This Red Sea Egypt guide compares Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh, Marsa Alam, El Gouna and Dahab side by side: water at 21 to 30°C all year, world class reefs, and a direct flight of around 5 hours from London. All your domestic flights inside Egypt are organised and included by SEV.
Quick answer: the Egypt Red Sea coast has five resort towns worth knowing. Hurghada is the easiest first visit and the best flight choice. Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab sit on the Sinai peninsula and suit divers, couples and backpackers. Marsa Alam is the wild, quieter south for serious diving. El Gouna is the designed, car free lagoon town. All five are reachable on a direct flight from the UK of under six hours, and SEV organises every domestic flight inside Egypt that links them to Cairo, Luxor and Aswan.
The Red Sea borders Egypt for close to 1,200 kilometres, from the tip of the Sinai peninsula in the north down to the Sudanese border in the south. Two governorates share the coast: South Sinai, home to Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab, and the Red Sea Governorate on the mainland, home to Hurghada, El Gouna and Marsa Alam. Two international airports serve the whole stretch, Hurghada (HRG) and Sharm el-Sheikh (SSH), and SEV arranges every connecting domestic flight to Cairo, Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel as part of your itinerary.
Each town has a different personality. Hurghada is loud, developed and well connected, the natural choice for a first Red Sea Egypt holiday or a family trip. Sharm el-Sheikh trades some of that convenience for arguably the best reef access on the coast. Marsa Alam is younger, less built up and aimed squarely at divers who want space. El Gouna is a private, master planned resort with a Mediterranean feel. Dahab, an hour or so south of Sharm by road, keeps the backpacker, freediving and Blue Hole crowd close to Sinai's mountains.
| Resort | Region | Best for | Season |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hurghada | Red Sea Governorate, mainland | First trip, families, wide hotel choice | Year round |
| Sharm el-Sheikh | South Sinai | Certified divers, couples | Year round |
| Marsa Alam | Red Sea Governorate, mainland | Advanced diving, quiet, nature | October to May, best conditions |
| El Gouna | Red Sea Governorate, mainland | Design led couples, kite surfing | Year round |
| Dahab | South Sinai | Backpackers, freediving, tighter budgets | Year round |
Hurghada was one of the first Red Sea towns to develop for tourism, in the 1980s, and it remains the largest with well over 50 kilometres of hotel frontage. It splits into recognisable pockets: the older centre and El Mamsha for nightlife and shops, Sahl Hasheesh for a quieter upmarket stay, Makadi Bay for families, and Soma Bay for golf and diving together. Hurghada International Airport takes the most UK traffic on this coast, and once you land, SEV's local team handles transfers and any onward domestic flight.
See our Hurghada destination page or the Hurghada all inclusive trip guide for named hotels by budget.
Sharm el-Sheikh sits at the southern tip of Sinai, and its reputation was built on diving: Ras Mohammed National Park, the Tiran Strait and the SS Thistlegorm wreck are all within reach of a day boat from Naama Bay, the resort's tourist hub. It attracts a slightly more upmarket crowd than Hurghada, and it has the advantage of sitting inside the coastal exception to the FCDO's South Sinai advice, so the resort itself is treated as a normal destination.
Our dedicated page, Sharm el-Sheikh: Complete Guide 2026, covers hotels, dive centres and getting around Naama Bay.
Marsa Alam lies roughly 270 kilometres south of Hurghada by road, about three hours by private transfer, and it also has its own international airport with a seasonal direct TUI Airways service from London Gatwick over the winter months. This is where the coast turns quiet: fewer hotels, reef houses you can snorkel from your own jetty, and the sites divers travel for, Brothers Islands, Daedalus Reef and Elphinstone among them. It is also the closest resort to the seagrass beds where dugongs are occasionally, never reliably, spotted.
Read our full guides: Marsa Alam beaches and diving and the complete Marsa Alam guide.
