Al Zubarah Fort and the North of Qatar: A Day Trip to the UNESCO Site, Mangroves and Beaches

Ninety minutes north of Doha: a UNESCO pearling town, mangroves, empty beaches and a desert 'film city'.

Qatar's only UNESCO World Heritage site sits at the top of the peninsula: the walled remains of Al Zubarah, an 18th-century pearling and trading town, guarded by a fort built in 1938. Around it, the north has mangroves, fishing harbours and the emptiest beaches in the country. It is the best day trip from Doha and almost nobody does it.

The route

Al Zubarah, briefly

Founded by merchants from Kuwait in the 1760s, Al Zubarah grew rich on pearls and trade with India, was sacked in 1811, and was abandoned by the early 1900s. The sand preserved the whole town plan — streets, courtyard houses, a mosque and a fortified palace — and excavations since 2009 have uncovered a fraction. The 1938 fort was a coastguard post; it is now the museum.

Also in the north

• Al Thakira mangroves — Qatar's largest, with herons and flamingos; kayak tours at high tide.
• Al Jassasiya rock carvings — 900 petroglyphs of boats and cup marks near Fuwairit.
• Zekreet and Film City — the Richard Serra 'East-West/West-East' sculpture and an abandoned film set in a desert bay (west, needs a 4x4 for the last stretch).
• Purple Island (Bin Ghanim) near Al Khor — a walk across a causeway through mangroves.

Practical

• Bring water, hat and swimwear; there are few shops north of Al Khor.
• The fort is open daily; the archaeological site is a 1.5 km walk in the sun — go early.
• October to April is ideal; in summer, go at dawn and skip the beaches for the mangrove boardwalk.

Al Khor: the stop most people skip

Halfway to Al Zubarah, Al Khor is a fishing town with a working dhow harbour, a small heritage souq and, on the corniche, the best grilled hammour in the country at the harbour restaurants. The dhow-building yard behind the harbour still makes boats by hand; ask politely and they will let you watch. Purple Island's causeway walk through the mangroves starts ten minutes away.

Fuwairit and the turtles

From April to July, hawksbill turtles nest on Fuwairit beach and the northern end is closed at night to protect them; the Ministry runs occasional guided releases of hatchlings in June — worth timing a trip around if you have children. The rest of the year the beach is empty, with a rock plateau to climb for the view.

Doing it with a car vs a guide