Sharm El Sheikh Travel 07: Escaping Rome's Rain to the Red Sea, With Zero Research

Pompeii and Positano had already soaked me through in the last post. Back in Rome, the forecast was heavy rain, all week.

So I typed countries with no rain into the search bar. Not sights, not restaurants. Just somewhere it wasn't raining. What I picked was Sharm El Sheikh, on Egypt's Red Sea coast. And I really did get on the plane without looking anything up.

The route in this post

Date	Where	In a line
Apr 16, night	Rome	A week of rain, a search for "no rain," a last Italian dinner
Apr 17, before dawn	Rome airport → Sharm El Sheikh International Airport	Wizz Air at 04:45, a surprise visa fee, an ATM wad
Apr 17, day to night	Parrotel Beach Resort → Shark's Bay	The pool, parasailing, a Red Sea sunset, the buffet
Apr 18, dawn	Sinai desert → resort	Quad bikes, a Bedouin tent, a camel

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A last dinner in Rome, and a 4:45 a.m. flight

I was leaving to escape the rain, but I still had a proper dinner in Italy. At a Roman restaurant whose sign read LA LVPA, I ordered thick pasta served in the pan, a steak topped with rocket and a basket of fried things.

The last bite of Italy was at the airport: a croissant with green cream squeezing out of the end, and a bottle of Baladin beer. The table card says "Are you still thirsty?" It was 2:45 in the morning.

The gate screen: Wizz Air, Sharm El Sheikh, departing 4:45. At that point, everything I knew about Sharm El Sheikh was on that screen.

When it got light outside the window, everything below was the color of sand. A lake sat dark among patterns like contour lines. Nothing like the European green of the past few days.

What I learned at the airport: there's a visa fee

I hadn't looked anything up, so the airport taught me a lot. First, the visa. You pay for an Egyptian visa at the airport. I didn't even know that.

After landing, you follow the Visa & Banks signs. The banks and the visa counter are in the same direction. On the pillar by the sign was a single sheet of paper: "Visa here just 25$." The visa sticker I got in April 2023 also said "ENTRY VISA FEE EGYPT" and 25 dollars, and I picked up a pink arrival card along with it. That photo has too much personal information on it, so it stays out.

The hall already had a long line of people standing with their suitcases. A blue sign splits the way: Passport control to the left, Banks and Visa Stamp to the right. If you don't have a visa yet, read the signs before joining a queue.

A wad of cash from the ATM

Second, the ATM. I stood in front of the machine with no feel at all for what Egyptian money was worth and pressed one of the amounts on the screen. It was not the amount I thought it was. What came out was a stack of cash too thick for my wallet.

Sadly, no photo of that wad survives. About a year and a half later, in Indonesia, I'd skip the exchange-rate math again and make a mosque guide laugh.

The sign photo is from 8:44 and the first photo outside is from 9:51. I spent a little over an hour inside the airport. Not an exact wait time, but useful when planning. Out the door: colorful welcome sculptures and blue sky. Exactly what I'd searched for, a country with no rain.

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Parrotel Beach Resort: a pool ringed with man-made rocks

I stayed at Parrotel Beach Resort. It's in the Nabq area, facing Tiran Island, not far from the airport. A red welcome drink was set down on the marble at reception, and that became my first food photo in Egypt.

At midday the pool is lined with straw parasols, and a wooden bridge arches over the water channel. The boulders around the pool and the hill behind the cactus garden are sculptures, ripple patterns and all. The real desert is right next door, and the resort built its own rocky hill anyway.

Afternoon: up over the Red Sea at Shark's Bay

That afternoon I headed out to sea.

The starting point was Shark's Bay Oasis. April 17, 3:05 p.m.: a big animal face juts out of the fortress-like entrance building.

Down on the beach it's all in one place: straw parasols and loungers, a wooden pier stretching into the sea, a banana boat. No need to go looking for where the boats leave from. The water off the pier is so clear you can see the pattern of the seabed.

Parasailing launches from the metal frame at the back of the deck. Up close, the canopy is bigger than I expected.

When the line is let out, that big canopy quickly shrinks against the town and the mountains. In the video, two people hang side by side under one canopy as it comes down. If you want the canopy and the riders in one shot, the moments of takeoff and landing are best.

On the way back I saw the beach from the water. The whole cliff and the buildings on top, which you can't see from land, come into view along with the line of parasols. This beach is worth a second look from the sea.

A Red Sea evening and the buffet

Around sunset I walked out to the sea in front of the resort. The water was calm, and only one pink cloud was left above the horizon. On the way back, gazebo roofs and palm trees had turned into silhouettes, and lights were on along the steps between the rocks.

Dinner was a buffet. A burger, chicken, rice and tomato, thick fries, all on one plate, with what looks like a beer beside it. The next plate was strawberries, oranges, melon, guava and chocolate cake, and the drink glasses went up to three. The bread station took up an entire wall.

