I visited Faya in November 2025 on the UAE road trip with Philipp and Jay, and I am the first to report back on it since its inscription this summer. We found out that, as is so often the case, reviews from before that milestone may not accurately reflect or depict the WHS. In a way, you’re just stabbing in the dark when visiting "too" early.

With the core zone mapped and all official documentation available, it is clear that the Faya Palaeolandscape focuses on the very early history of this part of the Arabian peninsula: it is foremostly an ‘early man’ site (Paleolithic and Neolithic, 200,000 - 6,000 years ago), which has seen intermittent human occupation during the Bronze and Iron Ages as well. The archeological sites of the latter two periods can be found within the core zone, but do not form part of the OUV.

Explicitly excluded from the OUV is the Pre-Islamic period (300 BCE - 300 AD). This has had a strong effect on the boundaries of the core zone and the flagship monuments: the Mleiha Palace, Fort, Subterranean kitchen and other remains from that period, situated ‘across the road’ from the main area, are all out. They still can be found on the Tentative List as Mleiha.

This scope confusion is aggravated by the Mleiha Archaeological Center, which is the main visitor center for both sites. To get a good look at either one, you need to join their archeology tour. At 190 AED (over 45 EUR) per person, it is a costly excursion. Still, it is the only way to gain legal access to the Mleiha TWHS and to core components of the Faya WHS.

We presented ourselves at the Center's reception bright and early on Saturday morning, but quickly learned the hard way that a tour is not always immediately available. Their guides were booked all morning to show around students - we had to come back later in the day. We reserved the 3.30 pm time slot for that. The tour takes you through the museum, the palace and other locations of Mleiha TWHS, and finally the key site of the WHS: the cave where the "earliest known evidence for the appearance of Anatomically Modern Humans outside the African continent" was uncovered.

By the time we got there, the sun had almost set (sunset in winter starts already around 5.30 pm). So another tip for future visitors: go earlier in the day, 2 pm would have been good since the tour took considerably longer than the advertised 1.5 hours.

The AB evaluation also mentions a second visitor center: Buhais Geology Center. We managed a visit on our second day in the UAE, on the way back to the airport. Buhais turned out to be a much more popular site among regular tourists and Emirati daytrippers. It has the advantages that the entrance fee is only 10.5 AED (cash only) and that you don’t need a tour to get around. There’s a 1km long interpretative trail along 12 natural and cultural features. The setting against the Faya range is quite pretty overall, and the Bronze Age tomb for collective burials at the end certainly is the highlight. The OUV also zooms in on the geomorphological aspects of the Faya landscape, but at Buhais as well, the link between what is shown and what is part of the WH narrative is limited.

So, for a comprehensive visit, you still have to do the tour from the Mleiha center, as it is the only way to witness the ‘early man’ aspect (plus the museum over there is much better, and they have a very fine café).

Quite a lot of money and effort have gone into making this site presentable and getting it inscribed (it was an override of ICOMOS' advice Not to Inscribe). It surely is an important archeological site for the region, but its wider relevance as “one of the oldest homo sapiens sites outside Africa” seems premature. And as always with sites as old as this, you won’t see anything authentic from that period in situ - it has all been taken away to museums or is represented by a reconstruction. However, the onsite museum tells the story well and has some good artifacts on display.