El Gouna was built from the late 1980s by the Sawiris family as a self contained resort town about 25 kilometres, roughly 30 minutes by transfer, north of central Hurghada. Man made lagoons, a marina lined with restaurants, a golf course and a mostly car free centre give it a different feel from the rest of the coast, and it has become a base for kite surfing and long stay design conscious travellers. You still fly into Hurghada International Airport for El Gouna, there is no separate scheduled airport.
Dahab sits on Sinai's east coast, around 90 minutes by road from Sharm el-Sheikh, and it has a completely different atmosphere: low rise, budget friendly, built around freediving, windsurfing and the famous Blue Hole, a technical dive site that drops past 100 metres. Dahab's coastal position also places it within the exception to the FCDO's South Sinai advice, alongside Sharm el-Sheikh.
Our page Dahab: Blue Hole diving and the Sinai backpacker route has more detail on getting there and where to stay.
You have more direct options than you might expect. easyJet, TUI Airways and Jet2 fly direct to Hurghada from a wide spread of UK airports, including London Gatwick, London Luton, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and several regional airports, with a flight time close to five and a half hours. The same three airlines, plus Wizz Air UK, serve Sharm el-Sheikh direct from London Gatwick, London Luton, Manchester and Bristol. Marsa Alam has a seasonal direct TUI Airways route from London Gatwick that runs through the winter, and outside that window you connect via Hurghada or Cairo. El Gouna and Dahab have no scheduled flights of their own, so you land at Hurghada or Sharm el-Sheikh and continue by road, a transfer SEV arranges as part of your booking.
As of 2026, the FCDO advises against all travel to the North Sinai Governorate, and against all but essential travel to the northern, interior part of South Sinai beyond the Saint Catherine to Nuweiba road. Crucially, that South Sinai advice explicitly excepts the coastal areas along the west and east of the peninsula, which is exactly where Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab sit, and the FCDO notes that security forces run routine checks on vehicles and at airports to protect resorts including Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada and Marsa Alam. Hurghada, El Gouna and Marsa Alam are on the mainland Eastern Desert coast, outside Sinai altogether, and are not named in any separate advisory. None of this replaces your own check of gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/egypt before you book and again shortly before you fly, since advice can change with little notice.
For a fuller breakdown by skill level, see Diving in the Red Sea: guide to the best sites.
The Red Sea rarely drops below 21°C, even at its coolest in February and March, and it warms to around 29 to 30°C by August. Air temperature swings far more widely than water temperature does.
| Period | Sea | Air | Our take |
|---|---|---|---|
| September to November | 26 to 29°C | 23 to 32°C | The best all round balance |
| December to February | 21 to 24°C | 17 to 26°C | Mild, sunny, quieter and better value |
| March to May | 22 to 26°C | 20 to 30°C | Comfortable, good visibility for diving |
| June to August | 27 to 30°C | 28 to 40°C | Warmest water, very hot on land |
For the wider country picture, see Egypt weather by region and Hurghada weather month by month.
Most of our clients do not treat the Red Sea as a standalone trip. A common pattern over 12 to 15 days is three nights in Cairo for the Pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum, four nights on a Nile cruise between Luxor and Aswan, then four or five nights unwinding in Hurghada or El Gouna. Domestic flights connect every leg, and SEV books and includes them as one itinerary rather than a set of separate tickets. See our combined Cairo and Hurghada itinerary or the wider Egypt tours hub. Couples often build the same combination into a honeymoon itinerary on the Nile and the Red Sea.
Our Cairo team visits these hotels in person before recommending them:
A large aquapark, an English speaking kids' club and around 300 metres of private beach. A strong pick for families.
A kilometre of white sand beach and house reef snorkelling straight off the shore, at a fair price for the standard on offer.
Nubian inspired architecture, its own beach and a large spa, with some sections run as adults only.
A protected house reef you can snorkel from the jetty, plus an all inclusive package pitched at Premium level.
Lagoon frontage five minutes from the marina, with a Mediterranean feel that suits couples who want El Gouna's calmer pace.
