The Red Sea's largest resort town, and the easiest place in Egypt to add a beach week to a Nile itinerary.
Hurghada runs for around forty kilometres along the Red Sea coast, from the old harbour town in the middle to the resort strips of Sahl Hasheesh and Makadi Bay to the south and El Gouna to the north.
It is the most developed resort area in Egypt and the most convenient one to combine with Luxor — the drive between them is about four hours.
The water is the reason. The Red Sea is warm year round, clear, and fringed by coral reefs close to shore. Even a casual snorkeller off a hotel jetty will see reef fish, and the offshore island reefs are excellent.
It is the practical answer to a common problem: you have seen Cairo and Luxor, you have four days left, and you want to stop moving. Hurghada is four hours from Luxor by road and has flights from Cairo and much of Europe.
The range of accommodation is very wide, from large all-inclusive resorts to small hotels in the old town, which makes it flexible in a way Sharm and Marsa Alam are less so.
El Gouna, twenty minutes north, is a separately planned town of lagoons and low-rise hotels, and is a distinctly different and quieter proposition.
Hurghada was a small fishing village until the 1980s. What exists now is almost entirely the product of four decades of tourism development, and it shows in the architecture.
The reefs offshore — Giftun Island, Abu Ramada, the Careless Reef — have been dived commercially since the early days and remain in good condition where the marine park rules are enforced.
Giftun and its neighbouring islands sit inside a marine-park zone with entry fees, mooring buoys and ranger patrols — which is a large part of why those reefs still look the way they do after four decades of daily boats.
The wind wrote the town's second act: the same steady northerly that cooled the fishing village now drives one of the Red Sea's best-known kitesurfing scenes, with shallow lagoons south of town and a season that runs most of the year.
The wreck of the SS Thistlegorm, a British cargo ship sunk in 1941 and one of the most famous wreck dives in the world, is reachable on a long day trip or a liveaboard from here.
Year round. April to June and September to November are the most comfortable; summer is hot but the water compensates; winter is mild with cooler wind.
Opening hours: Not applicable — a town rather than a site.
Opening hours and ticket prices may change. Please confirm the latest details before visiting.
The quietest stretch of the Egyptian Red Sea — house reefs, dugongs and turtles, and very little else.
A low-key town on the Gulf of Aqaba where the diving is world class and nobody is in a hurry.
The southern tip of Sinai — the best shore diving in Egypt, with desert mountains directly behind the beach.
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