Hurghada or Safaga: the one people most often get wrong

What there is to do

Less than in Hurghada, and that is the honest answer. What there is:

• Diving and snorkelling. The reefs on this stretch are good and less trafficked than the ones directly off Hurghada, because far fewer boats leave from here. Sharm El Naga, a protected bay with a house reef and a wreck, sits on the coast between the two towns.
• The desert behind it. The mountains come closer to the sea here than they do further north, and the hinterland is emptier. Our Ghost City jeep trip runs out to an abandoned mining settlement inland — a genuinely strange half-day, and not something you can do from most of this coast.
• Board sports, covered above.
• Not much else, and you should plan for that rather than discover it.

If you dive

This is where Safaga earns its reputation rather than borrows it.

The reefs on this stretch see far fewer boats than the sites directly off Hurghada, for the simple reason that far fewer boats leave from here. Less traffic means less contact damage and less silt kicked up by fins, and on a good day it means having a site to yourself in a way that is genuinely rare this far north.

It also means fewer dive centres, fewer departures and fewer options if a site is blown out. That is the trade, and it is the same trade as everything else about the town: more quality, less choice.

If you are certifying rather than diving — a first open-water course, say — Hurghada is the easier place to do it, simply because there are more schools, more languages spoken and more chance of a class that fits your week.

What Hurghada has that Safaga does not

• Choice of hotel. Safaga has a handful. Hurghada has hundreds, at every price and standard.
• Restaurants and evenings. Hurghada has a marina, a restaurant scene and things that happen after dark. Safaga has hotel dining and a quiet town.
• Boat departures. Almost everything on the water leaves from the Hurghada marina, which from Safaga is sixty kilometres each way — the largest transfer penalty of any base on this coast.
• The old town. El Dahar has a souk, a mosque, a museum and actual street life, which is a whole category of thing Safaga does not offer.

Snorkelling on the Red Sea coast

The black sand, since it always comes up

Safaga has a long-standing reputation for its black sand and mineral springs, and you will find claims attached to it about treating skin and joint conditions. People do travel here for that specifically.

We are a tour operator, not a clinic, and we are not going to tell you whether it works. What we will say plainly is that it is a reputation, not a medical prescription, and if you are choosing a destination for a health reason, that conversation belongs with a doctor rather than with a hotel's marketing page.

Families

Safaga is a harder sell with children, for two reasons: the wind, and the lack of anything to do when the beach stops being interesting on day four. There are no water parks and not much variety.

If you are travelling with kids and want quiet, Makadi Bay or Sahl Hasheesh give you the calm without the emptiness. Safaga is better suited to couples, divers, boarders, and people who genuinely want to be somewhere with very little going on.

The transfer arithmetic

We pick up from Safaga, Soma Bay, Makadi Bay, Sahl Hasheesh, El Gouna and Hurghada, so staying south does not shut anything out. But be realistic about where the day starts.

From Safaga, a boat day means sixty kilometres north before you board and sixty back afterwards. That is the single biggest reason to think twice — not because it cannot be done, but because a week with three boat days in it, from Safaga, is a week with a lot of coast road in it.

Inland trips are the opposite: Luxor is closer, the desert starts sooner, and Sharm El Naga is on your doorstep rather than an hour away.

So which one

Safaga if you windsurf or kitesurf; if you dive and want quieter reefs; if Luxor is the point of the trip; or if "there is nothing to do here" is the feature rather than the bug.

Hurghada if you want choice, evenings, variety, several boat days, or anything at all to do on the fourth afternoon when the weather turns.

One last honest note: of the three comparisons on this coast, this is the one where people most often choose wrong. Hurghada versus El Gouna is a question of taste, and Hurghada versus Makadi Bay is a question of what kind of week you want. Hurghada versus Safaga is a question of whether you actually like being somewhere quiet — and a surprising number of people find out that they do not, on the second evening, having booked seven of them.