Sharm el-Sheikh is a popular resort town near the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. It is sometimes known as the "City of Peace" because of the numerous international peace conferences that have been held there.
Attractions in Sharm el-Sheikh and the surrounding area are many and varied. The biggest attractions are diving and snorkelling, and there are many attractive sites for diving and snorkelling including the Ras Mohammed National Park, Ras um Sid and Nabq Bay, and a wide range of diving schools and clubs that offer courses and training and dive trips. There is also a kite-surfing organisation for those who wish to try kite-surfing. There are also numerous beaches which are good for sunbathing and relaxing at all times of year, thanks to the climate which is dry and sunny all year around and ranges from moderately warm in the winter months to very hot in the summer months.
There are some entertainment centres and shopping malls, and the SOHO Square offers most of the traditional British-style entertainment that can be expected at a typical British resort, including pubs, nightclubs, ten pin bowling, shopping and sports arcades. There are other shopping centres including the Nabq Bay shopping centre and the Old Market. There are two golf courses in the area, as well as a racing/kart track, and a few organisations devoted to horse-riding, plus an organisation devoted to mountain biking, so many hobbyists will also be well covered at Sharm el-Sheikh.
In addition many tour operators in the area offer jeep, camel, quad bike and mountain bike trips and safaris, and the nearby Sinai desert and Mount Sinai, which has considerable religious significance and boasts spectacular views, are regularly featured in specially-arranged trips by tour operators.
Tours in and around Sharm el-Sheikh
There are many companies that offer tours of Sharm el-Sheikh and the surrounding area, including trips to the various beach resorts, Mount Sinai, and further afield to resorts such as Dahab and the capital city Cairo. Most of these operators will offer to pick visitors up from their choice of hotels, rather than requiring visitors to head to the operators' headquarters.
Sharm Club offer a large range of trips across Sharm el-Sheikh and the surrounding area, including air tours, safari trips, Nile cruises, sea trips and bus tours, and diving and snorkelling trips. Chances are whatever sort of tours you are interested in, Sharm Club will cover your desires, and the tour operator is especially highly rated by most customers.
Sinai Safari Adventures offer mostly safari-themed tours in and around Sharm el-Sheikh, including quad bike and camel safaris, and they also offer scuba diving trips, and 6-7 hour day trips to Tiran Island. Snorkelling equipment is provided at a cost for the Tiran Island trips, or you can bring your own. Luxor Excursions also offer full-day snorkelling trips to Tiran Island. OXTUR Tours offer a wide range of tours including boat rides, trips into the Sinai desert and up Mount Sinai, horse riding and quad biking, and trips to Cairo and Dahab. Another highly-rated operator which offers a wide range of tours of the main attractions in and around Sharm el-Sheikh is Falcon Adventure Sharm, which offers a range of desert, Red Sea, safari, historic and cultural trips, including trips to Cairo and Jerusalem as well as the usual trips around Sharm el-Sheikh.
Good operators which focus mainly on trips into the Sinai desert and up Mount Sinai and to St Catherine's Monastery include Sharm Excursions and DesertEcoTours. In the case of the Sharm Excursions trip, you will be picked up from your choice of hotel and then driven at night to the summit of Mount Sinai, and given the opportunity to watch the sunrise from the top of the mountain. The Elegant Voyage group and Sinai Excursions offer snorkelling trips to Ras Mohammed, which include guides, food and soft drinks, although you will need to bring your own snorkelling equipment. Excursions4All also provides Stars Gazers Night which gives tourists the opportunity to go star gazing in the desert and see close-up sights of the likes of Jupiter, Saturn and the moon, and also provides entertainment along the way.
The Aqua Blue Centre also offers numerous organised trips, including a trip in which tourists can swim with dolphins, and the Crocodile Show, which gives access to a museum and pool full of live snakes and crocodiles, so that visitors can check out the sight of fearsome animals pulling off tricks on the stage.
Sports & recreation
Horse riding fans should definitely try Mangroovy Horses, which offer plenty of scope to go on enjoyable hacks around the local area. This horse riding centre has been praised by previous visitors, commenting particularly on how well the horses are looked after. The main site is located near Nabq Bay in Sharm el-Sheikh, and offers a wide range of horse-riding trips, including trips into the desert or seaside, sunrise trips in the Nabq National Park, riding lessons and holiday packages. Some trips involve horse-riding in the heart of the Sinai desert, close to Mount Sinai. An alternative horse-riding centre is the Edelweiss Equestrian Centre which is situated at White Knight's Bay, and provides safari trips, horse riding lessons, boarding for horses, and the centre periodically hosts competitions and parties.
Blackjack Bike Day Tours are easy to recommend for fans of mountain biking, offering a range of half-day mountain biking tours for novices and camps for more experienced mountain bikers. Their main headquarters is at the Nabq Nature Reserve, to the north of Sharm el-Sheikh. They also offer "Bike and Dive" tours which provide opportunities to go diving as well as cycling. For the guided tours, mountain bikes are provided free of charge.
