I Lived in Dubai for 1 Year - My Honest Review

so just about a year ago I moved my life from London in the UK to Dubai and today I want to give my full onee review of living in the city The Good the Bad the Ugly do I regret my decision do I plan to stay here long term and what is the deal with everything like that now Dubai is definitely an interesting place a polarizing place for many people on one hand it's glamorized as this taxfree paradise although technically it's not taxfree anymore we'll talk about that in a second and on the other hand a lot of people have certain ideas about Dubai as this like negative Place many people think it's fake and all these kind of things so in this video I want to give you the actual reality as someone who has now actually lived here for a full year of what it is actually like all right so why did I move here well of course there's many reasons there's the finances which is the obvious thing I'll talk about that in a second but a big reason is sort of what Dubai represents for me now throughout my life I've been obsessed with one thing and that is growth I love growth growth and progress in every possible manifestation I love developing my body I love growing my business I love growing as a person so to me I want to live in a place that represents growth a place that is looking forward that's going up that wants to move forward and improve in every possible way and to me right now there is no other city in the world perhaps apart from Singapore and like perhaps some of the other golf cities that is going up at the pace as Dubai is now of course can't know if this is going to continue maybe things are going to turn negative at some point I don't know but right now Dubai to me it represents growth it is a place that is actively trying to become the best city in the world it's not perfect yet it still has a lot of problems a lot of things that are not perfect but unlike cities in the west unlike London where I come from for example this place is actively trying to become the best it is obsessed with becoming the best and it doesn't want to settle for anything less when I was growing up in Finland now Finland is a country that is amazing for a lot of people for a lot of preferences but it was never the kind of place where I wanted to stay because that was not the kind of place where people were trying to go up it's the kind of place like a lot of Europe is to me where people just happy to maintain they're happy to stay where they are live a normal regular life which there's nothing wrong about that that is what you want but that is never what I wanted to me right now the place that is going up the most that is looking forward the most is Dubai and the UAE that is one of the biggest reasons why I want to be here I want to have a base in a place like this because a rising tide lifts all boats so again if you're Dubai and you want to make a city that appeals to wealthy people one of the things you would probably want to do is make the city very very safe and Dubai is extremely extremely safe now I don't think they've done this just to appeal to foreigners I think it's just a case in all these countries in this gulf reason where the culture is that we're going to have very strict punishments for any kind of crime and in return the residents of those countries get to live in a very safe environment that is the deal here what it really boils down to is that when you're here in Dubai or in any of these countries in this region you are supposed to follow the rules the rules are don't commit crimes don't harass people don't be an idiot out there in public if you follow the rules everything will be fine and you will have a super high quality of life simply because you don't have to worry about anything and it's so safe that a what often happens here like when you're in a coffee shop you will see people literally live out their laptops their phone where they're sitting while they go to the toilet or whatever just to like reserve the spot in the coffee shop essentially because they know that nothing is going to happen I've heard many people who live here who literally never even lock their doors to their apartment now I don't do that I do lock my apartment but like that just speaks volumes to how safe it is here now of course the only I guess downside of this can be that if you raising kids here your kids might end up growing in this environment where nothing ever happens and then they might end up thinking that well that's how it is everywhere and then when they go abroad they might not be ready to have that sort of vigilance that you're supposed to have in a place like London for example where I came from so really the only negative side about this point is that it's sort of Too Perfect it's too safe in some kind of ways especially if you are a woman this is probably the safest place you'll ever find like I think ranked as like one of the safest cities for women in the world which is so funny because there's still so many women that seem to think there's no women's rights like they don't respect women in the UAE like what are you talking about like if there's one place in the world where women are respected it is this place so let's talk about climate now I think people underestimate the effect that sunny weather can have on your life the positive now I love Sunshine like this is possibly the biggest individual factor that has improved my quality of life the most like I will never stop appreciating the fact that every single morning I can open up my curtains and it is going to be sunny is going to be blue clear skies um actually it's funny today when I'm filming this it is a one day in like the last two months when it's actually not like that but almost every day it's going to be sunny it's going to be perfect weather outside and there's a lot of science on like how this actually affects your health it improves your testosterone it makes your hormones better like you can wake up get the morning sunlight that Andrew huberman always talks about and the weather is always very consistent I can always expect that if I have a tennis court booked for Sunday it's going to be the kind of weather when we'll be able to play there unlike London where I would always have to sort of change my schedules and change my plans because okay this day is raining but then there's two days when it's not raining so I'm going to slot on my outdoor things to these days and it was just really annoying and for