Question 1

When is the best time to visit the Red Sea?

Accepted Answer

April, May, October and November are the sweet spots: the sea is warm, the air is hot without being punishing, and the wind is workable. July and August are extremely hot — 40°C and above inland — and are best only if you will be in the water or in air conditioning. December to February is mild and pleasant on land, cooler in the sea, and the cheapest time to come outside the New Year peak. March and September are shoulder months that can go either way.

Question 2

Which Red Sea resort should I choose?

Accepted Answer

It depends on what you want the week to feel like. El Gouna is a manicured lagoon town, walkable and relatively expensive. Hurghada is the real working town — cheapest, busiest, most varied, and the least polished. Sahl Hasheesh, Makadi and Soma Bay are self-contained resort bays where you stay put. Safaga is quiet and unglamorous with excellent diving next door. Marsa Alam is the furthest south, the least developed and the best for reef and wildlife. Nobody should pick from photographs alone — they all photograph identically.

Question 3

Is Hurghada or Sharm el-Sheikh better?

Accepted Answer

They are more similar than either side admits, and the honest tie-breakers are practical rather than scenic. Sharm sits in Sinai with a separate entry arrangement and its own airport; Hurghada is on the mainland with easier onward access to Luxor and Cairo. Sharm has Ras Mohammed and the Straits of Tiran on its doorstep; Hurghada has the wrecks, including the Thistlegorm, and a wider spread of towns to choose from. For a first Red Sea trip focused on diving variety and day trips inland, Hurghada usually wins.

Question 4

How many days do you need on the Red Sea coast?

Accepted Answer

A week is the standard and works well. Ten days to a fortnight is better if you want to dive properly, take a day trip inland to Luxor, and still have days doing nothing. Under five days is tight once you account for a transfer at each end and the eighteen-hour gap you must leave between your last dive and your flight home.

Question 5

What is there actually to do on the Red Sea coast?

Accepted Answer

More than the excursion desk suggests, and in a different order. The genuinely world-class things here are the water ones — snorkelling straight off a beach, diving the reef and the wrecks, and kitesurfing in flat shallow lagoons — and the first of those is free and available every day of your holiday. The Eastern Desert behind the hotels is very good and almost nobody sees it. Luxor is worth the long day. Quad safaris, island beach days and the dolphin trips are pleasant rather than remarkable, and they are the things sold hardest, because they are the ones that pay a commission.

Question 6

How should I plan a week on the Red Sea coast?

Accepted Answer

Leave the first day for arriving and the last day dry if you are diving — you cannot fly for at least eighteen hours after a dive. In between, alternate: a boat or dive day, then a slow day at the house reef, then a big day out. The classic mistake is booking an excursion for every day and coming home exhausted, and the second most common is putting the Luxor trip or a dive course at the end of the week, where a single weather day breaks the plan.

Question 7

Which part of Hurghada should I stay in?

Accepted Answer

Hurghada is a city rather than a resort with a strip, and its districts are less alike than some of the separate towns on this coast. Two questions settle it. Is the beach yours — most hotels in the city itself have none, a narrow one, or a paid arrangement with somebody else’s, which is normal here and is the single biggest source of disappointment. And can you walk somewhere at night — Sekalla and the marina you can, the southern hotel corridor you cannot. El Dahar is the old town: cheapest food and rooms on the coast, no beach, heaviest selling pressure. Sahl Hasheesh, Makadi and Soma Bay are sold as “Hurghada” because that is the airport; they are separate towns half an hour or more down the road.

Question 8

Should I stay in a big resort or an apartment?

Accepted Answer

A large all-inclusive resort removes almost every daily decision and is the right answer for a first trip, for families, and for anyone who wants the beach and nothing else. An apartment or a small hotel costs less, puts you in a town rather than a compound, and needs you to solve food and transport yourself. The variable that matters more than the category is the beach: many hotels here have coral and a jetty rather than sand, which is superb for snorkelling and useless for a paddling toddler.

Question 9

Is El Gouna or Hurghada better?

