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Hurghada

Discover Hurghada

Why Book Your Hurghada Holiday with GotoBeach?

Hurghada is the Red Sea resort most British holidaymakers try first, and once you understand what it does well the reason is obvious. This is the mainland coast's hub — the town with the airport, the widest wall of all-inclusive resorts in Egypt, the sandy lagoon beaches a toddler can wade into, and the busy Marina and old souk waiting behind the sunbeds when you fancy a night off the buffet. Boats slip out each morning to the coral gardens of the Giftun islands, the winter sun is dependable, the transfer from plane to poolside is short, and none of it costs the earth. If you want warmth, water and value with a real town at your back, Hurghada is where the Egyptian holiday begins.

Every Hurghada package we sell is one financially protected booking — flights, transfers and hotel together under ATOL licence #11211 — with your ATOL Certificate landing the instant you confirm, so you can see exactly how your holiday is financially protected before you commit. And every hotel on this page has been walked, and swum, against our 22-point inspection, which on this coast is worth more than any brochure: two Hurghada resorts a mile apart can hand you completely different swimming, and only a visit tells you which is which.

I'm Paul Cowley, GoToBeach's Egypt and Red Sea specialist, and I've been diving off Hurghada since long before the big aqua parks arrived, across more than forty years in UK travel — time on the GoToBeach board, as Finance Director of the Institute of Travel & Tourism and on ABTA's Membership Committee. But none of that tells you whether the reef off a given jetty is alive or bleached, so I get in and look. The truth I keep coming back to in Hurghada is that the resort with the flashiest pool is rarely the one with the best house reef, and you usually have to choose which half of the holiday matters more. I won't list a hotel here I haven't seen below the waterline as well as above it, and when you call, you're talking to the man who did the swimming. Read more about how I inspect these resorts before you book.

 

Photos of Hurghada

Discover Hurghada

Top hotels in Hurghada

Inspected in person · 22-point criteria

These are the Hurghada resorts we'd put in front of our own family — each one visited, each beach walked and, where there's a reef, each one swum. They span the full spread of the town, from waterpark giants for slide-mad children to a premium peninsula for grown-ups who want the best mainland house reef. Match the hotel to who's travelling and the week falls into place.

Seafront · Hurghada

Pickalbatros Dana Beach Resort

Family Flagship
★★★★★

The line's big Hurghada flagship: a long sandy beach, a proper aqua park, endless dining and a house-reef section for snorkellers, all wrapped in the all-inclusive machine families come for. Best for those who want everything on site and plenty of it; the sheer scale is the appeal, and occasionally the catch.

🏖 Sandy beach · house-reef section

View Dana Beach Resort

Magawish · Hurghada

Rixos Premium Magawish Suites and Villas

Premium Reef
★★★★★

Our pick when the reef leads the brief. Out on the Magawish peninsula south of town, it's the more grown-up, polished end of Hurghada all-inclusive, with one of the better house reefs on the mainland running off a genuinely good stretch of beach. Best for couples and keen snorkellers; less about the waterslides.

🏖 Good house reef · peninsula beach

View Rixos Premium Magawish

Inland · Hurghada

Pickalbatros Jungle Aqua Park Resort

Waterpark King
★★★★

The biggest water park on the coast, and unbeatable if the holiday is essentially slides with a bed attached. The one honest caveat: it sits inland, so the beach is reached by a free shuttle rather than off your towel. Best for water-mad children who'll never leave the park; not for beach purists.

🏖 Beach by free shuttle · huge aqua park

View Jungle Aqua Park

Seafront · Hurghada

Pickalbatros Aqua Blu Resort

Family Value
★★★★

A lively, keenly priced family aqua resort with a beach, pools and slides on tap and the reliable Pickalbatros all-inclusive behind it. It won't win design awards, but it delivers a busy, good-value fortnight for families who want the children entertained from breakfast to bedtime. Best for value-minded families.

🏖 Sandy beach · aqua park

View Aqua Blu Resort

Seafront · Hurghada

Pickalbatros Palace Resort

Beachfront All-Inclusive
★★★★★

An established beachfront all-inclusive with a sandy shore, a reef section for snorkelling and the full spread of pools, dining and entertainment. A dependable, well-run middle path between the waterpark giants and the premium end — best for families who want a proper beach and steady all-round quality.

🏖 Sandy beach · reef section

View Palace Resort

Central · Hurghada

Beach Albatros Resort Hurghada

Town & Beach
★★★★

Centrally placed with a good sandy beach and easy reach of the town and Marina, this is the one we suggest when you want to actually get out of the resort in the evenings. Solid family all-inclusive with pools and slides, and a walkable base rather than a sealed bubble. Best for those who like a town nearby.

