(Above, the sunrise in Fujairah, over the Indian Ocean.)

This is a pretty easy question to answer.

If you live in the UAE and prefer to stay in-country for vacation … but want something not at all like home … where do you go?

Fujairah.

This is the emirate unlike the other six.

Consider:

–Fujairah is the only emirate oriented toward the east side of the Arabian Peninsula — toward the Indian Ocean, that is.

It changes the feel of the place, if it’s not my imagination. The other six emirates feel as if they are perpetually staring out into the Gulf, which has its share of political and environmental challenges out there.

Most of Fujairah, from the city of the same name north to Dibba, has vistas dominated by the dark blue of an ocean, a body of water that brings trade and visitors  — and sometimes a bit of sea-breeze relief during the torrid summers, compared to the big cities on the west coast.

–More than a little of Fujairah feels funky and a bit shopworn. It isn’t yet overrun by malls and skyscrapers and not every vista includes the bones of a high-rise-to-be.

It feels like the rest of the country might have felt when it was founded, back in 1971. Mom and pop stores, goats in the back, fresh fish for dinner, people sitting and talking on the side of the road. It also boasts the oldest mosque in the country.

–Fujairah is the only emirate that is mostly mountainous. The population centers of the six emirates stacked up on the west side of the country live in a land as flat as Kansas. Nary a hill, let alone a mountain.

In Fujairah, pretty much everything happens to a backdrop of the Hajar Mountains. When you live in the UAE, the notion of hills (let alone mountains) out your window is rare, indeed.

Fujairah is known for sandy beaches, scuba diving, hiking, camping and cycling. A person can do all that in the rest of the UAE, but it will be a bit more work and perhaps a little less interesting.

Fujairah is less than a two-hour drive from Dubai, less than three hours from Abu Dhabi.

To be in Fujairah is to feel like you have left the UAE without having to board an airplane or carry a passport, and that pretty much is what you want for a stay-near-home vacation.