Accepted Answer

They are the two ends of the same coast in more than distance. El Gouna is a purpose-built lagoon town, walkable, tidy, mostly foreign and noticeably more expensive; Hurghada is a real Egyptian city with an old quarter, a fish market and every price point, busier and rougher at the edges. Choose El Gouna if you want everything to work without thinking about it, and Hurghada if you want to be somewhere that exists independently of tourism.

Question 10

Is the Red Sea coast good for families with children?

Accepted Answer

Very. The resorts are built for it — shallow pools, kids clubs, all-inclusive board that removes the daily negotiation about food, and a sea that is warm and calm inside the reef. The genuine cautions are sun and heat, which affect small children faster than adults, the reef itself, which cuts feet and should never be stood on, and the long transfers if you book somewhere far from the airport. Avoid July and August with young children unless you are confident about the heat.

Question 11

Can I use euros or pounds instead of Egyptian pounds?

Accepted Answer

You can in many tourist-facing places, and you will lose money every time. The rate offered is always worse than the bank rate and change comes back in Egyptian pounds at another poor rate. Pay in Egyptian pounds, and when a card machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline it — that is dynamic currency conversion and it is never the better option.

Question 12

Should I bring cash or use cards on the Red Sea coast?

Accepted Answer

Both. Cards work in hotels, larger restaurants, supermarkets and dive centres. Cash is needed for taxis, markets, small cafés, tips and most of the interesting parts of a day. ATMs are common in the towns and scarcer in the resort bays, so draw larger amounts less often to reduce fixed fees, and always choose to be charged in Egyptian pounds.

Question 13

Can I bring a drone to Egypt?

Accepted Answer

Not without prior authorisation, and this is the one that ruins holidays. Drones are routinely confiscated at customs on arrival — sometimes returned on departure, sometimes not — and flying one without a permit, particularly near coastline, ports or anything official, is treated as a serious matter rather than a fine. Leave it at home unless you hold written permission, and check the current position before you travel.

Question 14

What can I not take home from Egypt?

Accepted Answer

Coral, shells and sand are protected under marine park rules, bags are checked at the airport, and this is enforced rather than nominal. Genuine antiquities are a serious criminal offence to export, so anything sold to you at a market as authentically ancient is either dishonestly described or an invitation to commit one. Everything else — cotton, spices, silver, papyrus — is fine, though a good deal of it is not what the label says.

Question 15

Is Hurghada safe for tourists?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in the ways people usually mean. Violent crime against visitors is rare, and the resort towns are safer at night than most European cities of the same size. What actually goes wrong here is far more mundane, and roughly in this order: sunburn and heat, an upset stomach, cuts and stings from the reef, and the road — the drive to Cairo or Luxor and quad-bike excursions carry more real risk than anything else on a normal trip. Sharks come a long way down that list.

Question 16

Are there shark attacks in the Red Sea?

Accepted Answer

They have happened, including fatal ones, and they are very rare — a handful of incidents across decades against millions of swims a year. This coast is unusual because deep water sits close to shore in places, which brings open-ocean species nearer swimmers than at most beach destinations. The practical response is small and specific: swim at supervised beaches inside marked areas, take beach closures seriously, avoid dawn and dusk, stay away from boats cleaning fish, and never feed fish.

Question 17

Are there scams in Hurghada?

Accepted Answer

A few real ones, and a great many things wrongly called scams. Most of what visitors report is an ordinary transaction nobody explained to them: a first price that is the opening of a negotiation rather than an attempt to cheat, baksheesh for a small service, an official two-tier ticket at a state site, or a friendly conversation that turns out to be a sales approach. The genuine set-ups are few and always the same ones — a fare agreed after you arrive rather than before, a card machine offering to charge you in euros instead of Egyptian pounds, a bracelet put into your hand, a stranger who says your destination is closed today. Each is beaten by something you do before the moment: agree the number first, always pay in Egyptian pounds, keep your hands down, and check for yourself whether a place is open.

Question 18

Is Egypt safe for solo female travellers?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and thousands travel here alone every season — but "safe" and "hassle-free" are different questions. Violent crime is genuinely rare. What a woman travelling alone will meet is persistent attention: sales patter that does not stop at the first no, comment on the street, repeated questions about a husband. It is wearing rather than frightening. Covering shoulders and knees away from the resorts reduces it markedly, and a pleasant "la’ shukran" said while continuing to walk ends more conversations than silence does.

