Destinations · Sep 23, 2026
Hurghada or El Gouna: which one is your week?
A city that happened, and a town that was drawn first
These two places are twenty-odd kilometres apart on the same coast, and people talk about them as if they were versions of each other. They are not. One is a city that happened; the other is a town that was drawn on paper first. Choosing between them is not about which is nicer — it is about which kind of holiday you are actually after.
What each one is
Hurghada began in 1905 as a camp for oil prospectors on an empty stretch of the Red Sea coast, stayed a small fishing and oil town for most of the twentieth century, and then diving arrived in the 1980s. Rather than extending the old town, the resort strip was built next to it and ran south. That is why the place feels like two towns: El Dahar, the original one, with a souk and street life and people who live there; and Sekalla and the long hotel road, which exist for visitors.
El Gouna was built from nothing on a stretch of lagoon and island about twenty kilometres up the coast. It is privately developed and privately maintained: its own roads, its own water, its own security, its own transport boats across the lagoons. It is a resort town in the literal sense — the town is the resort.
The El Gouna lagoons
The honest difference, in one line
El Gouna is calmer, tidier, more expensive, and has no Egypt in it to speak of. Hurghada is louder, scruffier, cheaper, and is a real Egyptian city you can walk into.
Both of those sentences are compliments to somebody.
Who should pick El Gouna
- You want to not think. Everything is signposted, everything is walkable or a shuttle-boat away, nobody will call after you in the street, and the standard is consistent across the whole town.
- You are here for water sports. The kite and windsurf scene is genuinely good and it is organised.
- You want evenings out that are not a hotel buffet. Downtown and Abu Tig Marina have restaurants and bars that people actually choose, rather than eat at because they are there.
- You are travelling with someone nervous about Egypt. This is the gentlest possible introduction, and there is no shame in that.
Book what you just read about
Tours from this article — private, with a licensed guide, and priced per person.
