Failaka Island
A flat island twenty kilometres off Kuwait City, where Dilmun traders built a town four thousand years ago and Greek soldiers later put up a fort and a temple.
- Arrival
- Kuwait International · KWI
- To the island
- About 20 km off Kuwait City, by boat
- Private jets
- Sheikh Saad General Aviation Terminal
- Best time
- November to April
The city
Four thousand years of landfall.
Failaka is no more than 12 km long, yet people lived on it from the end of the third millennium BC into the nineteenth century AD. In the Bronze Age it belonged to Dilmun, the trading civilisation centred on Bahrain; the discovery of a 4,000-year-old temple was reported in 2025. Alexander is said to have named it Ikaros, and the Seleucids kept a harbour here. Later a Christian community built churches in the middle of the island and stayed until the ninth century.
The islanders were moved to the mainland around 1990, and much of Failaka still stands empty, with bunkers and rusted tanks left from the war. Boats leave from the Kuwait City shore, run by the public transport company or by private day-trip operators. Go between November and April, when the afternoons are between 18 and 31 °C.
Arriving
Land at KWI, then take the boat.
Kuwait International, open day and night, is about fifteen kilometres south of the capital. From the city waterfront the island is a boat ride across the bay.
- Doha 1 h 05
- Muscat 1 h 55
- Mumbai 3 h 50
- Rome 4 h 50
- New York 13 h 25 long-range jet
When to go
November to April.
Winter is short and mild, and almost all the rain falls in it, some 15 to 26 mm a month. The island is best seen from November to April, with highs of 18 to 31 °C. In July and August it reaches 44 to 45 °C, too hot to walk the ruins.
- 18° J 26
- 20° F 16
- 26° M 14
- 31° A 15
- 38° M 4
- 43° J 0
- 45° J 0
- 44° A 0
- 42° S 0
- 35° O 2
- 27° N 16
- 20° D 20
What to see and do
Days in and around Failaka Island.
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Landmark
Tell Sa’ad
The Dilmun town on the south-west shore: small houses, wells, pottery kilns, and finds of Dilmun seals.
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Landmark
Tell Sae’ed
A Greek fort of the third century BC, about sixty metres a side, with a temple linked to Artemis inside its walls.
-
Landmark
The heritage village
Kuwaiti houses of the 1950s in stone and palm frond, with courtyards and thatched roofs.
-
Culture
Al-Qusur
In the low centre of the island, excavations have uncovered churches, a monastery and farms of a Christian community that flourished in the eighth and ninth centuries.
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Opera & music
Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre
Opened in October 2016 on Gulf Road, Kuwait's opera house holds 5,700 seats across theatres and concert halls for music, theatre and film.
Official site -
Culture
Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre
Four museums of natural history, science, space and Arabic Islamic science share this site of 2018, with a planetarium and an aquarium.
-
Culture
Tareq Rajab Museum
Founded in 1980 from a private collection of Islamic art, jewellery, costumes and calligraphy, the Jabriya museum reopened with new displays in October 2023.
Where to stay
On the mainland, across the bay.
Shown for information. We have no arrangement with any of these hotels.
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Four Seasons Hotel Kuwait at Burj Alshaya A Forbes Five-Star tower next to Al Shaheed Park, with Li Beirut, Sintoho and Dai Forni among its restaurants.
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Waldorf Astoria Kuwait Rated five stars by Forbes for the hotel and the spa, with two hundred rooms opening onto The Avenues mall.
- Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel & Spa A beach hotel south of the centre, about twenty minutes from the airport.
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Sheraton Kuwait, a Luxury Collection Hotel Eighty rooms dressed with antiques on Fahd Al-Salem Street, a walk from the old souq.
Where to dine
The best tables on the mainland.
No MICHELIN Guide covers Kuwait and the island has no high-end restaurant. These are the restaurants of the Four Seasons in Kuwait City, which the hotel describes as fine dining.
- Dai Forni Signature restaurant, Four Seasons Hotel Kuwait Italian Four Seasons, Kuwait City, about 35 km from the island
- Lï Beirut Signature restaurant, Four Seasons Hotel Kuwait Lebanese Four Seasons, Kuwait City, about 35 km from the island
Elsewhere in Kuwait
More reasons to come.
Flying to Failaka Island?
Choose how you arrive.
A Business or First Class seat on a scheduled airline, or an aircraft of your own. Tell us the date and how many are travelling, and we reply with one final price, our margin included.