🏖 Sandy beach · near town & Marina

View Beach Albatros Hurghada

Can't see the right fit, or want a specific bay or budget? Browse all our all-inclusive holidays or the wider Egypt holiday range, and tell us who's travelling — we'll shortlist the two or three Hurghada resorts that actually suit you, reef and all.

Discover Hurghada

Hurghada started life as a small fishing settlement and grew, within a generation, into the busiest resort town on the Egyptian Red Sea — and unlike the sealed bays elsewhere, it kept a real town at its heart. There's the older quarter of Dahar, with its mosques and a haggling souk full of spices and cotton; the long El Mamsha promenade lined with cafes and shops; and the glossy Marina, where fishing boats now share the quay with dive RIBs and dinner cruisers. It means Hurghada is one of the easiest places in Egypt to step out of the resort bubble: a taxi into town, a coffee on the Marina, a fish supper away from the buffet whenever the mood takes you.

The town's other gift is its position. Hurghada faces the widest part of the Red Sea, sheltered offshore by the Giftun islands and a scatter of reefs and sandbanks that make for some of the best boat-snorkelling days in the country. Because it's the mainland's transport hub, it also has the deepest choice of flights and the shortest transfers, which is exactly why the big operators built here first. And it sits closer to Luxor than anywhere else on the coast — the temples of the pharaohs are a long day trip by road or a short hop by internal flight, close enough that plenty of families fit in one great culture day between the beach days. Behind it all rises the Eastern Desert, near enough that a sunset quad safari or a Bedouin dinner under the stars is an easy evening out.

Hurghada beach, reef & seafront

The one thing to grasp about swimming in Hurghada is that the beach and the reef are two different questions, and not every resort answers both well. The town and its resort strips were largely built on soft sandy or dredged lagoon frontage — which is precisely why families love it, because you get a proper sandy shore and a gentle, shallow wade that suits small children and nervous swimmers. The trade-off is that a sandy lagoon often means the living coral has been cleared or lies further out, so in much of Hurghada the headline snorkelling is a short boat ride away at the Giftun reefs rather than straight off your own towel.

That said, several Hurghada resorts do keep a genuine house reef, and those are the ones we steer keen snorkellers towards — the Magawish peninsula and a handful of the southern hotels, where a reef flat runs out to a drop-off busy with fish. On any of them our checks are the same: is there a marked channel or jetty out over the coral, is the entry sandy or sharp, and does the tide leave enough water to swim comfortably? Reef shoes are essential either way, and the good dive centres here are strict about not standing on the coral, quite rightly. For the marquee snorkelling, though, the boat day wins: the Giftun islands half an hour offshore are a marine-protected cluster of turquoise reefs and sandbanks — Orange Bay and Paradise Island the famous stops — and a well-run trip out there is one of the finest days on the whole Red Sea. Ask us which operators we rate, because a good boat is a joy and a bad one is a floating car park.

Things to do in Hurghada

The water sets the pace. Boat days out to the Giftun reefs are the staple, alongside dolphin-watching trips to the Dolphin House sandbank and glass-bottom or semi-submarine cruises for anyone who'd rather stay dry. Beginners can take a first dive course with one of the many reputable centres in town. On land, the Eastern Desert is the great evening out — quad bikes and buggies over the dunes at sunset, a camel ride and a Bedouin barbecue under a sky thick with stars — while the Grand Aquarium and the odd rainy-hour indoor attraction keep younger children happy.

Hurghada's ace, though, is culture within reach. Luxor — Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, the great temples — is a long but very doable day trip by road, or a short internal flight, and it's consistently the day guests still talk about long after the tan has faded; Cairo and the Giza pyramids run as a full day by air. Our advice is to book one big culture day through the hotel or with us, so you travel with a vetted guide and an air-conditioned coach rather than chancing a roadside deal.

The Marina & Hurghada town after dark

What lifts Hurghada above a sealed all-inclusive is that there's somewhere to go when the sun drops, and the Marina is the heart of it. This modern harbour boardwalk is where the town gathers after dark — a curve of quayside restaurants and shisha cafes, dinner cruisers casting off, superyachts and dive boats moored side by side, and a relaxed, family-friendly buzz that runs late into the warm evenings. It's a proper night out that costs nothing but the price of dinner, and a world away from the buffet.

Beyond the Marina, the town rewards a little exploring. Dahar, the older quarter, keeps Hurghada's working soul — a bustling souk where haggling is expected and good-humoured, mosques, and cheap, authentic Egyptian kitchens if you want to eat where the locals do. Sekalla, the central strip, is busier and brasher, with the mid-range restaurants and the livelier bars. Our honest steer: spend most evenings enjoying your resort, but set aside two or three for the Marina and one wander through the Dahar souk, and you'll come home feeling you actually visited Egypt rather than just an Egyptian pool. Agree taxi fares before you set off, or use the ride app, and keep small notes handy for the market and for tips.

