El Gouna

What El Gouna is, and what a privately built town means for you

El Gouna did not grow the way Egyptian coastal towns usually grow. It was built from nothing on an empty stretch of Red Sea shoreline north of Hurghada, and it is privately managed as a single town rather than a strip of separate resorts. Channels were cut into the desert to make lagoons, and the sand that came out of them became islands. Almost every hotel, house, cafe and dive centre sits on a waterfront.

The practical effect for a visitor is consistency. The roads are surfaced and signed and the streets are lit. The town has its own hospital, marina and schools, and a resident population that lives here all year. Shops and restaurants are managed rather than improvised, so street selling is rare and low pressure. Some travellers find that a relief. Others want more friction and more Egypt.

El Gouna is compact. Downtown, which everyone calls Kafr El Gouna, the marina at Abu Tig, the beach strip and the golf neighbourhoods sit minutes apart on the water.

The lagoons, the beaches and the islands

El Gouna has two kinds of water sitting side by side, and confusing them is the most common planning mistake. The lagoons are sheltered, flat, warm and shallow, made for swimming, paddleboarding, small boats and children. The open sea beaches face the Red Sea properly, with real chop on a windy day and a reef flat offshore.

Zeytouna Beach sits on its own island, usually reached by a short shuttle boat, though you can also cross by road. Mangroovy Beach in the north is the wide, exposed sand where the wind sports happen. Several calmer stretches with loungers run along the lagoon front, and many hotels hold private frontage.

One honest note. This is a reef coast, not a Caribbean sand shelf, and parts of the entry can be stony or covered in seagrass. Reef shoes make the difference between an easy swim and a careful one. Tell us how you like to get into the water and we will match the hotel.

Kitesurfing and windsurfing, and why the wind is so reliable

El Gouna is on the world map for one reason: wind that shows up. Riders come from northern Europe for weeks at a time, and the local freestyle and racing calendar grew out of that.

Why the wind is dependable

El Gouna sits near the mouth of the Gulf of Suez. The Red Sea Hills rise behind the coast, Sinai lies across the water to the north west, and the Arabian mountains face the Egyptian shore further south. The prevailing airflow comes from the north and northwest, and the corridor between those ranges funnels and accelerates it. The desert behind the coast heats through the day and pulls the breeze inland each afternoon. The wind is at its most reliable through the summer months, and it blows on plenty of winter days too.

Where you ride

Mangroovy Beach is the main launch. The wind there is side onshore, the safest orientation for learners, because a mistake drifts you back towards the beach. The bay is shallow a long way out, so beginners can stand while they learn to fly a kite. Flatter water sits behind the sandbanks and inside the lagoons, where the freestyle riders go.

Learning, and what to bring

We book you with schools that run structured courses with radio helmets and boat rescue. Many beginners are riding independently by the end of a week of lessons, though how fast it comes varies from person to person. Windsurfing uses the same beach and the same logic. Bring a rash vest and strong sun protection, because the wind hides how much sun you are taking. Equipment is rented locally, so most people travel without gear. Our packing list for a trip to Egypt covers the rest.

Diving and snorkelling on the offshore reefs

The reefs that matter for El Gouna are offshore, and the day boats leave from Abu Tig Marina. You are in open water within the hour, and these sites see fewer boats than the ones opposite Hurghada.

Shaab El Erg is the closest famous site, a long horseshoe reef often called the dolphin house. A pod of spinner dolphins uses the lagoon inside it. No operator anywhere can promise you an encounter. Umm Gamar and Careless Reef bring drop offs and pinnacles. Abu Nuhas carries a line of wrecks down its northern slope, the face that drops into the shipping channel, including the Giannis D and the Carnatic. Boats moor on the sheltered southern side. To the south lie Gota Abu Ramada and the reefs around the Giftun islands.

Snorkellers are looked after too. Most day boats take swimmers and divers together, moor over shallow coral gardens, and put a guide in the water with the snorkel group. Our guide to excursions from Hurghada and the northern Red Sea lays out the wider menu of boat and desert days. Please do not touch or stand on coral, and choose a reef safe sunscreen.

Abu Tig Marina, the golf and the evening scene

Abu Tig Marina is the social heart of El Gouna after dark. It is a working marina with berths for yachts of every size, wrapped in a promenade of restaurants and terraces. Downtown, around Tamr Henna Square, is the other pole. It is lower key and more Egyptian in feel, with a cinema, live music and shaded tables under the trees.

