazy life hack and most people don't really regret it. And plus, it's like a two-way decision. I mean, if you don't like where you live, just move back.
The worst outcome is literally just moving back to where you once were. And I think Dubai is definitely for the people that are hungry, ambitious, wants to make a lot of money, want to be tax efficient, and just want to be part of the world where things are happening. I feel like the west there are a lot of like turbulence.
There's a lot of, you know, butting heads between the Democrats and Republic Republicans. I just feel like it's almost like losing its edge. Whereas other parts of the world uh for example Asia or Middle East they are really really thriving to provide a safe happy healthy environment for its citizens and there's just a lot of really really cool initiatives that's happening in other parts of the world.
So so yeah that's kind of my review of what it's like to live in Dubai the pros and cons as a Canadian. If you guys have any questions let me know in the comment section below. Hit the thumbs up if you've watched this entire video and I will see you guys in the next video.
