Sharm El Sheikh: 4-Day Itinerary
Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use.
Four days is the shortest trip length that genuinely fits St Catherine’s Monastery in without rushing it. Days one and two are our 2-day itinerary exactly; day three adds the overnight Mount Sinai climb, and day four closes with the Old Market before departure.
Day-by-day at a glance
| Day | Focus | Est. spend (excl. hotel) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arrival, Naama Bay | ~$30-60 |
| 2 | Ras Mohammed National Park | ~$40-90 |
| 3 | St Catherine’s Monastery and Mount Sinai | Tour price, plus full visa if not already held |
| 4 | Old Market and departure | ~$30-50 |
Travel advisory: Sharm el-Sheikh itself is a well-established carve-out from Egypt’s wider Sinai advisory. The UK FCDO advises against all travel to North Sinai and against all but essential travel to the South Sinai interior beyond the St Catherine-Nuweiba-El Tor road, but rates the Red Sea resort strip “generally low risk” (updated 4 August 2026). Day 3 below is the one day in this itinerary that crosses into that interior, check your government’s current advisory before booking it, and go with a licensed organized tour rather than a rental car.
Day 1: Arrival and Naama Bay
Taxi drivers waiting outside arrivals routinely quote three to five times the fair local rate for the run into Naama Bay; agree a fixed price before the bags go in the trunk, or book a hotel transfer instead. Check in, spend the afternoon on the beach, and walk the Naama Bay promenade for dinner and a first Old Market browse in the evening.
Concrete tip: Book both tomorrow’s Ras Mohammed trip and day three’s St Catherine’s tour tonight if you can. St Catherine departures leave in the small hours, so a same-day booking rarely works.
Day 2: Ras Mohammed National Park
Ras Mohammed, about 12km southwest, Egypt’s first national park (1983), delivers Shark Reef and Yolanda Reef’s coral walls, some of the best visibility in the northern Red Sea. Entry runs around $5 cash, on top of your boat package. Go early for the clearest water, and be back in Naama Bay by mid-afternoon with an early night, day three starts before dawn.
Concrete tip: Skip alcohol tonight if you’re drinking at all. Most St Catherine tours leave around 11pm-1am to reach the summit for sunrise.
Day 3: St Catherine’s Monastery and Mount Sinai
This is a full day, not a side trip, about 2.5 to 3 hours each way by road. Most tours depart Sharm in the small hours, start the Mount Sinai climb, via the camel path or the steeper “3,750 Steps of Repentance,” to reach the 2,285m summit for sunrise, then visit the monastery afterward. Built 548-565 AD under Justinian I, it’s the world’s oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery and holds the oldest continuously operating library anywhere; UNESCO inscribed the wider area in 2002.
One rule to sort before you book: the free Sinai entry permit covering Sharm/Dahab/Nuweiba/Taba doesn’t extend to St Catherine, since it sits inland past that boundary. You’ll need a full Egyptian e-visa, commonly around $25-30 (verify the current government rate, agency quotes run higher), even if the rest of your trip stays inside the resort strip. Book only through a licensed operator; some budget tours quietly drop either the summit or the monastery, confirm both are included.
Concrete tip: Bring a warm layer for the summit even in summer; pre-dawn temperatures at 2,285m run well below what you’ll feel back on the coast.
Day 4: Old Market and departure
Recover with a slow morning, then spend your remaining hours properly in the Old Market, Sharm el-Maya district, bargaining for spices and textiles and taking in the Al-Sahaba Mosque. Arrange your airport transfer the night before and build in buffer time, security screening here can run longer than at other Egyptian airports.
Concrete tip: Exchange leftover EGP before you leave rather than at the airport, rates there are consistently worse than in town.
Things to know before you go
Egypt’s currency is the Egyptian pound (EGP), heavily devalued in recent years. Cash matters for the market and small vendors; cards work at hotels. For the fuller etiquette and safety picture, see our Sharm el-Sheikh travel tips ; our day trips guide covers St Catherine’s visa question in more depth.
If you’d rather add Dahab to the mix instead of departing on day four, our 5-day itinerary keeps this exact structure and slots it in.