Trip Planning
The TakeYourBackpack guidebooks are your all-in-one travel companion, featuring the best cities, national parks, hikes, beaches, and unique sites, along with essential tips on when to go, how to get around, exchanging money, and even local phrases to get you started — everything you need for a smooth, unforgettable backpacking adventure.
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Planning a backpacking route through Qatar can be tricky — you need to balance must-see places, travel times, budget, and how long to stay in each destination. Our free personalized Qatar itinerary planner creates a route based on your travel style, trip duration, and interests, so you can spend less time researching and more time exploring.
Personal tip: I normally search on good rating for atmosphere (for meeting people) and location (for easy exploring). Cleanliness as a bonus.
Travel Essentials
Qatar requires no special vaccinations for most travelers. Make sure your routine vaccines are up to date, including measles-mumps-rubella, tetanus-diphtheria and COVID-19. Hepatitis A and typhoid are often advised, and hepatitis B is recommended for longer stays. If you arrive from a country with yellow fever risk, you may need to show a yellow fever certificate. See a travel clinic 4 to 8 weeks before departure.
vaccination requirementsWhen I first started traveling, I often spent part of my first day in a new country hunting for a local SIM card. While this can still be slightly cheaper, it also takes time and planning.
These days, it's much simpler to install an eSIM before leaving home. Once you arrive in Qatar, you can activate it immediately and have mobile data from the moment you land — which is especially useful for ordering transport or navigating away from busy airports.
There are many providers nowadays, and price differences are usually small. I personally go with
Holafly, as it offers excellent network coverage throughout the country and strong global coverage, so you can manage multiple countries from a single app.
HolaFly eSimCulture & Customs
Qatar is a conservative Muslim country, and visitors are expected to cover their shoulders and knees in malls, souqs, museums and government buildings. Women should bring a headscarf for mosque visits. Hold hands at most in public, since kissing and hugging can draw complaints. Drinking alcohol is legal only in licensed hotel bars and restaurants, and being drunk in public can lead to arrest. During Ramadan, avoid eating, drinking or smoking in public during daylight, and expect shorter opening hours. Use your right hand to eat, pass items and accept coffee, and shake the cup gently when you have had enough. Never photograph people, especially women, without asking first, and avoid filming government sites or police. Offensive gestures and swearing, including online, are prosecutable. Unmarried couples rarely face issues in hotels, but same-sex couples should keep things discreet.
Trying traditional food is always a great way to experience the culture. Here are some must-try dishes for Qatar.
- Machboos: Qatar’s national dish. Long-grain rice is cooked in a spiced broth with chicken, lamb or fish, loomi (dried black lime), cardamom and saffron. Families serve it on huge shared platters at Friday lunches and weddings.
- Harees: Cracked wheat and meat slow-cooked into a smooth, porridge-like paste and topped with ghee. It is a Ramadan and Eid staple with Bedouin roots.
- Thareed: Thin regag bread layered under a tomato-based meat and vegetable stew that soaks into it. Many Qatari families break the Ramadan fast with it.
- Madrouba: Rice, chicken and spices beaten until creamy, finished with ghee and cumin. It is Gulf comfort food and is found on most traditional menus.
- Balaleet: Sweet vermicelli flavored with saffron, cardamom and rosewater, topped with a thin omelet. It is a classic breakfast for Eid mornings.
- Luqaimat: Crisp fried dough balls drenched in date syrup and sometimes sprinkled with sesame. They are the street snack of Souq Waqif evenings and Ramadan nights.
Tap water in Qatar comes from desalination plants and meets international safety standards, so it is technically safe to drink. Most residents still drink bottled or filtered water because of the taste and the condition of older building pipes, and tourists are advised to do the same. A 1.5-liter bottle costs about QR1 to 2 (US$0.30 to 0.55) in any supermarket, and many hotels and offices have filtered refill dispensers.
The main language in Qatar is
Arabic. Backpacking is way more rewarding if you know a bit of the local language, so I'd suggest brushing up on the basics just in case your Arabic skills have become a bit rusty.
Want to understand locals better?The complete Travel Guide for Qatar includes 52 essential words and phrases — greetings, thank-yous, ordering food, transport, numbers, and common local expressions you'll actually hear.
Get your local basic phrases 👉
Get the Travel Guide - works almost everywhere you will go in Qatar. Doha’s metro, malls, hotels and restaurants run on it, largely because most service staff are expats from South Asia, the Philippines and Africa. Younger Qataris and hostel or hotel staff speak it fluently. Outside Doha, in small towns and at desert camps, English gets simpler, but you can still get by. Arabic is the official language and the one that earns the warmest reaction, so learn shukran (thank you) and download Google Translate’s offline Arabic pack for menus and signs.
Money & Payments
The local currency of Qatar is QAR (ر.ق).
Qatar runs on the Qatari riyal (QR), pegged at about QR3.64 to US$1, and ATMs from banks such as QNB, Commercial Bank and Doha Bank are everywhere: in malls, metro stations, the airport and petrol stations. Local banks usually charge no fee for foreign cards, so your main cost is your home bank’s foreign transaction fee, often US$2 to 5 per withdrawal. Visa and Mastercard contactless payments work almost everywhere, including in metro machines, supermarkets, taxis and most cafes, so you can go days without touching cash. Keep QR50 to 100 (US$14 to 27) in small notes for spice and textile stalls in Souq Waqif, tiny cafeterias and the occasional taxi whose card reader is broken. US dollars and euros exchange easily if you bring them, and the licensed exchange houses in malls and around the souq give better rates than the airport counters or hotel desks.
Tipping in Qatar is appreciated but never compulsory, and many restaurants already add a 10% service charge, so check your bill first. If no service charge appears, leave around 10% in sit-down restaurants. Round up taxi fares or tip QR5 to 10 (US$1.40 to 2.75) for porters and delivery riders, most of whom are low-paid migrant workers for whom it makes a real difference.
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Best Backpacking
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Over the years, I've learned the importance of packing minimally. It's so much easier to jump on the back of a truck or squeeze yourself into the last spot of a minibus without that supersized backpack. If you're headed to a warm destination, leave your winter jacket at home; for colder regions, opt for thin thermal underlayers. Instead of packing your entire wardrobe, bring just three sets of clothes, as laundry facilities are available everywhere.
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Hi, I’m Johan (Netherlands 🇳🇱), the creator of TakeYourBackpack. Over the past 3 decades, I’ve backpacked through 90+ countries across six continents, gaining extensive experience with independent travel, long-term trips, and overland routes.