Day trips from Sharm el-Sheikh
Ras Mohammed by boat, Tiran, Mount Sinai at night and Dahab for a day — four trips from Sharm that all fit inside the Sinai stamp, and one that does not: Cairo.
- At night
- Mount Sinai: leave at eleven at night
- For a reef with current
- Tiran: four reefs and a wreck
- For a day outside the hotel
- Dahab: an hour's drive
From Sharm the trips split into sea and mountain, and all but one fit inside the free Sinai stamp: Ras Mohammed and Tiran are by boat, Mount Sinai is a night climb with the monastery in the morning, Dahab and the canyons are a day in the north. Cairo and the pyramids need the full visa and an eighteen-hour day, and that is decided at passport control, not afterwards.
Ras Mohammed — a full day, by boat or car
The national park at the very tip of Sinai, half an hour's drive or an hour by boat, where the Gulf of Aqaba meets the Gulf of Suez and the current brings everything that lives in the Red Sea. By boat: two or three dives or snorkelling on the Shark and Yolanda reef, lunch on deck. By car: a beach in the park from which you swim straight onto the wall, and the mangroves at the end. Park entry is paid in advance or through the operator, in cash or by card depending on the agency.
Tiran — a full day, by boat
The island at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba, an hour by boat, with four reefs — Jackson, Woodhouse, Thomas, Gordon — named after 19th-century cartographers and a shipwreck on one. The currents are strong, which is why there are so many fish and why you swim along the reef rather than across it; snorkelling from the boat is for swimmers, not children. Lunch on deck, back by four.
St Catherine and Mount Sinai — a night
Leave the hotel at eleven at night, three hours' drive, the climb from two in the morning with a Bedouin guide — the camel path for three hours, or the 3,750 Steps of Repentance for the faster and fitter — to the 2,285-metre summit before sunrise. Down to the 6th-century monastery, the burning bush, the icons, and back by noon. On the summit in winter it is near zero; jacket, hat and gloves are not a suggestion. Of the four trips this is the longest, and the only one into the mountains.
Dahab and the canyons — a day
An hour north to Dahab: beach cafés with cushions, the Blue Hole with a mask, lunch by the water and back in the evening. The version with the canyons — the White and Coloured Canyons behind Nuweiba, by jeep, through sandstone gorges a metre wide — is a full day with lunch at a Bedouin camp, and worth it for anyone for whom a week on the beach is one beach too many.
What not to do
- Cairo from Sharm in a day. A plane at five in the morning or eight hours by coach, two hours on the plateau, back at midnight — and it needs the full visa, not the Sinai stamp.
- Mount Sinai in trainers and a T-shirt. On the summit in December it is zero and windy; whoever sets off without a jacket comes down before sunrise.
- Snorkelling from the boat at Tiran with children. The current is strong and the reef drops steeply; children go to Ras Mohammed from the beach or stay on the hotel jetty.
Before you go
Short answers to what people ask most before setting out.
Which trip from Sharm is the best?
Ras Mohammed by boat, with two or three stops on the reef where the two gulfs meet. For anyone who does not dive, Mount Sinai at night with the monastery in the morning — the one trip into the mountains, and the one that stays in the memory longest.
Can I do all these trips on the Sinai stamp?
Nearly all, except Cairo. Tiran, Mount Sinai, St Catherine, Dahab and the canyons work on the free stamp; for Ras Mohammed by boat some operators still ask for the full visa, so check when booking. Cairo and the pyramids need the full about €26 visa bought on arrival — it cannot be added later.
How cold is it on Mount Sinai?
In winter near zero on the summit with wind, in summer around ten; the climb is at night, so you go in a jacket, with a hat and gloves. Bedouins on the path rent blankets — and for many that is the difference between the summit and turning back.
Ready for Sharm el-Sheikh?
Where to next
Where to stay in Sharm el-Sheikh
→Naama Bay, Sharks Bay, Ras Um Sid or Nabq — four bays choosing between going out on foot, a reef off the…
Dahab · 65 km
→A Bedouin village that became a divers' town, where the cafés spread across the beach on cushions and the Blue Hole is entered from the shore
How well does Sharm el-Sheikh suit you?
→Six questions: a score for this place and others like it.
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