someone like me who likes routine that is another positive factor about the weather here now when I go back to visit either Finland or some like colder country in the winter which I just did a few months ago I always think like oh how was I able to live in this weather for so long for half the year the weather is just terrible it is just miserable so if this for me is such a big determinant of my quality of life why wouldn't I just be in a place where the weather is absolutely perfect because I can choose that I can choose where I live and that is one of the big reasons why I chose to be here now of course the caveat especially in Dubai is that the summers are going to be way too hot so if you're looking for a place where you're going to live 12 months of the year that is going to be something consider the summer heat is something you do not want to underestimate it can be absolutely oppressive I was here in September which is sort of towards the end of the summer and it was it was tough uh you can still do it like it's not actually that bad you just stay inside everything is air conditioned just go the incens car things like this but if you like being outside a lot like myself then it's not really ideal so for me this is not a problem because I never really planned on being here the entire year anyway I like traveling around I like going to Asia over the summer sort of being a digital Nomad is sort of the lifestyle I want to live anyway but that is something to consider for sure so now let's talk about the lifestyle now this is the kind of thing that when you look at the social media version of Dubai like for example if you follow me on Instagram which by the way you should do you can follow me on Instagram at toas my name it might seem like Dubai is just all about living this lavish luxurious lifestyle like going out on boat trips and like partying and like yachts and all this kind of stuff stuff but this is just like the tip of the iceberg this is what you see on social media because obviously when I for example post on social media I'm not going to post about me sitting on this desk for 9 hours for working on my businesses because that doesn't make for exciting social media content the thing about Dubai is that you can live a very sort of luxurious lifestyle you can do all of these things but for most of the people here who are entrepreneurs especially the kind of people I know this is just the sort of thing we'll do like once a week just to have fun and to me it's sort of a great balance I work for most of the time but then when I want to have fun I have access to a lot of fun so for me it really works but the thing about the lifestyle here is that you need to have the discipline do not like go all out and just go and spend all your money all the time because it is definitely the kind of place where if you're not careful you can end up spending all of your money because there is so much to do so many amazing restaurants so many places to go to it's not like crazy expensive or anything like that but if you want to live the Dubai lifestyle or whatever it is going to cost money and is going add up very very quickly like the lifestyle here it just depends on you just like anywhere else people think like oh everyone in Dubai lives this insane lifestyle like no like most people 99% of people 99% of the time just live whatever life they want like you can curate your own reality here you can live very lavishly you can spend a lot of money or you can live very affordably you can cook for yourself rather than eating out you can not go out partying rather than doing it you can live in a more modest apartment that's still probably going to be higher quality that you'll find in a lot of plac places around the world and you can get it very affordably so you can really decide what lifestyle you want to live and know not everyone drives a Lambo and live this crazy life here like don't just look at Instagram come here for yourself and see what kind of life you can live here so let's talk about the finances here now of course if you are a non-american citizen so if you're from any other country than the us then if you come here you don't have to pay any taxes and the reason why as an American citizen you still have to pay taxes because America has something called citizenship based taxation wherever you live as a US citizen you'll still have to pay federal taxes to the US which is crazy thing but how it works but for me fortunately I'm not a US citizen so I don't have to worry about that like most people what they don't realize is that if you're not happy with your country if you're not happy with the taxes you're paying versus what you're getting you can just leave like if you're an online business owner if you are a remote worker you have no obligation to live in the place where you were born but most of us will brainwash to think that we're supposed to just stay where you are but I would think it would be just very unfair to say that oh you happen to be born in this place even if you you didn't choose to be born in this place but no you have to stay here you can't move like I think this is a ridiculous mindset now Dubai is not a cheap City you want to be making an okay amount of money when you come here but at the same time it's not ridiculous or anything like that it is cheaper than London it is cheaper than New York it is cheaper than most of these expensive Western cities that a lot of you might be coming from but where the real difference comes from is on the taxes like most of us in the west like we spend literally a third or up to a half the year simply working for free for the government because half of our money is going to the government there's nothing we can do about it when you're here in Dubai it's literally it's 0% personal tax it is 0% corporate tax if you make around less than $900,000 a year above that they've just introduced a 9% corporate tax so keep that in mind but even if it's 9% like 9% for what you're getting here to me is completely completely fine I don't think it's a big deal at all I'm fine paying a small amount of tax if the place where I am is worth it to me but especially if you're in your high earning years every year just because you choose to live in a certain place you can have double the amount of money left over of the taxes like it's very quickly going to add up and it's going to allow you to get the Financial Freedom so much faster and that is just how I'm looking at it another