If the Nile is Egypt's grand narrative, Sinai is its long weekend that turns into a month. The peninsula runs on a different clock — Bedouin time, dive-shop time — and it's still one of the cheapest places in the world to learn to dive. We came for four days and stayed eleven.
Getting there
From Cairo, Go Bus and Blue Bus run direct to Dahab via Sharm El Sheikh: 9–10 hours, $12–18, with a dawn crossing under the Suez Canal at the Ahmed Hamdi tunnel and half a dozen relaxed checkpoint stops (keep your passport handy). Flying to Sharm from Cairo costs $50–80 if you book early, then it's an hour's shared taxi or local bus north over the mountains to Dahab. Sharm itself is package-resort territory; unless you're diving Ras Mohammed from there, roll straight through.
Dahab: the great flypaper
Dahab is a strip of chill-out restaurants and dive shops along a windy blue gulf, with the mountains of Saudi Arabia pink across the water at sunset. Beds in good hostels run $7–15; a huge plate of koshary or a fish dinner on cushions by the water costs $3–6. The economics of diving are absurd in the best way: an Open Water course for $280–330, fun dives from $25, and most sites are shore entries — you gear up, walk off the beach, and drop onto reef. The Blue Hole and the drift from the Canyon are the famous ones, but Lighthouse reef right in town is where you'll log half your dives. Not a diver? Snorkeling the Blue Hole's outer lip (minibus trip, ~$10) or the Three Pools at Asalah is nearly as good, and free camel-and-snorkel day trips to Ras Abu Galum get sold at every second café for about $25.
Mount Sinai and St Catherine
Every hostel organizes the classic overnight run: leave Dahab around 11pm, drive two hours into the high desert, and climb Mount Sinai (2,285m) in the dark by the camel path — about three hours at a plod, with Bedouin tea shacks selling hot chocolate at $1.50 a cup all the way up. You summit into a freezing wind, rent a blanket ($2), and wait. Sunrise over the granite ranges of the peninsula, with a hundred pilgrims singing softly in six languages, is one of those travel moments that survives its own hype. Descend via the 3,750 Steps of Repentance if your knees agree, visit St Catherine's Monastery (open mornings, closed Fridays and Sundays; the burning bush and the icon collection are older than almost any building you've ever entered), and sleep the whole ride back. Tours run $25–35 plus entry. If you have an extra day, stay in St Catherine village itself and hike Mount Catherine or the Galt el-Azraq blue pools with a local guide — the Sinai Trail organization has made this a genuine trekking destination.
North to Nuweiba
For the full deceleration, take a taxi or the sporadic bus an hour north to the beach camps between Nuweiba and Taba. Places like Ras Shitan are rows of palm-frond huts on the sand: $10–20 a night, no wifi worth mentioning, mosquito coils, grilled fish, and the Red Sea five steps from your mattress. People come here to finish books or start them. From Nuweiba port you can, in principle, catch the ferry to Aqaba in Jordan — check schedules locally, they are a rumor at the best of times.
Practicalities
Most nationalities entering via Sharm for South Sinai only can use the free 15-day Sinai stamp, but if you're combining this with Cairo or the Nile you need the full Egyptian visa ($25 on arrival). Spring and autumn are perfect; summer is hot but the sea fixes it; winter nights are genuinely cold in the mountains. Bring cash — ATMs in Dahab work, but the beach camps are cash-only and a long way from anywhere, which is exactly the point.