Africa : North Africa : Egypt : Red Sea Coast : Hurghada

Hurghada

Table of Contents:
Culture and History / Travel to Hurghada, visa requirements Flights to Hurghada, airtickets By boat Buses to Hurghada / Get around / Hurghada attractions and sightseeing / City tours / Shopping, Hurghada souvenirs / Good restaurants and cheap meals / Hurghada nightlife, bars, clubs and pubs. / Get out

More from Red Sea Coast:
Hurghada

More from Egypt:
Aswan, Lower Egypt, Luxor, Memphis (Egypt), Middle Egypt, Red Sea Coast, Sinai, Upper Egypt, Western Desert

More from North Africa:
Algeria, Atlas Mountains, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Western Sahara

More from Africa:
Central Africa, East Africa, North Africa, Saharan Africa, Seychelles, Southern Africa, West Africa

Hurghada is a resort town on the Red Sea Coast of Egypt.

Culture and History

The town of Hurghada has a small market street for tourists, but otherwise doesn't offer much for visitors to the Red Sea resorts--except for a taste of the way typical Egyptians live. Most of the hotels along the Red Sea are self-contained resorts, ideal for families who don't mind being isolated from authentic Egyptian culture for the duration of their trip. Some resorts connect, so it is possible to visit the shops and restaurants of other resorts if you tire of the same buffet dinners offered by your hotel night after night.

Travel to Hurghada, visa requirements

Flights to Hurghada, airtickets

Hurghada can be reached from Cairo in an hour by air for about $230 round trip (Egypt Air). There are also direct charters from Europe in the winter high season. From the airport in Hurghada, you will probably take a shuttle provided by your hotel.

By boat

International Fast Ferries [1] runs fast boats to Sharm el-Sheikh on the Sinai peninsula, currently running four times weekly. The ride takes 1.5 hours and costs 250/450 LE one-way/return for foreigners. Warning: this ride is notoriously bumpy and prone to cancellations.

Buses to Hurghada

Your hotel or a travel agency associated with your hotel will be able to arrange excursions to nearby attractions, including Luxor. Luxor is about 4 to 5 hours by bus, and your tour operator will be required to leave and return at designated times in order to travel in a police escorted convoy (of approximately 150 other tour buses.)

Get around

Hurghada attractions and sightseeing

Of course, the main reason to visit Hurghada is for the beautiful Red Sea, which is excellent for diving or snorkeling. If you aren't licenced to dive, it is often possible to snorkel and see incredible coral reefs and hundreds of varieties of tropical fish just 10 meters from the beach. Again, either your hotel will have dive escorts on site, or they can arrange a scuba diving expedition with guides. In late March, the water is still quite cold (21 Celsius), so a wet suit is necessary, and even snorkeling in a bathing suit is too cold after about 10 minutes. It is also windy in late March; sustained 20 MPH are common. Make sure your Beach resort Hotel provides wind screens on the Beach.

City tours

Hurghada offers many activities not to be found anywhere else on Earth. Quad-biking hundreds of miles into the Sahara desert for tea with a Bedoin tribe, then camel-riding across Biblical plains to see remote and ancient wonders; diving and snorkeling around a vibrant and colourful coral reef; boat trips to the unpopulated Big and Little Gifton islands; swimming in the warmest and saltiest sea in the world (the Red Sea is more saline than even the Dead Sea); good shopping; excellent and varied cuisine from across the world... if you WERE to choose to stay in your hotel complex for the duration of your break, you'd miss out on so much more than you bargained for. Maybe Majorca would be a better option for a hotel-based break?!

Those new to Egypt will find Karkaday (a drink made from an infusion of hibiscus, served hot or cold and reputed to have many health benefits) and Chi (local version of tea, usually served in a glass) offered everywhere. Both are delicious, and will usually come replete with a smoke on a "sheesha" pipe, known in the West as a "Hookah". Sheesha's are used for smoking molasses tobacco in various flavours, with the smoke passing through water before inhalation through a long tube attached to the bowl. Although they may resemble a device used to smoke illicit substances in the west, (i.e, a bong), sheesha contains nothing illegal.

Visits to Cairo and Luxor, and indeed multi-stop breaks, are popular from Hurghada, and Sharm-El-Sheikh and the Sinai peninsula (containing two of the oldest Christian temples in the world, St Catherine's and St Anthony's) is but a short hop away.