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Excursions and day trips from Safaga

Our most recommended things to do in Safaga

Safaga is a working town before it is a resort. It has a commercial port, a phosphate terminal, a fishing fleet and a main street with actual shops, and the hotels sit along the coast either side of it. That mix puts some people off and is exactly why others come: it is cheaper than the resort bays, it is quiet out of season, and you are living somewhere that exists without tourists.

Its real advantage is the road west. The desert highway from Safaga to Qena is the shortest crossing between the Red Sea and the Nile, which puts Luxor about three hours away — an hour or more closer than from Hurghada. If the Valley of the Kings, Karnak and Hatshepsut are the reason you came to Egypt, this is the best base on the coast for reaching them without spending the whole day in a car. Cairo is the other way: we still put guests on the plane from Hurghada, an hour north.

The water here has a following of its own. Tobia Arbaa and the offshore reefs off Safaga are less crowded than the Giftun sites, and the bay's steady cross-shore wind made it a windsurfing training venue long before the resorts arrived. The black mineral sand along the shore has been used for decades as a treatment for psoriasis and joint pain, and a few hotels still build stays around it. Inland, the Eastern Desert opens quickly — Mons Claudianus and the Roman quarry roads are a genuine day out, and the Bedouin dinner and quad routes leave straight from behind the town.

Safaga Excursions & Day Trips | Helios Travels