El Gouna in a day — lagoons, marina, and the price of it

El Gouna is twenty-five minutes north of Hurghada and does not feel like the same country. No hawking, no traffic to speak of, low white buildings around a network of saltwater lagoons, and a marina where nobody will call after you. That is either exactly what you want from a day off, or it is the reason you will find it bloodless. Both reactions are common and both are fair.

What it actually is

El Gouna is a privately built town. Development began in the late 1980s on a stretch of empty coast, dredging lagoons and raising a series of islands, and it has been growing ever since. It has its own marina, its own downtown, its own hospital and its own small airport — and, unusually for Egypt, its own rules about what may be built and how it must look.

That is why it reads as different. The architecture is coherent because one developer controlled it. There is no street selling because street selling is not permitted. The roads are quiet because the town is designed around them being quiet.

Whether that is charming or sterile is genuinely a matter of taste. What is not in dispute is that it works as a day out: it is the easiest half-day in the region, and the one we suggest most often to guests who tried El Dahar and found it too much.

Lagoons and low white architecture in El Gouna

The three parts worth your time

• Abu Tig Marina. The centre of it. Boats, restaurants along the water, and the only place in the region where you can sit outside for two hours and be left entirely alone. Best in the late afternoon and into the evening, when the light goes and the water turns.
• Downtown. A pedestrianised square of shops, cafés and a small museum, built to look like an Egyptian village and doing so quite openly. It is a stage set, and it is a pleasant one. There is a decent bookshop and better coffee than the resorts serve.
• The lagoons themselves. The way to see El Gouna properly is on the water. Small boats run between the islands as a kind of public transport, and taking one for half an hour tells you more about how the place is put together than an hour of walking.

What is not worth building a day around: the beaches. They are fine and they are managed, but if you came to Egypt for water you will do better on a boat day out of Hurghada than on a strip of sand in a resort town.