In a demonstration of commitment to cultural preservation, Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum recently visited the Ghamran Desert Camp with his children, Sheikha and Rashid. The December 28, 2025 excursion highlighted the UAE’s ongoing efforts to maintain traditional practices amidst rapid modernization.
The desert camp, specifically designed as an Emirati family sanctuary, offers a technology-free environment where participants engage in ancestral activities including camel harnessing, traditional shooting, palm tree cultivation, and falconry. These interactive experiences serve as a bridge between generations, allowing elders to transmit practical skills and cultural knowledge to younger family members.
Sheikh Hamdan emphasized the profound significance of these cultural practices, stating: ‘These interactive experiences bring parents together with their children, enhance values, and pass down identity in a way that embeds it in memory. The identity that is lived is the identity that endures, and the values that are practiced are the values that are inherited.’
The Crown Prince’s participation in traditional activities alongside fellow camp attendees underscored the camp’s mission to balance what he described as ‘the authenticity of heritage and the ambition of future.’ This initiative represents a growing movement within the UAE to preserve Bedouin traditions and Emirati cultural identity through experiential learning and intergenerational connection.
The Ghamran Camp experience provides urban families with opportunities to reconnect with pre-oil era lifestyles, fostering appreciation for the skills and values that sustained previous generations in the harsh desert environment. This approach to cultural preservation has gained increasing attention as the UAE continues its rapid development into a global hub of technology and innovation.