Why Is Sharm El Sheikh One of Egypt’s Most Popular Beach Destinations?

Welcome back Island Hoppers. Today we're coming to you from Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula. We arrived on a one hour flight from Tel Aviv, Israel. It was a direct flight right into here at this Red Sea Paradise. We're going to go around, show you guys the old town area, the new town area, show you what it looks like to do some diving or well I should say snorkeling around the Red Sea in one of the most beautiful underwater marine biology ecosystems you will find anywhere in the world. So we decided to stay here at the Sheraton Sharm el-Sheikh. This was a really good hotel. Overall they actually ended up giving me an upgrade to a suite because I'm a member of Marriott Bonvoy which was good considering the price was under $100 per room. Sharm el-Sheikh is the ultimate resort destination with many of the hotels being palaces but the cool thing is you can get a reasonably priced accommodation right on a coral reef beach like we got here at the Sheraton. We were here in early September and it was a bit hot outside because it's a desert obviously on the Sinai Peninsula but you stay indoors, walk around one of these resort palaces at your hotel in the daytime and then go out at the night time. And when you do go out in the daytime you're going swimming in the ocean where there's a coral reef. The weather in the daytime is around 91 degrees Fahrenheit in September and 33 degrees Celsius. At night it gets down to as low as 80 or 25 degrees Celsius. So it doesn't really cool down too much but at least the sun's not as bright at night right? And you can see they have other water activities like going out on a boat or doing some paragliding, parasailing like you see here. So what we're going to do now is we're going to head down to the beach and actually show you what it looks like underwater just outside the coral reef in front of the hotel. As you can see by the color of the sand it's more of a dirt, dusty kind of sand, golden colored not exactly that white powdery sand you would get in some place in the Caribbean but the water is crystal clear. You can see right here, I mean, you look at how clear that water is, it's deep blue and then it has that aqua blue right in the shallows. Alright so this is my first time swimming at Charmel Chic, it's right in front of the Sheraton Hotel. They say it's one of the best beaches so let's go take a look. The first thing that shocked me was how many fish were actually right swimming around me. Big old tropical fish, maybe like a foot to two feet long fish right here in the shallow water. They're everywhere. Well my first little taste of the water out here, amazing. The amount of fish, coral, it literally is teeming with sea life. And you can see that greenish blue and then the deep blue. We need to get out there to the deep blue and show you what it looks like over there so that's where we're headed next. This is actually more of a winter playground for Europeans to come down during the months of October, November, December. If you come down here in the summertime you're going to see these daybeds are going to be empty but you come down in the winter, boom, the whole place fills up. And now that you've got a good feel for what the resort's going to look like, let's go out to that dock right there and jump in to the deep blue water right there where the coral reef is. Alright so we're going out to the end of this dock here and they've got a shelf, you just jump off and you're right there in deep blue water. I've got to say, swimming down here is amazing. This hotel, it's aquatic. There's actually so many different reefs up and down here. There's also Tiran Island, Santa Fe Island, and then there's Ras Narani and you have Dahab which is up the coast from here which is another amazing place and Ras Mohammed. For a place like Sharm el Sheikh, just do all the diving and check out the dive sites plus Mount Sinai where Moses Mountain is and do all that different stuff, you're probably going to want to book in 7-10 days in Sharm el Sheikh. Man, I highly recommend staying at this hotel, the Sheraton, just because of that aquatic park, saw tropical fish, small schools of fish, big old parrot fish, it was amazing. Alright so we did stop to get a massage, it was like a jacuzzi and some other activities in this spa, just relaxing, and then once that was done we headed out to Nama Bay and check out some of the other activities going on around town, see the nightlife, and that's where we're headed next. And off in the distance you'll see those mountains where Mount Sinai is located, it's the Sinai Mountain Range. While we were here they had so much construction going on you can see that they're just building this place up, it reminds me of Dubai 2.0 really, I know some people might not want to hear that but they're really building this place up, they say they have a city ordinance that prevents buildings from being too tall so you can still see views. This area we're walking around here is Pedestrian Road in Nama Bay, also known as Al Sultan Khabos Mashaba. So here we are on Pedestrian Road right along Nama Bay, so we're going to walk around here and show you what it looks like in what is considered the most popular place to go in all of this area. And there is a lot of construction going on around Sharm El Sheikh, you can see this road that's being built right here, looks like it's going to be pretty luxurious. You can take a speedboat for $50, go all around the shoreline here. Alright so we're going to stop and get some traditional Egyptian food, they got shisha and look at these seats right here, let's go inside. And guess what, it's tequila o'clock, you know what that means. Alright now we're here in the Old Town walking around at night, it's around 7pm, the full moon is out, let's do it. This area is known as the Old Market, we're going to do some walking around the market shops, get some food, and check out the new mosque. Yeah so if you're thinking of coming down here to Sharm El Sheikh, you definitely need to come see this booth right here, you can hit them up on Instagram, we'll put a link, but they got super safaris, camel riding, Moses Mountain, Mount Sinai, they've got snorkel diving, and tours to the Blue Hole, they've also got all sorts of different tours around here to the pyramids also. And if you're watching this and you just want to get a hold of him ahead of time, you can message him here on WhatsApp, On Tour Sharm. And I spoke to him in great length before I actually created that, that's how come I knew that this guy knew what he was talking about, so I decided to help you guys out and give you his contact information if you guys had any questions. And after spending a great time in Sharm El Sheikh, we are now headed to Cairo to do some exploring up there, so we'll see you guys on the next one.