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Reef and desert mountains meeting at the shore of the Gulf of Aqaba

DESTINATION · SHARM EL-SHEIKH

Sharm, where the desert falls off a reef

A resort strip on the tip of Sinai with fringing coral a few metres from the sand and mountains behind it. And, if you stay inside the strip for under a fortnight, the one destination on this board that needs no visa at all.

Airport
SSH · Egypt
On sale
10 of 12 months
Airport spread
£415 across 10 UK airports

Today's best fare

London Sharm el-Sheikh

£125 £161 −22%

Dates
17 Nov–27 Nov
Routing
Direct
Fare
Return, 1 adult
See this fare on Kiwi.comOpens in a new tab Where to stay Beds in Sharm el-Sheikh rated 9+ out of 10 by guests, cheapest first Open the search Opens in a new tab

Measured on a live search, refreshed hourly. Prices move — confirm on Kiwi.com.

Departure airports

£415 apart, depending where you take off

Every UK airport searched separately for this destination, cheapest first, as a return fare for one person with taxes in. Manchester to Sharm el-Sheikh and London to Sharm el-Sheikh are not the same route and we do not price them as one. Each figure is a fare of one stop at most — the same limit as the price at the top of this page — and each is that airport's own cheapest week, so the dates change from row to row. Every link opens on the dates its price was found on.

LON London £125 cheapest BRS Bristol £154 +£29 EDI Edinburgh £188 +£63 MAN Manchester £193 +£68 NCL Newcastle £196 +£71 BHX Birmingham £198 +£73 BFS Belfast £201 +£76 LPL Liverpool £216 +£91 GLA Glasgow £219 +£94 LBA Leeds £540 +£415

10 of 10 airports have a fare to Sharm el-Sheikh within one stop today. The rest either need two connections and most of a day to get there — which we will not print a price for — or did not answer the last search. London covers Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City and Southend in one search.

The year, month by month

When Sharm el-Sheikh is worth the airfare

Average daytime high for each month. The greyed months are ones we refuse to advertise — not because they are cheap, but because the place cannot deliver what the page promises.

  1. Jan 22°
  2. Feb 23°
  3. Mar 26°
  4. Apr 30°
  5. May 34°
  6. Jun 37°
  7. Jul 38° not sold
  8. Aug 37° not sold
  9. Sep 35°
  10. Oct 31°
  11. Nov 27° today's fare
  12. Dec 23°

10 of 12 months on sale. The reason is below, not in the numbers.

The Red Sea is a long narrow trench of water surrounded by desert, and that is the whole explanation for why this destination exists. It has almost no connection to a cold ocean current, so it warms up more and cools down less than anywhere else within reach of Britain — the water here stays swimmable through the British winter without a wetsuit, which is not true of the Canaries, Madeira or the Turkish coast. Rain is close to a non-event: some years none falls at all.

The constraint is the other direction. This is a desert at low latitude with mountains that radiate the day's heat back at night, and at the peak of the year the air moves past what any amount of shade makes pleasant. Walking outside a hotel becomes something to be done at either end of the day, the reef excursions get uncomfortable on an open boat, and the temperature is the reason we stop advertising this destination for a stretch each year rather than selling it cheap.

For a British calendar that makes Sharm an unusually good fit, because the months it is at its best are the ones home is at its worst. The stretch from autumn through to spring is the reason to come: warm water, bearable land temperatures, and the marine park at its most comfortable. Christmas and February half-term are when the charters fill and the prices climb; the weeks either side of them are the quiet ones.

The free stamp only covers the resort strip

Arriving at Sharm by air for under fifteen days, staying inside Sharm, Dahab, Nuweiba or Taba, you need no visa. Book a trip to Cairo or Luxor and you needed the full one.

The case for it

Why Sharm el-Sheikh

The southern tip of Sinai is where two arms of the Red Sea meet, and the geography does something unusual: the continental shelf is almost non-existent, so the reef starts at the shoreline and the wall drops away within a few metres of it. That is why snorkellers here see what divers elsewhere have to go looking for, and why Ras Mohammed at the very point is one of the most heavily protected marine parks in the world.

It is also the cheapest way a British traveller reaches genuinely warm winter water. The Red Sea is enclosed, shallow at its edges and surrounded by desert, so it holds heat in a way the Atlantic and the Mediterranean do not — the swimming stays comfortable when the Canaries have gone cool. Behind the resorts the Sinai mountains rise straight out of the sand, and St Catherine's monastery, working continuously since the sixth century, is a few hours inland.

