Abu Dhabi. Land at a private airport inside the city, minutes from the corniche.

Al Bateen Executive Airport is the unusual thing about Abu Dhabi. It is a business aviation airport inside the city, run by Abu Dhabi Airports, with a runway long enough for the great majority of business types and none of the airline traffic that slows a mixed field. The result is that a transfer to a central hotel or office is measured in minutes rather than the better part of an hour, and an afternoon meeting in the capital is a genuinely sensible day trip from elsewhere in the Gulf.

Zayed International, the main airport, remains the right answer when a trip continues on a long haul scheduled service, when an aircraft is too large for Al Bateen, or when handling capacity is tight in an event week. It is further out, on the mainland side. We look at the aircraft, the passengers and the addresses together before recommending one, because the wrong field here costs forty minutes at each end of the trip. See Zayed International and the Abu Dhabi private terminals.

Abu Dhabi is built across a group of islands joined by bridges and causeways, and that geography decides almost everything about a ground plan. The city centre and the corniche sit on the main island. Al Maryah, a short bridge away, holds the financial district and its hotels. Saadiyat, to the north east, has the museums and the beach resorts. Yas, further out towards the airport, has the circuit, the arena and the theme parks. Journeys between them are short in normal conditions and considerably less so when an event closes a bridge.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in December is the clearest example. Yas Island effectively becomes a controlled site for the weekend, with road closures, staged access and drop-off points a long way from where you actually want to be. Anyone travelling that weekend should treat journey times as unrecognisable from the table above, and should have booked their cars a long time in advance, because the whole emirate's fleet is committed.

The comfortable season runs from roughly October to April, and that is when the events, the business travel and the yacht season all happen. Through the summer the heat is severe, outdoor time is minimal and the pattern of a day changes: early starts, late evenings, and cars that wait close to the door rather than in a car park. Ramadan shifts the working day again, with shortened hours and most activity after sunset, and it moves earlier in the western calendar each year, so it is worth checking against your dates rather than assuming.

If your trip takes in more than one Gulf city, which most do, tell us the whole shape of it at the start. The choice between flying and driving between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, or between an aircraft that can use Al Bateen and one that cannot, is much easier to make once rather than three times.