Safaga travel guide

Safaga stands 567 km from Cairo, 65 km (45 minutes by taxi) south of Hurghada’s airport, where the coastal road meets the main road across the Eastern Desert to Qena. Though the town isn’t particularly beautiful, it has this stretch of the Red Sea’s usual attractions: diving, snorkelling and perhaps the most famous wind on the coast. The stiff breezes that favoured the trading vessels along these shores now provide excellent conditions for windsurfing, generally cross-shore in the morning and side-shore in the early afternoon. (The Windsurfing World Championships were held here in 1993.) Safaga has also seen an upsurge in health tourism as of late, with many psorisis and arthritis sufferers journeying from afar to roast in the mineral-enriched black sands. With such geological riches, the area does not rely totally on tourism. It has local phosphate mines that export the mineral overseas.