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April 18, 5:22 a.m.: the Sinai desert

The next day's first photo is from 5:22 a.m., in the Sinai desert. The afternoon before, I'd been on a boat on the Red Sea.

The quad bikes were lined up facing the rising sun. Most were red, with dried mud caked on every wheel.

I wrapped my face in a scarf and climbed on. In the desert, a piece of cloth to cover your face really comes in handy.

I also took the forced-perspective shot you take in a desert: arms up, pretending to lift the big rock in front of the lens. I used the same rock again from the camel.

A Bedouin tent and a camel

Where we parked the quads was a Bedouin-style tent shelter at the foot of a rocky mountain. Low seats with striped cushions and spots for shisha ring the space, and in the middle stands a camel with its saddle on. It was the hour when only the top of the mountain catches the sun and turns red.

The saddle is several layers of striped blankets that look woven from scraps of cloth. Next to the kneeling camel sits a blue plastic Pepsi crate that looks like a step for climbing on.

Once on the camel, I took another forced-perspective shot, this time holding up the rock with one hand.

The photo back at the resort is from 7:23. At 8:09 the sea out front was calm enough to see the seabed. By breakfast time, the desert tour was already over. That's the good thing about a dawn tour.

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I went knowing nothing, and I'd tell everyone to go

I found out once I was there: Sharm El Sheikh is where Europeans go for honeymoons and holidays. Resorts, sea and desert are all within half a day of each other. I picked it with one search just to escape the rain, and it was genuinely great. I'd recommend everyone go at least once.

There's one thing I regret. Sharm El Sheikh has a bar said to have been the inspiration for Aladdin. I wanted to go, but walking in alone felt a little awkward, so in the end I didn't. One day, I want to go.

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Visitor information

📍 Sharm El Sheikh International Airport · Sharm El Sheikh, South Sinai, Egypt

• 🛂 Visa on arrival: after landing, follow the Visa & Banks signs; the banks and the visa counter are in the same direction. In April 2023 I paid 25 dollars.
• 💵 The fee may be different now: sources I checked while writing this disagree. A December 2025 report quoted Egypt's tourism ministry saying it stayed at 25 dollars; a March 2026 report said it rose to 30 dollars from the first of that month. A September 2026 report says it goes up to 33 dollars from January 2027, after a Cabinet decision in August. There's also information about a free entry stamp for visitors staying only in Sinai, but I couldn't confirm who it applies to, so check the rules for your own passport.
• 📝 Arrival card: there are boxes for your flight number and departure city, so keep your boarding pass handy.
• 🗺️ Map: Open in Google Maps

📍 Parrotel Beach Resort · Nabq Bay, Sharm El Sheikh

• 🏖️ Location: in Nabq, facing Tiran Island, not far from the airport.
• 🗺️ Map: Open in Google Maps

📍 Shark's Bay Oasis · Sharks Bay, Sharm El Sheikh

• 🪂 Parasailing: packages I found while writing this ran roughly 19 to 52 dollars, depending on flight time and whether hotel pickup is included.
• 🏜️ Desert tour: sunrise quad bike tours are booked through online tour sellers or local operators. Some include hotel pickup.
• 🗺️ Map: Open in Google Maps

How not to do it like me

• 💳 The visa fee is paid at the airport. Check the price and how to pay before you leave. I found out on arrival.
• 💱 Learn the currency and exchange rate before you board. Do the math for the first time at the ATM screen and you, too, may walk out holding a wad.
• 📸 For parasailing photos, you need someone on deck to take them.
• 🧣 Bring a scarf and a windbreaker for the desert tour. A piece of cloth to cover your face is genuinely useful.
• ⚠️ Check your government's travel advisory for the Sinai region before you go.

Jayden's verdict

I searched for a country with no rain, and it was genuinely great. I'd recommend it to everyone. The Aladdin bar, one day.

• Highlight: parasailing at Shark's Bay, and quad bikes and a camel in the Sinai desert at sunrise
• Would I go back?: Yes. I want to go to the Aladdin bar I skipped because I was alone.
• Tip: check the visa fee and the currency before you fly. A dawn desert tour is over by about breakfast time.

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The next post is the last one. Back to Rome, where I sum up, through food, why Italy is my "best country" of this trip, and then head home.

19 Days After Quitting series

1. The UK, part 1: via Dubai, back to my Bournemouth homestay
2. The UK, part 2: a day in London, from Big Ben to a Soho pub
3. France: Nice and Saint-Paul-de-Vence
4. Italy, part 1: Milan's Duomo and San Siro
5. Italy, part 2: Venice, San Giorgio and Burano
6. Italy, part 3: Florence, Pompeii and Positano
7. Egypt: escaping the rain to Sharm El Sheikh (you are here)
8. Rome again: Italian food and the way home