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Country shortlist

Best snorkeling in Egypt

The Double Fathom shortlist for Egypt, ranked — 1 catalog destination. The grouping is ours; every rank and tagline is the catalog’s own.

Egypt appears in our catalog as the Red Sea coast, and that is the whole of our coverage: the Nile valley, Cairo and the Mediterranean shore are not snorkeling destinations in this guide. What we cover runs from Hurghada and Marsa Alam in the north to the national park at the tip of Sinai, and the character is desert-coast reef — warm, enclosed Indian Ocean water with almost no runoff, so visibility can be extraordinary, and a snorkeling scene that is genuinely shallow: coral gardens, seagrass bays where green turtles and dugongs feed, and reef shelves you swim in a few metres. One distinction earns its own sentence here. Egypt’s fame belongs to its dive sites, and the walls, pinnacles and wrecks are dives we label as such rather than selling them as snorkel sites.

What we cover — and what we don’t

Where we cover Egypt: the Red Sea coast — Hurghada, Marsa Alam and the national park at the tip of Sinai near Sharm el-Sheikh — as one destination with five sites. The Nile valley, Cairo and the Mediterranean coast are not in this catalog, and nothing here is an assessment of safety or security: check your own government’s current travel advice for Egypt before you plan, because parts of the country carry active advisories that are entirely separate from the reef.

The ranked Egypt shortlist

In catalog rank order. Rank, taglines and “best for” notes are the catalog’s own; each destination page and guide goes deeper.

29

Red Sea Egypt

The desert coast

Shore reefs · Dugongs & turtles

Desert-coast coral where the snorkeling is shore and shallow reef — and the famous walls stay dives.

Egypt's Red Sea is easy to undervalue as a snorkel destination because most of its fame belongs to divers: the walls at Ras Mohammed, the offshore pinnacles, the wrecks. But the coast has a real snorkeling backbone — shore-entry and shallow boat reefs on the Hurghada to Marsa Alam stretch, seagrass bays at Marsa Alam where dugongs and green turtles graze, and shallow coral shelves inside Ras Mohammed National Park at the tip of Sinai. The Red Sea is a warm, enclosed arm of the Indian Ocean and belongs to the Indo-Pacific marine realm — the same reef family as the Coral Triangle, a long way from it — and the desert behind it means very little runoff, which is part of why visibility is so often outstanding. Keep one distinction honest throughout: the classic drop-offs and pinnacles are dives, and the snorkeling is a different set of sites.

Red Sea Egypt destination guide →Best Snorkeling in Red Sea Egypt →

Part of the regional shortlist

This country sits inside the Indo-Pacific — the wider grouping the ranked catalog uses.

Best snorkeling in the Indo-Pacific →

Other countries on the shortlist

Each country page groups the ranked catalog by country and states plainly what this catalog covers — and what it does not.

Best snorkeling in Indonesia →Best snorkeling in Australia →Best snorkeling in the Philippines →Best snorkeling in the Maldives →Best snorkeling in the USA →Best snorkeling in France →Best snorkeling in Italy →Best snorkeling in Spain →Best snorkeling in the Dutch Caribbean →Best snorkeling in Mexico →Best snorkeling in Greece →Best snorkeling in Dominica →Best snorkeling in Grenada →Best snorkeling in St. Lucia →Best snorkeling in Honduras →Best snorkeling in Anguilla →Best snorkeling in Venezuela →Best snorkeling in Ecuador →Best snorkeling in Palau →Best snorkeling in Fiji →Best snorkeling in French Polynesia →Best snorkeling in Thailand →Best snorkeling in Saudi Arabia →Best snorkeling in Oman →The full ranked catalog →

Planning a trip to Egypt?

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