For golf fans, the Sinai Golf Heights course, which is located on Dusti Road in the Nabq area, is a relatively new development, though developed by a company which has established numerous high-quality golf courses across other parts of Egypt. The course offers a good challenge and club hire is available at relatively low cost. Alternatively, the Jolie Ville Golf & Resort at Um Marikha Bay has an 18-hole championship golf course, the only such course in the Sharm el-Sheikh area, and it is also possible to book golf lessons, though the main downside is that the golf course is quite expensive to play on.
Motor racing fans are also catered for, via the Ghibli Raceway, which has frequent events and activities and also allows visitors to race around the track in go-karts, and it is a multi-track complex which offers a choice of circuits to try. It is also a good site for those who are interested in paintballing, for a paintballing village measuring approximately 2000 square metres is provided on-site, and the facility is open from 11am to 7pm.
Entertainment centres
There are many entertainment centres in Sharm el-Sheikh which offer a range of entertainment to visitors, including shopping malls, theatres, pubs, nightclubs and sports centres.
Alf Leila Wa Leila, the home of 1001 Nights, is quite an impressive entertainment centre, located at Hadabaet Um El Said, which contains the Museum of Ancient Egyptian Heritage, and hosts the Fantasia Show, which features Egyptian music and snake and belly dancing. There are numerous restaurants and bars on-site including the Il Camento Italian restaurant, and various sporting activities are also provided.
Strongly recommended also is the Aqua Blue Centre, which includes the Aqua Blue water park, located at Hadaba, to the west of Sharm el-Sheikh port on the south-facing coast. The water park offers 32 water slides and a range of water pads, playgrounds and swimming pools, some of which are outdoors, and a promenade of cafes and restaurants is available nearby. A shuttle bus is also provided for those who would like to sunbathe at the nearby beach.
Also worth a try is SOHO Square which boasts a range of restaurants, four pubs and a nightclub on-site, an ice rink, a ten pin bowling alley, and a shopping centre which includes numerous internationally-recognised retail outlets. SOHO Square is a British-themed outlet and has a lot in common with many of the larger shopping centres in Britain.
Shopping
Most of the main resorts at Sharm el-Sheikh include shops and shopping centres.
SOHO Square boasts a large shopping area, over 40 shops in total, and is strongly British-themed, so it provides the usual set of benefits of a typical British out-of-town shopping centre, while being quite conveniently located just off Shark's Bay. Many of the shops are relatively expensive, but you are less likely to be hassled here than at Naama Bay or the Old Market.
The Old Market is a large shopping centre and is vibrant and bustling, with a strong atmosphere, and a wide range of goods are sold including souvenirs, jewellery, handbags and clothes, though be warned, some of the shopkeepers attempt to haggle with visitors and persuade them into going into particular shops, so it is not a good place to visit for those after relaxation.
Naama Bay also contains a large shopping centre which is particularly active and busy after dark, and starts to clear again towards midnight. It offers a wide range of goods, and is good for purchasing diving gear, for those interested in going on diving trips around the local area, as well as clothes, perfumes and paintings. As with the Old Market, if you are unfortunate you may be pressured by local shopkeepers into entering their premises and may have to do a fair amount of haggling, particularly at the busier times of day.
Water-based fun
Sharm el-Sheikh is an excellent choice of resort for diving and snorkelling, as there are numerous spectacular coral reefs, species of fish, and shipwrecks in the surrounding seas, as well as plentiful beautiful beaches around the coastline.
Ras um Sid is a very good resort to dive in, and includes impressive sites such as the Temple and Amphoras sites, and is full of impressive coral reefs and fish species. The Ras Mohammed National Park contains seas that are ideal for diving and snorkelling and contain some spectacular features, including large varieties of coral reefs, fossils and fish. It is a protected area, so tourists will need to pay a small fee in order to enter. Tiran Island lies off the east coast of Sharm el-Sheikh, and boasts spectacular sandy scenery and is adjacent to equally spectacular diving and snorkelling spots, boasting a wide variety of fish and coral reefs and shipwrecks. There are also some good diving and snorkelling spots around Nabq Bay.
For those who would like to try kite-surfing, Kite Junkies, situated at the Regency Plaza Resort, Nabq, is a good place to try out, with courses available for novices who would like to learn how to kite-surf, and there are also options available for more advanced surfers. Those who wish to go kite-surfing with Kite Junkies must purchase a service pack first. The company also offers rental equipment on-site. Most customers on TripAdvisor have rated their experiences with Kite Junkies highly.
Attractions further afield
Sharm el-Sheikh lies close to the Sinai desert and in particular Mount Sinai, which lies to the north-west of Sharm el-Sheikh. The climb to the top of the mountain is quite long, with approximately 750 steps, but near the summit lie some significant biblical sites, including St Catherine's Monastery and the Chapel of the Burning Bush. Although no-one knows for certain where the associated biblical events took place, according to the Christian Bible, Moses spent forty days and forty nights around Mount Sinai where God delivered the Ten Commandments to him.
Other than Mount Sinai, there are ample opportunities to go on trips across the Sinai desert, including jeep, quad bike, camel and mountain bike safari trips, and trips to Cairo and Jerusalem.