Question 19

What is Antinal, and should I take it?

Accepted Answer

Antinal is the brand name for nifuroxazide, an over-the-counter intestinal antiseptic that Egyptian pharmacies hand out for almost any diarrhoea. It is not authorised in most of northern Europe, the evidence that it shortens ordinary travellers’ diarrhoea is thin, and in 2019 the French medicines regulator restricted it to adults and withdrew the children’s forms. Whether to take it is a question for a doctor rather than a website — but the thing that actually treats the problem is rehydration salts, which cost almost nothing and are what dehydration in 40°C heat requires.

Question 20

Do I need vaccinations for Egypt?

Accepted Answer

There are no vaccinations legally required for entry from most countries, but routine travel vaccinations are commonly recommended and the specifics depend on your history, your health and where you are going. This is a question for a travel clinic or your own doctor six to eight weeks before you fly, not for a guide page — and that lead time matters, because some courses need more than one dose.

Question 21

Is it safe to swim in the Red Sea?

Accepted Answer

Yes, with two habits that matter more than anything else. Never stand on the reef — almost every injury here happens because someone put a foot down, and fire coral, urchins and stonefish are all in the shallow rubble people wade through. And do not use inflatables where the wind is blowing offshore: the same northerly that makes the kitesurfing world-class pushes an airbed out faster than a strong swimmer can follow.

Question 22

Is the Red Sea a good place to learn to dive?

Accepted Answer

One of the best in the world. The water is warm most of the year, visibility is high enough that a first descent feels reassuring rather than alarming, there is reef within reach of a beach, and there is enough competition between centres that the good end of the market is genuinely good. An Open Water course takes three to four days here, or about two and a half if you do the theory online before you fly.

Question 23

How do I choose a dive centre in Egypt?

Accepted Answer

Check things you can verify yourself in ten minutes rather than reviews. Is a CDWS licence — Egypt’s diving regulator — on the wall? Did they ask to see your certification card and when you last dived, before taking your money? Where is the emergency oxygen, and can someone point to it immediately? What state are the hoses and mouthpieces in? How many divers per guide? And the decisive one: will they take you deeper than your certification allows? A centre that says no to that is the one to book.

Question 24

Is PADI better than SSI?

Accepted Answer

No. PADI, SSI, CMAS, SDI, RAID and BSAC all teach to shared international standards — the same skills, the same depth limits, the same progression — and every one of them produces a certification that dive centres worldwide accept. Cards cross over, so switching agencies costs you nothing and repeats nothing. The variation between two instructors inside one agency is far larger than the variation between agencies. Choose the centre, not the logo.

Question 25

Do I need to be able to swim to snorkel?

Accepted Answer

You need to be comfortable in water, and most resorts will put a buoyancy vest on you regardless. Being a strong swimmer matters less than staying calm and staying inside the marked area — the failure mode here is not swimming ability but drifting further than you meant to and panicking about it. If you are not confident, snorkel from a beach rather than a boat, go with someone, and look back at the shore every few minutes.

Question 26

How long after diving can I fly?

Accepted Answer

At least eighteen hours after repetitive diving, and twenty-four is the safer habit after several days of it. This is the single most common way a Red Sea holiday goes wrong on paper: a dive course booked for the last three days of the trip has no slack, and one windy day or one ear that will not clear forces a choice between finishing the course and catching the flight. Book diving early in the week.

Question 27

What will I actually see when I snorkel here?

Accepted Answer

Within twenty minutes off almost any reef: parrotfish, butterflyfish, sergeant majors, wrasse, goatfish over the sand, and usually a lionfish hanging under an overhang. Turtles are common at a handful of specific bays, and rays, moray eels and octopus turn up regularly for anyone who looks slowly. What you will not see from a hotel beach are the big pelagics — those are boat dives. The reef itself is the thing worth learning to read; most visitors swim over it looking for animals and miss it.

