Sharm El-Sheikh sits at the very tip of the Sinai Peninsula, where the barren red mountains of the interior run straight down to some of the richest coral reefs on the planet. It is Egypt's flagship resort city, purpose-built for the water — and the diving here is genuinely legendary, not marketing. Ras Mohammed National Park, Egypt's first, guards the southern point where sheer reef walls drop into deep blue, and Shark & Yolanda Reef is regularly ranked among the best dives in the world.

Across the Strait of Tiran lie four more famous reefs — Jackson, Gordon, Thomas and Woodhouse — strung out and alive with sharks and turtles, reachable on a day boat. You don't need a tank to see it: the snorkelling straight off the resort beaches is extraordinary, and dive schools like the long-established Camel Dive Club in Naama Bay take complete beginners on their first descent. This is a place organised around the morning boat and the afternoon sun lounger.

Above water, Sharm is frankly a resort town, and embraces it. Naama Bay is the neon-lit, never-quite-sleeping strip of bars and shisha lounges; Soho Square is its polished, family-friendly counterpart with a dancing fountain and an ice bar. For something with soul, the Old Market at Sharm El Maya keeps the spice-scented, bargaining Egypt alive, and the cushion-strewn Farsha Mountain Lounge, tumbling down a cliff toward the sea, is the sunset spot everyone remembers.