Two honest warnings. This is a hotel-compound destination — Sharm was built from nothing for tourism, there is no old town, and outside the bays there is very little to walk to. And the resorts here are large and mid-market rather than boutique: filter for the top-rated properties and the list is short, because the stock is built around volume. If you want a place with a life of its own rather than a bay with hotels on it, this is the wrong end of Egypt.

On the ground

Five things worth doing

  1. 01

    Dive or snorkel Ras Mohammed

    The national park at the southern tip, where the Gulfs of Aqaba and Suez meet and the current brings everything through. Park entry is about $5 (£4) and most people arrive as part of a boat day: two dives with lunch and park fees runs roughly £55 to £70, and a snorkelling day is about half that. Shark and Yolanda reefs are the sites worth asking for by name. Take cash for the gate, and check your travel insurance covers diving to the depth you intend, because most standard policies do not.

  2. 02

    Snorkel straight off the shore at Ras Um Sid

    You do not need a boat here, which is the point of Sharm. The reef at Ras Um Sid runs along the cliff below the lighthouse and drops away within a few strokes of the ladder. Access through a beach club is about £8 for the day including a sunbed. Wear reef shoes and use the ladders rather than walking in — standing on coral kills it and cuts you, and the fines in the marine park are real. Morning is calmer and the visibility better before the boats stir the bays.

  3. 03

    Take a day to St Catherine's

    Three hours inland at the foot of the mountain Moses is said to have climbed, an Orthodox monastery that has been inhabited without a break since the sixth century and holds the second-largest collection of early icons anywhere. Organised trips run about £45 including transfer and entry, and the monastery itself asks no admission. It is a long day out of a beach week and it needs the right expectations: the site is small, the library is closed to visitors, and the drive is most of it.

  4. 04

    Go to the Blue Hole at Dahab

    Ninety minutes north up the coast, a submarine sinkhole in the reef with a notorious reputation among technical divers and a completely benign one for snorkellers, who float over the rim in warm shallow water. A day trip runs about £30 including transfer. Dahab itself is the antidote to Sharm — a former Bedouin fishing village of low-rise cafés with cushions on the sand — and is worth the drive for the town as much as the hole. It is inside the visa-free resort area.

  5. 05

    Ride into the desert at dusk

    Quad or camel trips into the Sinai interior run from every hotel at about £25 for a half day, usually ending at a Bedouin camp for tea and a look at the sky, which is exceptional here because there is nothing between you and it. Choose an operator with helmets and goggles that fit, and treat the sandstorm of a large convoy as a reason to book a smaller one. Cover up: the sun off open sand is fiercer than it is at the shore.

After the flight

What it costs once you land

Prices outside the hotel gates, which is a meaningful distinction here — most visitors are on all-inclusive boards and the resort mark-up on everything else is steep. Egypt's currency has moved sharply in recent years, so sterling figures shift faster than local ones.

Checked August 2026. Sources at the foot of this page.

Before you book

Practical, for a British passport

Entry rules are for a British Citizen passport holder and come from gov.uk, read on 2026-08-07. They change; check before you fly.

Airport
SSH, Sharm el-Sheikh, fifteen minutes from Naama Bay and twenty from Nabq — one of the shortest transfers on this list. It is also the airport whose arrivals hall decides your paperwork: the free resort permission stamp is issued here, and only here, for arrivals by air.
Entry
Free entry permission stamp, resort area only. No fee. Up to 15 days. Expiry at least 6 months after the date you arrive, and at least one blank page. Arriving by air at Sharm el-Sheikh for less than 15 days, staying inside Sharm el-Sheikh, Dahab, Nuweiba or Taba, you are stamped in free and need no visa at all. Step outside that strip — a trip to Cairo, to Luxor, to St Catherine's beyond the permitted area — or stay past 15 days, and you needed the full visa. This is the single practical difference between flying into Sharm and flying into Hurghada, where the $30 visa applies from the first day.
Currency
Egyptian pound, though the resorts quote in euros, dollars and sterling and will take all three at a poor rate. Withdraw pounds from an ATM for anything outside a hotel. Keep small notes: tipping is expected constantly and universally, and nobody has change.
Language
Arabic. English is spoken across the resort belt to a working standard, and German and Russian nearly as widely. Away from the bays it thins fast, though this is not a destination with much away from the bays.
Time zone
Egypt keeps UTC+2 in winter and observes daylight saving in summer, which means it sits one or two hours ahead of Britain depending on the date. The two countries do not change clocks on the same day, so check the gap for your actual travel week.
Plugs
Type C, 220V. A British type-G plug does not fit; bring an adapter. Power in older resorts is not always stable, so charge things when you can.
Health
The GHIC does not apply — Egypt is outside the EU — and private insurance is essential and must explicitly cover diving if you intend to dive, since standard policies exclude it below a shallow depth. The decompression chamber in Sharm is well regarded. Drink bottled water only, avoid ice outside hotels, and be more careful with salad and buffets than with anything cooked in front of you.
Safety
The FCDO advises against all but essential travel to the North Sinai governorate; South Sinai, where Sharm sits, is not covered by that warning, though it advises against travel on some inland roads. The everyday risks here are the sun, the reef and the road: fire coral cuts, sea urchins in shallow water, and quad tours run without helmets.