Question 28

Are the Red Sea wrecks worth diving?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and they are the reason many divers come back rather than merely come. The Thistlegorm is the famous one — a wartime cargo ship with motorcycles, trucks and rifles still in the holds — and the coast has a genuine density of others, several shallow enough to be good rather than merely deep. Most of the well-known ones sit below eighteen metres, which is an Advanced qualification rather than an Open Water one, and that is worth knowing before you book the trip.

Question 29

Which are the best dive sites near Hurghada?

Accepted Answer

The reliable ones are the offshore reefs rather than anything you can reach from a beach: Shaab Abu Nuhas for wrecks, Giftun and Abu Ramada for reef and easy conditions, Umm Gamar and Careless Reef for walls and pelagics, and Shaab El Erg for a chance of dolphins. Which you get depends on the wind on the day, and any centre that promises a specific site regardless of conditions is telling you something about itself.

Question 30

Is the Red Sea good for kitesurfing?

Accepted Answer

It is one of the best places in the world to learn and a very good place to progress. The wind is thermal and turns up on schedule for most of the year, the lagoons are flat and shallow enough to stand in while you are learning, and the season runs through the northern winter when Europe has nothing. The strongest, most reliable wind is around Soma Bay, Safaga and El Gouna; Hurghada itself is workable but busier.

Question 31

Can I dive Elphinstone or the Brothers on a day trip?

Accepted Answer

Elphinstone yes, from Marsa Alam or Port Ghalib, thirty to forty-five minutes offshore when the sea allows. The Brothers no, and neither Daedalus, St John’s nor Rocky Island: they sit sixty to ninety kilometres out with no day-boat access at all, and the only way to dive them is a liveaboard itinerary. Of the thirteen sites this site covers, four are liveaboard-only and three are open to a newly qualified diver — worth knowing before a week is booked around a name from a magazine.

Question 32

What is a liveaboard, and should I book one?

Accepted Answer

A boat you sleep on for a week, diving three or four times a day at sites day boats cannot reach. It is the best diving on this coast and a completely different holiday from a hotel with a dive centre attached — no beach, no evenings out, and you are committed once you leave. It suits certified divers who want volume and does not suit beginners, non-divers travelling with a diver, or anyone unsure about seasickness.

Question 33

How much does a Red Sea holiday cost?

Accepted Answer

We do not print prices, and any site that does is either updating them constantly or quietly misleading you — the Egyptian pound has been devalued repeatedly and a figure written in euros can be wrong by half within a year. What holds is the structure: when you come matters more than anything else and is free to change, which town you pick moves accommodation, food and drink together, and what your board basis actually covers is the most common place a budget goes wrong.

Question 34

Is tipping expected in Egypt?

Accepted Answer

Yes, far more than in Europe, and over a fortnight it is a real budget line rather than loose change. It runs through daily life — housekeeping, restaurant staff, dive guides, drivers, the person who carries a bag you did not need carried. Cash on the table reaches staff more reliably than a service charge does. Check your restaurant bill, because service is often already on it.

Question 35

Can you drink alcohol in Egypt?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Alcohol is served in hotels, resorts, tourist restaurants and bars along the Red Sea coast, and local beer and wine are widely available. It is far less visible outside tourist areas, is not sold during some religious holidays, and drinking in the street is not done. During Ramadan, service is more restricted and it is courteous to be discreet about it.

Question 36

What should women wear in Hurghada?

Accepted Answer

Swimwear including bikinis is completely normal at hotel beaches and pools and nobody looks twice. Away from the tourist areas — a market, a local street, anywhere outside a resort — shoulders and knees covered attracts markedly less attention. This is not a rule anyone enforces on visitors and it is not a moral position; it is a way of reducing friction, and it is what women who live here do. A loose scarf in a bag covers most situations.

Question 37

Do people speak English on the Red Sea coast?

Accepted Answer

Widely, in anything tourist-facing — hotels, dive centres, restaurants, shops and taxis. German and Russian are also common, reflecting who visits. Away from the tourist strip it thins out quickly. Thirty words of Egyptian Arabic changes how you are treated more than fluency would, and the single most useful phrase is "la’ shukran" — no, thank you — said pleasantly while continuing to walk.

