Sharm El Sheikh in 4 Days: St Catherine
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Travel advisory: Day 3 below leaves Sharm’s resort-strip carve-out for St Catherine, genuinely inland Sinai. North Sinai is a do-not-travel zone and the interior beyond the St Catherine-Nuweiba-El Tor road is advised against, though the coastal resort strip itself, including Sharm, is treated as low risk. Go only with a licensed organized tour, and check your government’s current advisory before booking this specific day.
The 4-day version: adds St Catherine’s Monastery
Four days builds on the 3-day plan (Naama Bay, Ras Mohammed, Dahab) with a day trip to St Catherine’s Monastery and Mount Sinai, the one excursion here that leaves the resort strip. Need more diving time instead? The 5-day plan adds the SS Thistlegorm.
Book these before you go:
- A Ras Mohammed day trip
- An organized St Catherine’s Monastery and Mount Sinai tour
- A Sharm El Sheikh hotel on Booking.com
- Confirm you have the full Egyptian e-visa before day 3, the free Sinai entry permit doesn’t cover St Catherine
| Day | Focus | Rough cost (solo, no hotel) |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Naama Bay beach/house reef, Old Market evening | A few hundred EGP (verify) |
| Day 2 | Ras Mohammed National Park boat trip | Boat/dive package price (verify) |
| Day 3 | St Catherine’s Monastery and Mount Sinai | Full e-visa (~$25-30, verify) plus organized-tour cost |
| Day 4 | Desert safari, Old Market shopping, departure | Quad/jeep tour ~$20-25pp (verify) |
Day 1: Naama Bay and the Old Market
Settle into Naama Bay, spend the afternoon on the beach or a shore-accessible house reef, then taxi to the Old Market (Sharm el-Maya) in the evening for bargaining, sugarcane juice, and a grilled-fish dinner.
Day 2: Ras Mohammed National Park
Book a day-boat trip to Ras Mohammed National Park for Shark Reef and Yolanda Reef, Egypt’s first national park (1983). Most tours bundle gear and the park fee into one price (verify).
Day 3: St Catherine’s Monastery and Mount Sinai
This is the trip’s one inland day, roughly 2.5-3 hours’ drive each way through the Sinai interior, sold as an organized tour rather than self-drive. The monastery, built 548-565 AD under Justinian I, is the world’s oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery, home to the traditional Burning Bush and the world’s oldest continuously operating library; UNESCO inscribed the wider Saint Catherine Area in 2002. Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa, 2,285m) is the traditional site of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, sacred across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, most day-tour visitors climb by the longer camel path with a guide rather than the steeper 3,750 “Steps of Repentance.” Because this leaves the resort strip, you need the full Egyptian e-visa here, not the free Sinai permit, confirm it’s sorted before you book the tour.
Day 4: Desert safari and departure
Spend the morning on a quad-bike or jeep desert safari with a Bedouin tea stop, roughly $20-25 per person for a 2-hour tour (verify current pricing), then use the afternoon for last-minute Old Market shopping before your transfer to Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport (SSH).
How much does 4 days in Sharm El Sheikh cost?
Figure a few hundred EGP across days one and two, the full e-visa cost plus an organized St Catherine tour on day three (the single biggest line item here), and a desert-safari package on day four. Confirm the visa and check the current advisory for the St Catherine route specifically before you finalize day three.