Sharm El Sheikh: Best Day Trips
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Five day trips genuinely earn a slot from Sharm el-Sheikh, and they split cleanly into two kinds: boat-based reef trips that stay within the resort strip’s free entry permit, and one inland excursion that doesn’t. Get that distinction right before you book anything.
Travel advisory: Sharm el-Sheikh sits in 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 explicitly excepts the Red Sea resort strip as “generally low risk” (updated 4 August 2026). That matters most for the St Catherine’s Monastery trip below, since it’s the one excursion on this list that actually crosses into the interior. Check your government’s current advisory before booking it, and go with a licensed organized tour rather than a rental car.
Five day trips at a glance
| Trip | Distance/time | Cost | Best as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ras Mohammed National Park | ~12km SW, boat or road | ~$5 park entry, plus tour cost | Half or full day |
| Straits of Tiran | ~2h by boat | Dive/snorkel package price | Full day, boat-based |
| SS Thistlegorm | Multi-hour boat run | Dive package price | Full day, for certified divers |
| St Catherine’s Monastery & Mount Sinai | ~2.5-3h each way by road | Organized tour price | Full day, overnight climb |
| Dahab & the Blue Hole | ~80-90km, ~1-1.5h by road | Taxi/tour price | Full day |
Ras Mohammed National Park: the one nearly everyone does
Ras Mohammed, at the very tip of the Sinai Peninsula about 12km southwest of town, was established in 1983 as Egypt’s first national park, 480 km² split between land and water. Shark Reef and Yolanda Reef are the signature dives, sheer coral walls dropping into deep blue, and the scattered bathroom-fixture cargo of the Yolanda, a Cypriot freighter that sank near the reef in 1980, is a well-known photo op if storms haven’t shifted or buried it further since (verify current condition with your operator). The park also holds a shallow mangrove channel and named sites like South Bereika and Shark Observatory for a slower, snorkel-paced day. Most visitors go by boat as part of a day-trip package from Sharm’s marinas; entry fees aren’t published anywhere reliable, so treat any quoted number as a with your operator before you book.
Straits of Tiran: Saudi territory, still dived from Sharm
The Straits of Tiran link the Gulf of Aqaba to the Red Sea between Sinai and Saudi Arabia, and the reef chain here, commonly known as Jackson, Gordon, Thomas and Woodhouse Reef, is the standard drift-dive circuit out of Sharm’s marinas, strong currents and big pelagics. Here’s the detail worth getting right: Tiran and neighboring Sanafir Island are Saudi Arabian territory, not Egyptian, since a 2016 maritime border deal that Egypt’s parliament approved in June 2017. Sharm-based dive boats still run these reefs as day trips, since the water itself remains open to the same operators, but don’t describe the islands themselves as Egyptian in anything you write or say on the trip.
SS Thistlegorm: a WWII wreck, not a casual add-on
The SS Thistlegorm was a British armed cargo steamship sunk on 6 October 1941 by Luftwaffe bombers in the Straits of Gubal, and it now sits at around 30m depth, regularly ranked among the world’s top-ten wreck dives. Its holds still hold Bedford trucks, BSA and Norton motorcycles, rifles and ammunition, and two steam locomotives blown clear onto the seabed, cargo that was headed for Allied forces in Egypt when the bombs hit. Jacques Cousteau rediscovered it in the early 1950s. It’s a multi-hour boat run each way from Sharm, so this is a full day for certified divers rather than a snorkel add-on, and the wreck is fragile enough now that responsible operators moor carefully and brief divers not to touch anything inside.
St Catherine’s Monastery & Mount Sinai: the one interior trip
St Catherine’s Monastery sits roughly 2.5 to 3 hours inland by road, and it’s genuinely different from everything else on this list, both in what it asks of you and in the paperwork. Built 548-565 AD under Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, it’s the world’s oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery, home to the traditional Burning Bush site and the oldest continuously operating library anywhere; UNESCO inscribed the wider “Saint Catherine Area” as a World Heritage Site in 2002. Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa), 2,285m and about 2km from the monastery, is the traditional site where Moses received the Ten Commandments, sacred across Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Most visitors climb overnight for sunrise, via either the longer camel path or the steeper 3,750 “Steps of Repentance,” with a mandatory guide either way.
Two things to plan around. First, this trip crosses into the Sinai interior, so treat it as organized-tour-only, not a self-drive day, and check the current government advisory for your country before booking, same as flagged above. Second, the free entry permit that covers the Sharm/Dahab/Nuweiba/Taba resort strip doesn’t cover St Catherine, since it sits inland past that boundary; you’ll need a full Egyptian e-visa (commonly quoted around $25-30, service-inflated agency quotes run higher, verify the current government rate) rather than relying on the free stamp, even if the rest of your trip stays inside the resort strip. Check current Egypt entry requirements before you book.
Dahab & the Blue Hole: an honest write-up
Dahab sits about 80-90km northeast, roughly 1-1.5 hours by road, and it’s South Sinai’s laid-back “diving capital,” a backpacker counterpoint to Sharm’s resort scene with genuinely world-class windsurfing too. The Blue Hole, a submarine sinkhole just over 100m deep a few kilometers north of town, carries a real, well-documented fatality reputation, almost entirely among divers attempting “the Arch,” a submerged tunnel at around 55m, without the technical training it requires. The surrounding reef itself is safe and popular for ordinary recreational diving and freediving, and Egyptian dive authorities now station staff at the site to keep untrained divers off the Arch specifically. Don’t let the reputation scare you off the reef; do take it seriously if anyone suggests attempting the Arch without technical certification.
What about Cairo, Luxor, and the Colored Canyon?
Cairo and Luxor are realistically flight-based excursions from Sharm rather than casual day trips, short domestic hops each way, and better treated as an overnight than a rushed there-and-back (verify current flight schedules before planning around them). The Colored Canyon, a narrow striped sandstone slot near Nuweiba, is usually bundled into a broader Sinai jeep or desert-safari day rather than sold on its own, see our things to do guide for how that pairs with other desert activities.
For the fuller trip context around any of these, see our Sharm el-Sheikh guide and travel tips ; our 4-day itinerary is the shortest one that fits St Catherine in properly. Browse Ras Mohammed and Tiran day trips or check a St Catherine’s Monastery tour through a licensed operator rather than sorting the logistics yourself.
One concrete move: if you’re only doing one boat trip, make it Ras Mohammed over Tiran. It’s the shorter run, it’s Egypt’s oldest and most-established marine park, and it doesn’t require you to know or explain the Tiran sovereignty question to anyone in your group.