Hurghada

What Hurghada actually is

Hurghada is a strip of Red Sea coast about 40 kilometres long, and calling it a town undersells how spread out it is. It began as a fishing village, became a diving base in the 1980s, and then grew a chain of purpose-built resort bays southwards that have very little to do with the original settlement. Where you book along that strip decides almost everything about the week.

The water is the reason to come. Visibility runs 20 to 30 metres for most of the year, the reefs offshore are healthy, and the marine life is genuinely worth the flight. What Hurghada does not have, in most places, is a reef you can swim to from the sand — which is precisely where it differs from Sharm el-Sheikh, and precisely what people get wrong.

The other constant is wind. Hurghada is exposed and it blows most days. That is why it is one of the world's main kitesurfing and windsurfing centres, and it is also why an afternoon on an unsheltered beach can be less relaxing than the brochure suggested. In summer the wind is a mercy; in December it puts a jacket on the dinner terrace.

Hurghada or Sharm el-Sheikh?

This is the question we are asked most, so here is the honest version.

Sharm has the better shore access to coral. In Naama Bay and Sharks Bay you can walk in from a jetty and be over reef immediately, and it is more sheltered. The town is tidier. It suits divers who want easy shore dives and families who want the reef without a boat.

Hurghada is cheaper, has far more hotel choice at the budget and mid range, better wind sports, and much easier onward travel to Luxor and the Nile. Its reefs are mostly reached by boat, which is a half-day out rather than a swim.

Two more practical points. Check your current flight routing before you commit — the two airports are served very differently depending on which country you fly from, and that changes the real cost more than the hotel does. And note that Sinai and mainland Egypt have had different visa arrangements at different times, so confirm what applies to your passport for the airport you are actually landing at.

Where to stay

Makadi Bay

About 35 kilometres south of the airport. A planned bay of large all-inclusive resorts with sandy entries, aquaparks and almost nothing outside the hotel gates. That last part is the trade-off: it is genuinely quiet and genuinely self-contained, and if you want to wander into a town in the evening, you cannot.

Good for families. The shallow sandy entry here is one of the few places on this coast where small children can paddle without reef shoes.

Sahl Hasheesh

A step up in price and polish. A crescent bay of five-star resorts with a promenade, built as a single development. Calmer water than the open coast, good house reefs at the northern end, and a noticeably older and quieter crowd than Hurghada town.

Hurghada town, Sekalla and El Dahar

The original settlement plus the tourist strip that grew onto it. Cheaper hotels, real streets, bazaars, restaurants that are not hotel restaurants, and a rougher edge. El Dahar is the older Egyptian quarter and the more interesting half.

Stay here if you want to leave the hotel and see a functioning Egyptian town, or if you are on a tight budget. Do not stay here expecting a pristine resort beach.

El Gouna

Fifteen minutes north and effectively a separate destination: a privately developed town of lagoons, marinas and low-rise hotels, with its own restaurants and no hassle. It is the most expensive option on this coast and the one that feels least like Egypt, which is either the appeal or the objection.

What your money buys

Hurghada is the cheapest serious all-inclusive on the Red Sea. A decent four-star, seven nights all-inclusive and excluding flights, starts around 350 EUR per person in the low season. The same week at Christmas, New Year or Easter can be double or more, and the five-star bays in Sahl Hasheesh and El Gouna sit well above that year-round.

Be realistic about what four-star means here. The range is wide, renovation status varies enormously between hotels with identical ratings, and the difference between a good and a poor property at the same price is larger than in Turkey or Greece. This is exactly the kind of destination where asking someone who tracks the current state of the stock is worth more than reading reviews.

Getting there

Hurghada International (HRG) takes charter and scheduled flights from across Europe and is 5 to 45 minutes from the hotels depending on which bay you booked. Makadi is about 35 minutes, Sahl Hasheesh about 25, town about 10, El Gouna about 30 in the other direction.

To be clear about what we do: we quote your accommodation through our partner agencies, and the airport transfer in Egypt is arranged locally, in practice almost always by the hotel or the tour operator. Our own vehicles and drivers operate in Turkey, not in Egypt, and we would rather say that outright than let it be assumed.

When to go

March to May and October to December are the sweet spots: sea warm enough to enjoy, air comfortable, wind manageable.

June to August is very hot, routinely over 40 degrees, and the sea gets bath-warm. The wind makes it survivable and the prices drop, but it is not comfortable sightseeing weather and Luxor in particular is brutal.

January and February are the cheapest and the sea is at its coolest — still swimmable for many, cold for some. Days are pleasant, evenings need a jacket, and a heated pool is worth checking for rather than assuming.

Who should skip Hurghada

If you want to walk off the sand straight onto coral, book Sharm el-Sheikh or check the specific house reef very carefully before booking here.

If you want a destination with a town you will enjoy exploring on foot, Hurghada town is not that for most visitors, and the resort bays have nothing outside the gate at all.

If a windy beach ruins your holiday, this is the wrong coast entirely.

Diving, boats and what to book on the ground

The reefs that make this coast worth the flight are offshore, so the boat day is the core Hurghada experience rather than an optional extra. Giftun Island is the standard full-day trip: two or three snorkelling stops, lunch on board, and it runs from almost every hotel. Abu Ramada and the Careless Reef are the better sites and cost more because they carry fewer people.

If you dive, Hurghada is a serious base with decompression facilities and a long list of wrecks within reach, the Thistlegorm among them on a longer day. If you have never dived, the introductory dives sold in hotel lobbies vary wildly in quality — book through a centre with its own boat rather than the cheapest desk offer.

One warning worth having in advance: the excursion desk in your hotel lobby is a concession, and prices there are typically well above what the same trip costs booked directly. That is normal here rather than a scam, but it is worth knowing before you agree to anything on day one.

Getting a real price

Prices swing enormously between February and the New Year weeks, and two hotels with the same star rating can be five years apart in condition. Publishing one figure on this page would mislead most readers.

Tell us your dates, how many of you, whether the reef or the aquapark matters more, and roughly what you want to spend. A consultant comes back within one working day with two or three properties in the right bay, and an honest note on the state of each. The quote is free, it commits you to nothing, and no payment is taken on this site.