Dubai residents take desert camping to skyscraper city

On a patch of city land beside the sea, urban Emiratis sit beneath the shimmering skyscrapers of wealthy Dubai, revamping a camping tradition rooted in the desert.

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Dozens of camper trailers are lined up, with simple facilities set up in the open air against a backdrop featuring the world's tallest building, the needle-like Burj Khalifa - a symbol of the ostentatious lifestyles and consumerism associated with the city.

Khaled al-Kaissi, 38, is among the minority of the population — who are native Emiratis.

On the sandy ground, some visitors at the makeshift urban camping site have set up rugs and cushions to create a "majlis", a type of communal living room traditional in the Gulf. Others sit in regular camping chairs.

Like many countries on the Arabian Peninsula, the United Arab Emirates was largely undeveloped before the discovery of oil in the late 1950s.