Egypt’s Red Sea coast runs for roughly 1,500 kilometres, from the Gulf of Suez down to the
Sudanese border, and it has two quite different shores: the mainland coast south of Suez, and the
Sinai side facing it across the water. Most of the famous beaches sit on one of those two
stretches, and which one suits you depends less on the sand than on what is in front of it.
The north: closest to Cairo
Ain Sokhna is the nearest Red Sea water to the capital, close enough for a
weekend. The beaches are calm and sandy and the reefs are modest — it is a swimming coast rather
than a diving one.
Further south, El Gouna is a built lagoon town of islands and channels with
its own marina and a string of small beaches. Hurghada is the oldest resort city
on the coast and the busiest, and it is the jumping-off point for the offshore islands — above all
Giftun Island, a protected area whose sandbars and
reefs are the reason most boats leave the marina.
The middle: the purpose-built bays
South of Hurghada the coast turns into a series of resort bays — Sahl Hasheesh,
Makadi Bay, Soma Bay — each one essentially a crescent of hotels
on a long sandy beach, with no town attached. Safaga, a working port, sits between
them and is known among divers for reefs such as Panorama and Abu Kafan.
The south: the quiet end
El Quseir is an old Red Sea trading town with an Ottoman fort and a slower pace.
Marsa Alam, further south again, has the best-known marine life on the mainland
coast: Abu Dabbab Bay for dugongs and green
turtles, Elphinstone for pelagics, and Samadai for spinner dolphins. Beyond it the coast empties
out towards Hamata and the Wadi El Gemal National Park.
The Sinai shore
Sharm El Sheikh looks across the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba and sits beside
Ras Mohammed, declared Egypt’s first national park in 1983 and still the most
celebrated reef in the country. Dahab, up the coast, is smaller and more informal,
and holds the Blue Hole — a famous and genuinely
dangerous dive site that is also a straightforward snorkel from the shore.
Nuweiba and Taba are quieter again, with the mountains of Saudi
Arabia visible across the water.
What the water is actually like
The Red Sea is warm all year — roughly 22°C in winter and high twenties in summer — and the
visibility is reliably good because almost no fresh water runs into it. The reefs are fringing
reefs, which means they start close to shore; at many places you can swim out to coral without a
boat.
10 Days Cairo, Alexandria and Beach Vacation
Want to see this for yourself? This trip covers it.
View This TripThat has a practical consequence worth knowing before you book. A long sandy beach and
a good house reef are often not the same place. Reef-fronted hotels tend to put in a
jetty so you can cross the shallow coral; sand-fronted hotels usually have easy swimming and
nothing much to look at underwater. Neither is better — but booking the wrong one for what you
came to do is the commonest mistake on this coast.
When to go
October to May is comfortable the length of the coast. Mid-summer on the mainland is very hot,
though the sea stays pleasant and the southern resorts take the heat better than inland Egypt
does. Winter brings wind to the northern bays — Hurghada and El Gouna are kitesurfing centres for
exactly that reason — while the far south stays calmer.
Combining the coast with the rest of Egypt
Most people pair the Red Sea with Cairo or the Nile valley rather than spending a whole trip on
the beach. From Hurghada there are day trips to
Luxor and to the Pyramids, and the tour packages that end on
the coast are the usual way to see the monuments first and rest afterwards. If you would rather
stay put, the Red Sea hotels are grouped by resort area.