El Gouna has two 18 hole courses, El Gouna Golf Club and Ancient Sands. Both are routed through desert and lagoon, with water in play on a lot of the holes. The early light over the water is the reason to play here, and the first tee times after sunrise are the ones to ask for. The town also hosts a film festival that fills the marina and the squares for several days when it runs. Festival dates move from year to year. Tell us if that matters and we will confirm the timing when we build the itinerary.

How you move around inside El Gouna

Nobody needs a hire car here. The town was designed around short hops, and it has four overlapping ways to make them.

• Tuk tuks. The standard ride between districts, all day and most of the night. Tell us before you arrive and we will brief you on how the tuk tuk system works here.
• The shuttle bus. A circular service links Downtown, the marina, the beaches and the main hotel clusters on a loop. Routes and timings change with the season, so we confirm the current service when we build your plan.
• Water taxis. Small boats cross the lagoons between Downtown, Abu Tig Marina and the island beaches. The most pleasant way to travel here, and often the fastest.
• Bicycles and your own feet. The town is flat and distances inside a district are short. Cycling between the lagoon bridges at sunset is a small pleasure of the place.

For anything outside town, including the airport run and the day trips, we arrange the vehicle and the driver in advance. The same car handles your excursions for the rest of the stay.

What to do in El Gouna away from the water

The Eastern Desert starts immediately behind the Red Sea coastal highway, Route 65 towards Ras Ghareb. Jeep and quad trips run up into the Red Sea Hills to Bedouin settlements where tea is made over a fire. An hour inland there is no light at all, and the sky shows it. Deeper in the hills lie the Roman quarries of the Mons Porphyrites area, where imperial Rome cut the purple stone it shipped across the Mediterranean. Those quarry runs are full day trips, and we send a guide who knows the tracks.

Closer in, El Gouna spreads its land sports across the districts. The go kart track sits on the Ancient Sands side of town. The riding stables near the Golf Club take you out along the shore in the early morning. Tennis courts and spa clusters belong to the hotel groups in the northern beach strip and around Abu Tig. The larger hotels run children's clubs. Teenagers can take a three or four day beginner kite course at Mangroovy Beach, which is what usually turns a family week into the holiday they remember.

El Gouna compared with Hurghada, Sahl Hasheesh, Sharm and Dahab

All five sit on the Red Sea and all five are sold as beach holidays. They suit very different travellers.

If the Sinai side is pulling at you, our travel guide to the Sinai peninsula covers Sharm, Dahab and the mountain interior. For wind, lagoons and a walkable town, El Gouna wins on the mainland coast.

Getting there and when to go

El Gouna's own airstrip handles private and charter aircraft only, so every scheduled arrival comes through Hurghada International Airport. The airport sits on the far side of Hurghada, about 40 minutes by road along the Red Sea coastal highway, a little more in traffic. We meet arrivals inside the terminal and drive you in. From Cairo, the alternative is a domestic flight to Hurghada, which we book as part of the itinerary.

The coast works all year, so the question is what you are optimising for. Winter is mild and sunny, with cool evenings and a sea that is refreshing rather than warm, so a thin wetsuit helps divers. Summer is hot, but the constant breeze makes the coast far more bearable than Luxor or Aswan. Spring and autumn are the balance point for temperature. The wind itself is at its most reliable through the summer, which is why the kite season peaks then. For how this fits a whole country itinerary, read our view on the best time of year to travel in Egypt.

Combining El Gouna with the Nile

The strongest two week Egypt itinerary we build is a split one: the monuments first, the sea second. You finish the temples tired and dusty, then you have days of lagoon water before you fly home. The other way round usually leaves people wishing they had swapped.

We use domestic flights to move you between Cairo, Luxor, Aswan and Hurghada. A road transfer goes in only where it makes sense, such as the run across the Eastern Desert between the Red Sea and Luxor. Schedules on these internal routes change with the season. We confirm the connections when we build your plan rather than promising a timetable that may not hold.

A typical shape is Cairo and Giza, then Luxor, then a Nile cruise between Luxor and Aswan, then a flight to the coast for the last stretch in El Gouna. The temples and tombs around Luxor can also be reached from the coast, though it makes a long day. See the shapes we run most often in our Egypt tour packages, or we can build the whole thing around your dates as a custom Egypt itinerary.

Questions we are asked about El Gouna