Question 38

Does Ramadan affect a Red Sea holiday?

Accepted Answer

Much less than people expect in the resorts, and noticeably outside them. Hotels and tourist restaurants operate normally. In the towns, many places close during daylight and open late, the streets are quiet by day and lively after sunset, and traffic just before iftar is worth avoiding entirely. Eating, drinking and smoking in public during daylight is impolite rather than illegal for visitors. Iftar itself is one of the best things you can be invited to.

Question 39

What food should I try in Egypt?

Accepted Answer

Koshari — rice, macaroni, lentils and chickpeas under a cumin-heavy tomato sauce — is the national dish and the best cheap meal in the country. On this coast, grilled fish sold by weight is the meal most visitors never have and should: you choose it from ice, it is weighed and priced in front of you, and it comes back with bread, salads and tahina. Also worth ordering: ful, taameya, molokhia and mahshi. The hotel buffet will tell you nothing about any of it.

Question 40

Can I photograph people in Egypt?

Accepted Answer

Ask first, and the answer is usually yes with a smile. Photographing women without asking is the thing that reliably causes anger, and photographing children without asking a parent is worse. Where somebody is dressed for the photograph — the man with the camel, the shopkeeper in costume — it is a business and the picture has a price, so agree it beforehand. Military sites, police, checkpoints, bridges and the airport apron are not to be photographed at all.

Question 41

Do I have to haggle, and how does it work?

Accepted Answer

In bazaars, tourist souvenir shops and with taxis, yes; in supermarkets, pharmacies, restaurants and dive centres, no, and trying is faintly rude. The opening price is the start of a conversation rather than an offer. Counter meaningfully low but not insultingly, expect two or three rounds, and keep it warm — the tone matters more than the number, and people who bargain hard and coldly consistently pay more than people who bargain hard and cheerfully.

Question 42

Is the Red Sea coast good for a holiday with a toddler?

Accepted Answer

It can be excellent, and one question decides it: is the hotel beach sand, or coral and a jetty? A large share of good hotels here have reef starting at the waterline — superb for snorkelling and unusable for a two-year-old who wants to paddle — and the photography is arranged not to answer that. Beyond it, the sea is warm and has almost no tide or surf, Egyptians are extraordinarily welcoming to small children, and the real hazard is heat and sun rather than anything you will eat.

Question 43

Can I move to Egypt, or live on the Red Sea coast?

Accepted Answer

Plenty of people do, on a spread of arrangements from a season on tourist extensions to a proper residence permit tied to work, marriage, study or property. The honest framing is that a holiday here and a life here share a coastline and almost nothing else, and the things that end most stays are the summer, the paperwork, and assuming a local wage will fund a European standard of living. Rent for a year before you buy anything.

Question 44

Can foreigners buy property in Egypt?

Accepted Answer

Yes, subject to restrictions that differ by region and have changed before. The recurring problem is not the purchase but the registration: a great deal of property sold to foreigners rests on contracts that were never properly registered, which surfaces years later when somebody tries to sell or inherit. Instruct your own independent Egyptian lawyer rather than one introduced by the seller or the agent, and have the title and its registration confirmed before any money moves.

Question 45

What do Red Sea place names mean?

Accepted Answer

Nearly all of them are plain Arabic description, which makes the chart readable once you know a dozen words. Ras is a headland, marsa a sheltered bay or anchorage, shaab a reef, gota a small round reef, umm literally mother and used for the larger of a pair, abu father of, and gubal a mountain. Sharm is a bay or inlet, which is why there is more than one Sharm. Hurghada itself comes from ghardaqa, a salt-tolerant shrub that grows along the shore.

Question 46

Which day trips are actually worth taking?

Accepted Answer

Luxor is emphatically worth one long day — fifteen to seventeen hours door to door, eight of them in a coach, wrapped around three of the most significant sites on earth — and whether it is wonderful or a forced march depends almost entirely on the guide. A snorkelling boat day is reliably good. The desert safari is fun with a small operator and a dust queue with a large one. Cairo is a genuinely good day flown and a punishing one driven, and that is the whole decision.

Red Sea questions, answered

Choosing where and when