Whether you need a car at all — usually not — and, if you do, the paperwork, what the road is actually like, and the one rule that is not a preference.
Most visitors to this coast should not hire a car, and almost nobody selling you one will say it. The towns are twenty to sixty minutes apart on a single good road, taxis and ride apps are cheap, every excursion includes transport, and the safety section on this site ranks the road as the largest real risk here — above sharks, above crime, above everything people actually worry about before they come. Hiring a car is the one decision that puts you into that risk every day, by choice. There are real cases where a car earns itself, and they are below; a week in one resort is not one of them.
The hotel transfer brings you in, excursions collect you from the door, and a taxi into town and back costs a fraction of a day’s hire. A car spends the week in the car park being a deposit you have not got back yet.
Marsa Alam is the case that changes the answer. The bays are spread over eighty kilometres, taxis are scarce and expensive between them, and a shore-diving trip means carrying kit. Anyone staying more than a fortnight down there is genuinely better off with a car.
It sounds like the obvious case and usually is not: two or three taxi runs a week cost less than the hire, and child seats effectively do not exist in either. If you do hire, arranging a seat is on you and needs confirming in writing before you land.
A boot full of gear, an early start and a shore entry somewhere a taxi will not wait is exactly what a car is for. Most centres will still collect you, so the question is whether you are diving the same site repeatedly or hunting different ones.
Plenty of residents drive and plenty deliberately do not, and the second group is not being timid — you are on the road daily rather than twice a fortnight, and the risk scales accordingly. If you do, you will eventually need an Egyptian licence rather than a permit.
Egypt expects a visitor to carry an International Driving Permit alongside their national licence — the permit is a translation, not a licence, and it is worthless without the original in your pocket. It has to be issued in the country that issued your licence, before you travel, because no Egyptian office will make you one. Rental companies vary in how strictly they check and the police do not; check the current requirement with your own licensing authority rather than with the rental desk, whose interest is in renting you the car.
Expect to be asked for the licence, the permit, your passport and a credit card in the driver’s name for a deposit that is held rather than charged. Minimum ages and minimum licence-held periods differ by company and are usually higher than the legal minimum. All of that varies, so read the specific company’s terms — this is one of the few things on this coast where the small print genuinely differs between operators.
The number that matters is not the daily rate, it is the excess — the amount you are liable for before any cover starts — and on the cheaper local hires it can be a large fraction of the car’s value. Ask what the excess is, what it can be reduced to and for how much, and whether tyres, glass and the underside are covered, because on a coast road with speed bumps and no lighting those are the three things that get damaged. Check whether your own travel policy or credit card covers hire-car excess before you buy it twice.
Every panel, both bumpers, the wheels, the windscreen and the spare, with the date on. This is standard practice anywhere and it matters more where a deposit is held on a card. Check that the spare is inflated and that the jack is present, look at the tread, and start the engine before you sign anything.
The road linking El Gouna, Hurghada, Sahl Hasheesh, Makadi, Safaga, El Quseir and Marsa Alam is wide, well surfaced and mostly straight, with light traffic between towns. Anybody who can drive can drive it. This is the part that makes hiring a car look sensible, and taken on its own it is.
Hurghada city driving follows conventions you did not learn: lanes are advisory, indicators are rare, undertaking is normal, and a roundabout is negotiated rather than governed. It works, and it works because everybody is watching everybody else rather than watching the markings. Parking in Dahar is its own problem. Drive defensively, expect to be overtaken on both sides, and do not take offence at the horn — it is used as a here-I-am, not as an insult.
This is the one that is not a preference. Unlit vehicles, unlit speed bumps, animals on the carriageway, parked lorries without reflectors and oncoming full beams are all normal, and the combination is why the road is ranked where it is on the safety page. If a plan involves arriving somewhere after sunset, take a taxi and leave the car.
There are police and army checkpoints on the coast road and on the desert roads inland. They are routine, they are usually a wave-through, and the way they go badly is a visitor being flustered. Slow down, dip the headlights, be unhurried, have passport and licence to hand, and do not photograph anything. Some inland routes are restricted to convoys or closed to foreigners at times; ask locally rather than assuming a map is the whole story.
Stations are attended rather than self-service, cash is expected, and it is normal to tip the attendant a small amount. Fill up before a long southern leg rather than counting on the next station being open. Petrol is cheap by European standards, which is one of the few economics of driving here that genuinely favours it.
Licence, permit and passport — or a good copy of the passport with the entry stamp. A checkpoint that asks and gets nothing turns a thirty-second stop into a long one.
Even a scrape involves the police, because the insurance will want a report and the rental company will want the report. Do not move the vehicles before that is agreed, call the rental company’s number before you agree anything with anybody, and expect it to take hours rather than minutes.
The legal position is far stricter than most European drivers assume and the consequences are not the ones you are used to. This is not a marginal call to make on holiday.
Pedestrians cross where they need to rather than where a crossing is, and children and animals appear from between parked vehicles in the towns. Speed in town is about what you can stop for, not about the limit.
Hiring a car with a driver costs more than the car alone and much less than most visitors expect, and it removes every problem on this page at once — the parking, the night driving, the checkpoint, the insurance excess and the bump. For a day trip inland it is very often the right answer.
Checked 26 July 2026. Rules and prices change — we link official sources so you can confirm on the day. Something out of date? Tell us.