criticism that Dubai tends to get is that there's no culture here and I tend to disagree with this to me me it's just a different culture it's just a very International culture it's the kind of culture that the city is developing for itself as it goes most things here are very new like it's a very modern city but you do also have the old side of Dubai you can go to Old Dubai and get a sense of more of the traditional Arabic culture you can go to the different cities in the country but most people I suppose mean when they talk about culture for me the culture of Dubai is simply the fact that it is very growing it is very entrepreneurial it is very future looking what it is in Europe tend to do like like Paris London they look to the past all they have is their past their history which is amazing but what Dubai does and what cities in the Middle East and a lot of cities in Asia do they look to the Future the culture is about looking to the Future improving things for the future rather than just looking into the past building things that have never been seen before and that is what sort of excites me about this place I'm all about looking at the future I want to be at the center of where new things are happening where things are moving fast a lot of things here are actually very similar to you might expect in the US or in North America but with like a traditional Arabic touch it's like a more polished version of Los Angeles in certain kinds of ways you get the sort of paradise feeli with like beaches and palm trees and all these and people being happy except you don't get the negatives you don't get the crime you don't get the homelessness you just like a more polished version of it with like this Arabic and Middle Eastern touch you get a lot of amazing Middle Eastern food amazing sort of Middle Eastern Vibes around here that I really enjoy because I'm really interested in the Middle Eastern culture myself but at the same time everything is very convenience focused like you might expect in the US like you can get delivery everything it's much more of a driving culture than it is a walking culture although the areas within themselves are all very walkable everything is just very big they clearly I think what happened is like these shakes like the leaders here they went and studied in the US or something like that and they got a lot of Impressions from there and they sort of imported that to the Middle East just a very interesting mix for me that I personally like now what about about the strictness now some people still have this misconception that Dubai is like it doesn't have freedom you can't do anything like you need to like be super strict and if you do anything the police will take you and things like this and this is largely overblown like sort of what I said before the deal here is that you need to be respectful you need to be respectful to other people at all times and they do not tolerate rash Behavior they do not tolerate violence they do not tolerate any of that so as long as if you come here and you find with being civilized then you will be absolutely fine some of the things you don't want to do are kissing in public or any sort of public shows of affection you don't want to do that you don't want to be drunk in public you can drink in pubs again in other misconception people like like oh can you drink there yeah there's going to be less blazes that serve alcohol but you can drink alcohol in places that survey just don't act Rowdy on the streets don't be an idiot in public those are things you don't want to do don't swear at people I think it's illegal to like shout and swear at people even though I feel like people still do it a lot of things here is sort of like if you do it in private they don't really like no one really cares no one BS an eye it's all about the image it's maintaining the image of this is a safe place this is a polished place this is a place where we respect each other so be respectful in public but if you come here as a Westerner you'll almost not notice any strictness like if you're just a normal person and you're not interested in getting involved in anything criminal or anything like that you can pretty much do whatever you want here like you really don't have to worry about any of that stuff or strictness or anything like that so as you can see it's less the case that there are pros and cons about being here it's a lot more about what is a pro and what is a con for you for what you like now I have described all these factors and I have given my perspective based on my experience but you might hear the exact words that I said that were a pro for me like when I was talking about the culture but you might be going in your brain like actually no that's terrible like I don't like that at all that is a con really with everything when it comes to where you live and all these kind of thing it always depends on what you like hope you enjoyed this video if you want to see what life here is actually like I highly recommend you follow me on Instagram I share lifestyle content on there quite a lot I share about what it's like to build my business here about what it's like to live here obv in the Summers I travel around a lot so you'll also see that content as well overall to me it's a city that is exciting that is growing but you get to enjoy a ridiculously high quality of life for what I like otherwise paying 0% tax so to me it's it's certainly a worth it and certainly the kind of place that I want to keep as a base in my life for at least half the year for long into the future but of course who knows things might change and if they do you'll be first to hear on this channel if you subscribe and hit the notifications Bell so you don't miss a future upload with all of that said if you are interested in moving to Dubai there are five specific things that you definitely want to be aware of before you come here so next you can watch this video where we continue from this to learn about what these five things are and what are the things to consider for moving here to see whether you would like to buy or not so go watch that video next

Channel: Tuomas

Views: 187,343

Keywords: moving to Dubai, dubai life, dubai cost of living, how to move to dubai, moving to uae, uae visa, uae residency, dubai visa, bubai company formation, how to start a company in dubai, is dubai expensive, why i moved to dubai

Id: 0pTnYHFyE5I

Length: 16min 37sec (997 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2024