A bed

Where to stay in Sharm el-Sheikh

Three bays, and the choice is really about how far you are from a night out and how good the reef is off your own beach. All are inside the visa-free resort area.

REEF OFF THE STEPS

Ras Um Sid

The headland below the lighthouse, and the best shore snorkelling of the three — the wall drops away metres from the ladders. Walkable to the Old Market and a short taxi from Naama Bay's restaurants. The beaches are platforms and steps rather than sand, which suits swimmers and frustrates anyone with small children who want to paddle.

Stays in Ras Um Sid Opens in a new tab THE BUSY ONE

Naama Bay

The original resort centre, a sheltered sandy bay with a promenade of bars, restaurants and dive shops behind it — the only part of Sharm with a street life. Easiest base for anyone who wants to walk out to dinner rather than eat in the hotel. The bay itself is sandy and the reef has been worn by decades of use, so the snorkelling is the weakest of the three.

Stays in Naama Bay Opens in a new tab NEWEST AND QUIETEST

Nabq

North of the airport, a strip of large newer all-inclusives on a long shallow shore backed by a nature reserve. The best-value big hotels and the calmest option, with a lagoon that suits families. The trade-offs are real: the shore is shallow and reefy so swimming often means a jetty, and there is nothing to walk to at all — every evening out is a taxi.

Stays in Nabq Opens in a new tab

Every area pinned on one map, set to the dates of the fare above. Change them for your own trip and it reloads live availability.

Open the Sharm el-Sheikh map Opens in a new tab

Getting around

Almost nothing here is walkable between bays, and taxis are the default. They are not metered — agree the fare before you get in, expect to be quoted three times the going rate and settle around a third of the opening ask. A run between Naama Bay and the Old Market should be a few pounds. Hotels will call a car at a fixed, higher, honest price, which is often worth the difference.

Buses and shared minibuses run the main coast road between Nabq, Naama and the Old Market for very little, and they are perfectly usable in daylight if you can flag one down. For the airport, pre-book: the transfer is only fifteen minutes but the rank outside arrivals is where the worst quotes on the peninsula are given.

There is little reason to hire a car. The distances between bays are short, parking at hotels is fine but the driving is assertive, and the two trips worth making — Dahab and St Catherine's — involve inland roads where organised transport is both easier and, given the checkpoints and the FCDO's notes on some routes, the more sensible option.

Food and local tips

Most people here eat on an all-inclusive board, and the honest position is that the hotel buffets are decent and the reason the holiday is cheap. The food worth leaving for is in the Old Market at the southern end, where the restaurants are Egyptian rather than international and the prices are a third of the Naama Bay strip. Koshary — lentils, rice, pasta, fried onion and a tomato sauce with vinegar and chilli — is the national dish and costs about a pound.

Fish is the local strength: the Red Sea catch is grilled plainly and sold by weight, and a whole fish with bread, salad and tahini feeds two for under a tenner in the Old Market. Alcohol is restricted rather than absent — resorts, licensed bars and a few shops sell it, and the Egyptian beer and wine are inexpensive and unremarkable. Tipping is constant and expected in small amounts for everything, so keep a pocket of low-value notes specifically for it.

Grilled fish in the Old Market

Picked from ice, priced by the kilo, cooked plainly with bread, tahini and salad. About 300 Egyptian pounds (£4.50) a head, and a third of what the same plate costs on the Naama Bay promenade.

Ready for the Red Sea?

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Where the numbers came from