The people of the Arabian peninsula know it as ‘The Empty Quarter’. The Bedouin know it, more simply, as ‘The Sands’. Whatever name you give it, its unforgiving vastness comprises 650,000sq km of sand – the largest sand desert on the planet. At the height of summer, temperatures have been known to edge towards 55˚C, but as we enter the winter months, the late afternoons are cool and the evenings cold – ideal weather to hit the Al Hama’im Road and head towards the Saudi border.

On this page you’ll find your complete guide to exploring Abu Dhabi’s own portion of this great wilderness, including the hows, the wheres, the whos and, above all, the whys…

Based on last night’s performance, Prince is an artist whose recording career could benefit from the kind of back-to-basics shift that so often breathes life into rock’s flagging elder statesmen. His Yas Arena show, performed over two hours with five encores in front of a 30,000-strong crowd, was built on a clear love of two key things: live performance, and live performance of a little thing called funk. Stick to this agenda, and I reckon he has at least an album or two of quality material left in him.

Yas Marina Circuit. The big race. Will there ever come a time when the F1 weekend ceases to grab the local headlines? Given the region’s obsession with flash cars and general ostentation, probably not. But in these days of speed and glory, it’s easy to forget that less than six per cent of the capital’s 900,000 inhabitants will actually make it to the big event.