Sharm el-Sheikh is Egypt's great sun-and-beach classic and, above all, one of the best diving destinations on the planet. Beneath the warm surface of the Red Sea lies a world of intact coral reefs, sheer drop-off walls, silvery shoals, turtles and a biodiversity that draws divers from all over the world. This is home to Ras Mohammed, Egypt's first marine reserve, and the reefs of the Strait of Tiran, names that are legendary among divers. The fact that the surface is an arid, monotonous desert makes what appears when you put your head underwater all the more astonishing.
Out of the water, Sharm is a modern resort city, designed from top to bottom for tourism: big all-inclusive hotels with pools and private beaches, lively Naama Bay with its bars, restaurants and clubs, markets for haggling and an endless range of excursions. Don't come here looking for the 'Egypt of the pharaohs' —that's what the Nile and the pyramids are for— but for rest, sea and water activities, with the bonus of being in Sinai, a land of biblical mountains and deserts.
This guide covers the essentials for enjoying Sharm: where and how to dive or snorkel safely, how much trips cost, which excursions are worth it (Ras Mohammed, Tiran, St Catherine's Monastery), when to go and what to watch out for. And one important warning we repeat several times: diving in the Red Sea is wonderful, but it demands respect for the safety rules. With reputable centres and common sense, Sharm is a paradise; without them, an unnecessary risk.
Sharm el-Sheikh is a young city. Until the mid-20th century it was little more than an anchorage for Bedouin fishermen on an empty stretch of the Sinai coast. Its modern history is shaped by the Arab-Israeli conflicts: after the 1967 war, Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula and developed the first tourist and diving centres there, drawn by the reefs. With the Camp David Accords (1978) and the 1979 peace treaty, Israel returned Sinai to Egypt, which completed the withdrawal in 1982 and set out to turn the area into a major international tourism hub. From the 1990s, Sharm grew at a dizzying pace to become one of the world's diving capitals and a venue for diplomatic summits and international conferences, such as the COP27 climate conference in 2022. The detailed history of Sinai and Sharm is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The Egypt of coral reefs and the holy mountain: the Red Sea's diving resorts and a biblical peninsula that Africa and Asia have fought over for thousands of years.
Read the history of The Red Sea and Sinai →Some places make no sense on your own; with someone explaining them, they change completely. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. They have 9 activities in Sharm El Sheikh. Have a look below: tap any of them to see them all.
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No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Before Sharm el-Sheikh existed as a city, there was already Sinai, and its story is the story of a bridge. This triangular peninsula, wedged between Africa and Asia and between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, has for thousands of years been the natural corridor for armies, caravans, pilgrims and entire peoples. Through Sinai came and went the pharaohs campaigning towards the Near East, the trade routes carrying incense and spices and, according to the biblical account, the people of Israel in their Exodus from slavery in Egypt.
The mountainous interior of Sinai holds some of humanity's most powerful religious traditions. Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition all place among its granite mountains the peak where Moses received the Tablets of the Law. The ancient Egyptians mined turquoise and copper here from the Old Kingdom onwards, leaving inscriptions that are among the earliest evidence of writing. For centuries the desert belonged to the Bedouin tribes, who moved with their herds across a dry landscape and learned how to survive in it.
The southern coast, where Sharm stands today, was by contrast an almost empty edge of the map: cliffs, sand and coral reefs that nobody yet valued. A handful of Bedouin fishermen used its coves as an anchorage, and that is where the name comes from: Sharm el-Sheikh means something like 'the sheikh's bay'. Nothing suggested that this forgotten corner of Sinai would one day become one of the most famous tourist destinations in the world.
The modern history of Sharm el-Sheikh can't be separated from the Arab-Israeli conflict, which turned southern Sinai into a strategic zone of the first order. Its position overlooking the Straits of Tiran (the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba and, through it, to the Israeli port of Eilat) made it militarily crucial: whoever controlled Sharm controlled a vital sea lane. That is why the town, then just a small outpost, changed hands several times.
Egypt fortified it after the 1952 revolution. During the 1956 Suez Crisis, Israel briefly occupied it before withdrawing under international pressure. Egypt's closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping was one of the triggers of the 1967 Six-Day War, after which Israel occupied the whole Sinai Peninsula, Sharm included, and held it for fifteen years. It was the Israelis who, drawn by the reefs, began developing the first diving centres and tourist facilities there, planting the seed of what was to come.
The decisive turn came with peace. After the 1973 war and, above all, the historic Camp David Accords of 1978 and the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979, Israel committed to returning Sinai to Egypt. The withdrawal was completed in 1982. Egypt thus regained an entire peninsula and, with it, a coastline of untouched reefs on which it decided to build its big bet on tourism. War gave way to tourism, and Sharm el-Sheikh began to change.
With Sinai back under Egyptian sovereignty, in the 1980s and 1990s the government launched an ambitious tourism development plan for the southern coast. Sharm el-Sheikh was the flagship of that plan. An international airport, roads, hotels and all the infrastructure needed to attract European sun-and-beach tourism were built. What had been a fishermen's anchorage became, in barely two decades, a fast-growing resort city, with whole districts of hotel complexes strung along the coast.
The big draw was, and still is, the coral reefs of the Red Sea, considered among the best on the planet for diving and snorkelling. The designation of Ras Mohammed as a national park in 1983 also showed an early awareness that this natural treasure needed protecting. Sharm made a name for itself among divers all over the world and drew millions of tourists, mostly from Europe and Russia, who arrived on direct charter flights to its beaches.
Prosperity didn't come without shocks. The city suffered terrorist attacks, the worst in 2005, which hit tourism hard, and the industry was also shaken by crises stemming from Egypt's political instability and by aviation incidents. Even so, Sharm showed a remarkable ability to bounce back, tightening security and reinventing itself again and again to remain one of the main engines of Egyptian tourism.
Besides being a resort, Sharm el-Sheikh took on a second, unexpected role over the years: a stage for international diplomacy. Its relative isolation, good air links and large hotels able to host delegations made it a regular venue for summits, peace talks and high-level conferences. Middle Eastern leaders met there on several occasions to try to make progress on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and its role as host of these meetings earned it the nickname 'City of Peace'.
That diplomatic profile peaked in November 2022, when Sharm el-Sheikh hosted the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, which brought together heads of state, negotiators and activists from almost every country in the world. Choosing an African city that is also a tourist resort for a climate summit carried its own symbolism: the Red Sea, with its reefs threatened by warming and human pressure, is a living example of what is at stake. The summit put Sharm in the global headlines for a few days and boosted its international image.
Today Sharm el-Sheikh combines those two sides: the holiday resort, with its beaches, diving and nightlife, and the city of international meetings. A young city, largely artificial, without the millennia of history of Cairo or Luxor, yet one that in just a few decades has become one of the most recognisable faces of modern Egypt and the gateway to the underwater wonders of the Red Sea.