When to go to Hurghada

Hurghada has no closed season — just a choice between mild winter sun and fierce summer heat. Here's how the months feel, and when I'd book for beach, value or reef.

WhenAirSeaOur take
November–February21–24°C21–23°CThe winter-sun window and our busiest season — warm, bright days and a swimmable sea, ideal for escaping the UK grey. A short wetsuit makes snorkelling a pleasure. Book early; half of Europe wants the same weeks.
March–April25–29°C22–24°CWarming quickly at gentler pre-summer prices; the odd khamsin wind can raise desert dust for a day. Lovely all-round conditions for a family week.
May–June32–35°C25–27°CHot, dry and quieter — strong value if you're built for heat, with the sea warming beautifully for long swims.
July–August35–38°C27–29°CSerious mainland heat, eased a little by the coastal breeze and bath-warm water. Great for water-mad families who'll live in the pool and reef; hydrate relentlessly.
September–October30–34°C27–28°CMy diving pick: the water is at its warmest and clearest, the crowds have thinned and the heat has come off the top. The connoisseur's window.

For winter sun, December to February is the honest headline — just book well ahead. Families tied to the school holidays get reliably hot, if busy, summer weeks with warm water for the children. And if the reef leads your brief, put September and October at the top of the list, when visibility peaks and the sea sits at a luxurious 27–28°C.

The practical parts

Getting there

You fly into Hurghada International (HRG), around five and a quarter to five and three-quarter hours direct from the UK, with wide year-round charter and scheduled choice. Egypt runs two hours ahead, so there's no meaningful jet lag. Most town and seafront hotels are 15–40 minutes from the airport. Your transfer is included in every GoToBeach package.

Passports & entry

Most UK visitors need a visa for the mainland: a single-entry e-visa from the official visa2egypt.gov.eg portal, applied for a week or so ahead, or a 30-day visa on arrival. The free South Sinai stamp does not apply here — Hurghada is on the mainland, so you need a full Egypt visa. Passports must be valid at least six months from arrival. Rules can change at short notice, so always recheck the official guidance before you travel.

Money

The currency is the Egyptian pound (EGP), but resorts happily quote in euros and sterling, and cards work in hotels and larger restaurants. Carry small sterling, euro or US-dollar notes for tips — baksheesh is part of the culture, and a coin or two for porters, housekeeping and your reef guide, given cheerfully, smooths the week. Keep cash for the souk, where haggling is expected and good-natured.

Health & insurance

No compulsory vaccinations for a resort stay, though hepatitis A and typhoid are commonly advised — check TravelHealthPro, linked below. Drink bottled water, treat the salad bar sensibly in high summer, and pack high-factor, reef-safe sun cream. Resort medical care is private and pay-up-front, so comprehensive travel insurance is essential — and if you'll dive, make sure the policy covers it, decompression included. We can help you arrange suitable travel insurance.

Getting around

Inside the resorts you walk; between them, hotel transfers and organised excursions do the work. Licensed taxis and Uber operate in town — agree the fare first, or use the app. Egypt drives on the right. For Luxor or Cairo, book through the hotel or with us so you travel with vetted guides and air-conditioned coaches rather than a roadside deal. The Marina and Dahar souk are easily reached from the central and northern hotels.

Food & drink

All-inclusive dining dominates and runs a broad international rotation, but pull the local thread when you can — tahina and baba ghanoush with warm baladi bread, koshari, and freshly grilled seafood down at the Marina. Try chilled karkadeh, the hibiscus tea, at least once. Resorts are licensed, with local Stella and Sakara beers and Egyptian wines included on most all-inclusive plans. Stick to bottled water throughout.

Map of Hurghada

Frequently Asked Questions About Hurghada

Common questions and answers for planning your Hurghada holiday.

Handpicked packages featuring the best destinations across the Hurghada

Further reading from our specialists

Deeper diver from the team, all based on recent resort visits.

Best All Inclusive Hotels in Hurghada

Hurghada - Red Sea Days, Easy Resort Nights.

Pickalbatros Hotels Egypt

Big Pools. Bigger Smiles. The Pickalbatros Egypt Way

Hurghada versus Sharm El Sheikh

Choose the Right Red Sea for You.

Best All Inclusive Hotels in Hurghada

Hurghada - Red Sea Days, Easy Resort Nights.

Official guidance & sources

Entry and health rules for Egypt can change at short notice, so always check the official advice when you book and again shortly before you fly. These are the sources we trust.