Once a small fishing village, Marsa Alam is rapidly increasing in popularity, and since the opening of its International Airport, the area is becoming a favourite holiday destination on the Red Sea Riviera. Situated near the Tropic of Cancer, Marsa Alam has a true tropical feeling, with its mangroves and palm trees, and its long beaches with fringing and barrier coral reefs. The awesome Wadi el Gemal National Park is in its outskirts, with 100km of pure Red Sea beach bliss and desert landscapes. Remote, tranquil, of breathtaking simplicity, Marsa Alam is the place to get away from it all. Popular among divers due to the untouched and numerous diving sites along the coast and offshore, with quite rare features in the Red Sea as the poseidonia bay where the dugongs live, or the coral reef home to the spinner dolphins, Marsa Alam has also some interesting inland attractions worth exploring such as the Emerald Mines, or the Temple of Seti I at Khanais. Marsa Alam is home to some good hotels with all amenities, but there are in the area also a number of low cost eco-lodges and camps, with simple but fascinating accommodation right on the beach. The Wadi el Gemal National Park coast is a preserved area and only eco-lodges can be built on its shores, an unique protected project in Egypt. The Fustat Wadi el Gemal Eco-lodge, right in the middle of the park, makes for a fascinating daily excursion, with its camel safaris through the wadi and the traditional customs of its employees, all belonging to the local nomadic tribes of the Bisharis and the Ababda, or to the Nile valley ethnic group of Nubians.

» Sharm El Sheikh    » Aswan    » Hurghada    » Luxor    » Cairo