Board meeting: 8 of the UAE's greatest skate parks
Skating UAE…
Skateboarding was born from the idle minds of Californian surfers in the 1950s, frustrated that their on-board time was limited to liquid surfaces. Since then it has been adopted by counter-culture movements, become the perennial scourge of mall cops, spawned a franchise of best-selling videogames, and watched the bar chart of its popularity wax and wane in a shape not too dissimilar to one of its beloved half-pipes. But to its followers, it’s not just a hobby, transportation method or fad, it’s so much more important than that… Skateboarding is life.




























Circuit X, Abu Dhabi
Masaar Skate Park, Sharjah
The Block, D3, Dubai
XPark, dubai
Adventure Zone, Sheikha Fatima Park, Abu Dhabi
DAMAC Hills Skate Park, Dubai
Town Square Skate Park, Dubai
Aljada Skate Park, Sharjah
Skateboarding UAE
Mastering tricks can be hard
Skateboarding UAE
You just need to keep at it
Skateboarding UAE
Trust yourself
Skateboarding UAE
Invest in safety equipment
Skateboarding UAE
Watch YouTube for tips
Skateboarding UAE
And remember, you only have to be brave for 3 seconds
The UAE is a land of abundance for the gnarly wood-pusher tribe, with its year-round sunshine and jolly ollie-packed park collection. And to help us navigate the country’s ensemble of bowls, verts, grinds and gaps – we’ve consulted seven-year-old skating expert, and member of the What’s On Jrs team, Maverick Buckeridge.
Circuit X, Hudayriat Island, Abu Dhabi
Hudayriat Island is one of Abu Dhabi’s most impressive alfresco adventure hubs and amongst its many assorted calorie culling attractions is the Circuit X skate park. Plank jokeys can drop in on three separate bowls of varying difficulty level, practise lip tricks on ledges, grind rails, smash quarter pipes, and cruise through a simulated urban skate section. It might not be the most fertile concrete for nailing those 1080s, but you can fakie till you makie it or the wheels just come off. Board and equipment rental is available on request, and if you fancy a nice adrenalin-syphoning amble afterwards, check out the island’s free heritage walk.
Maverick’s skate rating: 3.5
Hudayriat, from Dhs40, Mon to Thu 2pm to 10pm Fri 2pm to 11pm, Sat and Sun 9am to 11pm. @circuitx_hudayriyat
Adventure Zone, Sheikha Fatima Park, Abu Dhabi
Found just a hop, skip and a kickflip from Abu Dhabi’s Corniche Beach, in the heart of the city centre, this recently revamped and newly skate-ramped leisure treasure is a popular pull for the capital’s boarders. Within its 46,000 sqm expanse, you’ll find The Adventure Zone – the location of the skate park. The sprawling sick trickdrome is positively bursting with ramps, rails and low-rise verts. Designed to provide an enjoyable experience for all skill levels, it’s a great example of community-led skating. When you’re done rolling, you’ll find pop-up alfresco cinemas, some great f&b (check out mamafri), a Splash Pad and shaded walkways.
Maverick’s skate rating: 3.75
Al Bateen, free, 10am to 10pm daily. @sheikhafatimapark
DAMAC Hills Skate Park, Dubai
A residential community skate park that really feels organic. It’s striped with officially commissioned graffiti and is arranged to provide a seamless flow of mini-wheeled traffic. It also has the advantage of being surrounded by serene greens and a multi-sport court with a bouldering/climbing wall. In the skate park you’ll find an easy gradient down into the main mix of action, which makes it a kind course to beginners.
Maverick’s skate rating: 4.74
DAMAC Hills, free, 7am to 10pm daily. @damachillscommunity
XPark, Kite Beach, Dubai
This is the biggest skate park in the UAE and delivers an equally vast range of skate-based challenges. It’s a paid attraction (with day passes available from Dhs75) but the cost of admission also gets you access to the site’s parkour course. The crowning glory of the skate zone is the Pro Bowl – offering a mettle-testing 3.2m vert. And if that just sounds like a recipe for knee-pad crash testing, there is a Jr option too that’s more forgiving on hard bails and trick fails. Each element of the park has been cleverly designed to connect, meaning you get less time off-board and more opportunity to practise those competition lines. Annual memberships are available and you can book lessons from the experts (from Dhs130).
Maverick’s skate rating: 4
Kite Beach, Dhs75, Sun to Fri 2pm to 9.30pm, Sat 8am to 9.30pm. @xdubaipark
The Block, D3, Dubai
Of course there’d be a skate park in D3 – Dubai’s epicentre of edge. Found in between The Block’s basketball courts, raw concrete facades, and artfully upended shipping containers – the skate jungle packs a lot of punch into its relatively compact size. The central bowl is perfect for sharpening pump riding skills and skaters looking to get in some grind practice have an abundance of linked edges and rails to polish the underside of their board with. For a cheeky, freaky pink flamingo bonus – if you follow the cycle track, it’s just a short cruise before you get to Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary (also free to enter).
Maverick’s skate rating: 3.75
Dubai Design District, free, 9am to 10pm daily. @theblockd3
Town Square Skate Park, Dubai
This Dubai community park has two big quarter pipes with a high-rise double ramp in the middle, that make it perfect for the more seasoned skate aficionado. And for the less experienced truck-and-rollers, there’s a kick-push-friendly, fully contained bowl. Because it’s part of a bustling, growing community – it can get busy at peak times, particularly with the junior scooter swarms, so getting there early (or late) is probably your best shot at a no-collide ride.
Maverick’s skate rating: 4.25
Town Square, free, 11am to 10pm daily. @townsquaredxb
Masaar Skate Park, Sharjah
This hidden skate gem is held inside the blissfully verdant, forest frond embrace of Masaar Park. Next door to the adventure playground, Masaar skatepark’s central feature is a sunken bowl with a contoured ride space. But if you’re the type of board botherer that hates being hemmed in, that sees the world as a sort of open-source Tony Hawks Pro Skater run–through, the miles of shaded paved pathways will make you feel like you’ve stumbled on a cheat code.
Maverick’s skate rating: 4.5
Masaar, Sharjah, free. @masaarliving
Aljada Skate Park, Sharjah
This northern emirates worldie has really set the bar for top, tournament-tier builds in the UAE, having hosted the 2022 World Championships. Designed by pros to be accessible for pros as well as the more recently board-enamoured, Aljada is the stuff of skating dreams. The trick bowl is so deep, I’m convinced it must have a canyon somewhere in its lineage, and the rad rail trail series sets up the possibility of linked grind Nirvana.
Maverick’s skate rating: 4.75
Aljada, Sharjah, free. @aljadaskatepark
Talk to the expert: Maverick Buckeridge, age 7, future skate legend
What’s your biggest fear as a skater bro? Rocks.
What do you think of scooters in skate parks? They’re fine, but they can be annoying. They can’t really do tricks and the little kids don’t look where they’re going.
What’s your favourite skate park in the UAE? DAMAC Hills, it’s so cool. Just watch out for the scooter kids.
What’s your favourite trick? Kickflip and pop-shove-it [he confesses he can’t do this one yet]. Ollies are hard when you start, but you have to practise, I watch a lot of YouTube tutorials.
Which UAE landmark would you most like to film a skate video on? Doing it in a public place could be dangerous, but… The Museum of the Future, that would be fire bro.
Images: Unsplash/Instagram