Where to stay in Hurghada: the best areas and resorts

North of Hurghada, El Gouna is a private resort town built across a string of lagoons and islands, laced with canals and little bridges, with a lively downtown and the boat-filled Abu Tig Marina. It's the one place on this coast where you can leave your hotel, wander into town for dinner and stroll back along the water without calling a taxi.

Kitesurfers come for the steady wind and shallow lagoons, golfers for the courses, and couples for the stylish, smaller hotels, including an adults-only one with a spa. Families do well too, with sandy beaches and resorts with pools and playgrounds. Allow 35 to 45 minutes from the airport.

This is the real Hurghada, or as real as a resort town gets. In the old Dahar quarter you'll find spice stalls, shisha cafés and local life; Sakkala, next door, is the tourist hub, and the marina is lined with restaurants, bars and the boats that run snorkelling trips out to the Giftun Islands. The seafront promenade ties it all together and stays busy until late.

Hotels run from resorts on the promenade to a Hilton three minutes from downtown, plus an adults-only hotel on its own lagoon right in the centre. The beaches are smaller and busier than in the outer bays, but you can walk to dinner, and the airport is barely a quarter of an hour away.

South of the centre, Hurghada becomes one long run of resort hotels, each with its own stretch of sand, its own pools and very often its own water park. This is the Red Sea's family heartland: Steigenberger Aqua Magic has built its whole personality around slides, and plenty of its neighbours have aqua parks of their own, plus kids' clubs and evening shows.

The trade-off is that you'll mostly stay put. These are self-contained all-inclusives, some wrapped around lagoons, and town is a taxi ride away rather than a stroll. On the plus side, the airport is often less than 15 minutes off, so you can be in the pool not long after landing.

Sahl Hasheesh is what happens when a whole bay is planned at once. About 20 km south of the city, it curves in a single crescent of pale sand, lined with palatial resorts and anchored by a purpose-built old town that serves as its shopping and dining hub. Offshore, snorkellers drift over coral and the toppled columns of the so-called sunken city.

It's the most polished address on this coast. The Oberoi is an all-suite hideaway of domes, arches and private courtyards; Baron Palace channels an Arabian palace; the Citadel is built from hand-chiselled coral stone around its own marina. Couples love the calm, but resorts with kids' clubs and pool slides mean families aren't left out. The airport is around 17 km away.

Some 30 to 35 km south of Hurghada, Makadi Bay is resort country pure and simple: no town to speak of, just big hotels set in tropical gardens along a sheltered bay famous for its diving and snorkelling. Some resorts have their own house reefs and jetties, so you can walk off the beach and straight into a cloud of fish.

The Madinat Makadi resort area adds an 18-hole golf course and a cluster of hotels that includes an adults-only spa resort for over-16s. Families have plenty too, from aqua parks to a full theme park with fairground rides and a 6D cinema. Bring a good book: evenings here are about dinner and the stars, not bars.

Push on south and the coast gets emptier and windier. Soma Bay is a peninsula of sand poking into the Red Sea, with desert and mountains behind, a golf course in the middle and a reliable breeze that has made it one of Egypt's favourite kitesurfing spots. The resorts are big, low-key and generously spread out.

This is where you'll find the Kempinski, Steigenberger's Ras Soma with private bungalows on a white-sand beach, and a Mövenpick with a full water park for the kids. Safaga, further down the coast, is a port town with a quieter diving scene. Transfers are the catch: allow 30 to 55 minutes from the airport, depending on the resort.