Hurghada

Fabulous sandy beaches and crystal-clear seas
Originally a traditional fishing village, Hurghada is now one of the most popular resorts on the Red Sea. The resort provides everything for everyone with a wide range of hotels, shops and restaurants plus it is a haven for water sports enthusiasts whether it is diving off the magnificent coral reefs or windsurfing along the coastline, Hurghada has it all.

Hurghada is easily reached from Luxor and the Nile which makes it a popular choice for a twin centre holiday. Transfer from Luxor takes approximately 4 hours by road.

Hurghada was once just a tiny fisher village, with a location that seldom brought strangers here. Even in late 1970's this was the situation, but with the nature around, the clarity of the water, and the endless opportunities for divers, Hurghada was destined to become an Egyptian centre for pleasure tourism.

Today, the result is a stretch of 20 km with beach hotels. Most of these hotels are organized in an attractive way, but far from the true Egypt of great monuments, traffic jams and mud brick houses.

But this makes Hurghada a successful tourist resort for divers and swimmers. Huge crowds of Egyptians, Saudis and other Arabs have since long joined the stream of Europeans and Americans coming here throughout most of the year.
There are a couple of drawbacks, though. Non-hotel beaches are not terribly great, but often crowded. While the fish life is just what you hoped for right off the beach, there are no corals here anymore. This can only be discovered by joining one of the many boat expeditions out to the nearby islands. Giftun is the largest, and lies about 10 km from Hurghada.

Hurghada is in reality three main centres and numerous self-contained tourist villages now growing into one body. To the north, lies the place that is closest to being a town, Ad-Dahar, which has more than half of the total local population, and the the most price worthy hotels and restaurants. A couple of kilometres south, comes Sigala, a place that suffers from being between Ad-Dahar and New Hurghada a few kilometres more to the south. There are some hotels here, some restaurants, but relatively few tourists. In New Hughada total tourism comes alive, offering every amenity a visitor is looking for.

The quality of beach life in Hurghada is very a question of the quality of your hotel. With a few hundred metres as exception, all of the beach has been taken over by hotels. Some, and then the better ones, do not allow non-visitors to enter, even at a fee.

The public beach is a sad story, and not recommended to anyone having used time and money to get to Hurghada in the first place. What you get from paying a fee to enter a hotel beach is worth every pound.
At almost every beach, there are many options beyond swimming and sunbathing. Snorkelling equipment, pedalos, glass boats taking trips out to corals ("you can pick your own coral!") seems to be basic anywhere. The better the hotel, the more is waiting for you.

Boat trips out to the coral reefs and islands like the Giftun, are commonly sold all over Hurghada. Thanks to the condition of the corals along the beaches, this seems to be the only way to see colourful corals. You know, like what we see in the nature shows.

What a disappointment! Can I put in more exclamation marks? The corals remaining out here are so run-down, that there is virtually nothing to see. The whole snorkelling-Hurghada-coral thing is as sad as a drug addict. Just a few reefs are still fine.

And local authorities and the people in the tourism industry are to blame. Strict regulations as to what to do and not do would have saved a lot. It could have been a great thing, you can see water bottles and cigarette packs even when they are 10 metres down.

And you cannot access the islands, they are protected. I wonder why, they are mainly barren rocks which will kill your sandals.