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The Very Realistic Girls’ Guide to Dahab on Egypt's Red Sea
Because Pinterest boards don’t warn you about falafel vs. seafood fights.
Oct 01, 2025
An impromptu trip with your girls to Egypt's Red Sea fishing village Dahab (the one with Pinterest boards of flowy kaftans, carefully curated beach playlists, and the promise of endless photo dumps) sounds like pure seaside bliss.
You imagine yourselves swinging at the iconic, bohemian Blue Beach Café, snorkeling in the turquoise shallows of the Laguna, and clinking mint tea glasses under twinkling fairy lights by the Lighthouse promenade.
The town’s beauty isn’t up for debate; the real challenge is the company. Because with friends in the mix, Dahab becomes less ‘relaxing getaway’ and more 'adventure disguised as a holiday' but with the Red Sea’s fiery sunsets as your backdrop.
Beneath the glossy promise of crystal-clear water and golden tan lines lies the real Dahab: tuk-tuks weaving through bustling Assala’s lively market streets, stray dogs casually joining your shawarma dinner, and inevitable group debates over whether to splurge on sea-view seafood platters at Ali Baba or keep it simple with 10 EGP falafel sandwiches from Yum Yum’s legendary stall.
The friend who swore they’d organize a dive might forget to book, and suddenly your prime snorkeling hour at the world-famous Blue Hole turns into sipping karkadeh by a laidback cliffside café instead. But that’s Dahab’s charm: plans slip, time bends, and somehow the detours end up just as memorable as the highlights.
This isn’t about bonding exercises or friendship tests. It’s about embracing Dahab’s beautiful chaos and turning it into stories you’ll laugh about forever, all while keeping track of your sandals, your sanity, and your spot on the coveted net swing at Everyday Café.
Pre-Travel: The Group Chat Hunger Games
The first stage of any Dahab trip doesn’t begin with flights or suitcases, but in the group chat: a virtual war zone of polls and strategically chosen stickers.
Expect 53 unread messages debating whether to rough it at Seven Heaven Camp (cheap, sandy, and home to semi-feral cats who think they own the place), splurge at Dahab Paradise (bougie, with a cliffside pool that basically exists for golden-hour selfies), or go “authentic” with a Ras Abu Galum beach hut where the sea doubles as your morning shower.
Someone will inevitably suggest a chalet ‘near the pristine coral gardens of The Islands,’ conjuring visions of rolling out of bed and straight into turquoise water, even if it really means an extra-long taxi ride.
The only real way through? Appoint a benevolent planner, because in Dahab, democracy tends to dissolve somewhere between Coffee Wheel’s buttery croissants and deciding whether a pickup truck ride to Ras Abu Galum is “an adventure” or “a test of endurance.”
The Itinerary of Dreams (& Arguments)
It always begins like a fantasy: sunrise yoga at the serene sandbar of the Three Pools, snorkeling at the rainbow-hued reefs of the same spot, a desert safari through the otherworldly Coloured Canyon, and stargazing on a remote, windswept beach, all neatly packed into a single day. But Dahab has its own rhythm. The wind might nudge your morning plans, the pickup truck to Blue Lagoon’s glassy shallows doubles as a bumpy joyride, and sunset hikes sometimes turn into moonlit scrambles because “it looked closer on Google Maps.”
There’s always someone clinging to a colour-coded Google Sheet itinerary, another lobbying to “just chill at the laidback Lighthouse promenade” (translation: five hours of shisha and mint tea), and an overachiever floating the idea of a Mount Sinai midnight climb, as if you won’t need divine intervention to survive it.
By Day Two, the official plan is dead, crumpled at the bottom of your backpack, and the only real itinerary left is drifting between the dusty market stalls of Assala, and chasing WiFi on breezy, rooftop hangouts with beanbags.
The trick to overcoming it? Stop planning like a tourist and start drifting like a local. In Dahab, the best itinerary is the one you accidentally stumble into.
Sunrise Saints vs. German Bakery Zombies
The third stage of Dahab survival kicks in the moment the sun rises, and immediately splits the group into two warring factions. Team Sunrise are up at 6 AM, marching to the shimmering Laguna sandbar armed with mats, herbal tea, and that one friend who insists on staging a drone shot like she’s auditioning for a wellness retreat ad.
On the opposite end, Team German Bakery emerges around 10 AM, sunglasses welded to their faces, whispering “never again” after last night at Carol’s infamous beach bar, and fighting tooth and nail for the last cinnamon roll at Ralph’s legendary German Bakery.
Both camps swear theirs is the real Dahab experience: one spiritual, one carb-fueled. The truth? The only authentic Dahab experience is realizing you’ll all end up back together by noon anyway, haggling over beaded anklets in Assala’s chaotic market and pretending you don’t already own three.
The Daily Food Fight
Food in Dahab is never simple, more like a playful obstacle course disguised as dining. The budget-friendly choice is obvious: 20 EGP kofta from a smoky grill shack in the alleys, or shawarma at King Chicken, where tuk-tuk chaos provides the soundtrack.
Splurging means seafood at Shark, with platters so fresh it feels like the Red Sea personally delivered your dinner (though the cats circling your table clearly think it’s theirs).
There’s always someone pushing for Italian at Athanor, and somehow pizza in Dahab just tastes better. Maybe it’s the sea breeze, maybe it’s the fact that carbs always win the group vote.
And for the unprepared, survival looks like a 9 PM croissant raid at Ralph’s Bakery, convincing yourself pastry counts as protein. The real danger isn’t finding food (Dahab makes that easy), it’s surviving the daily argument about where to eat. Because nothing tests friendships faster than someone insisting on seafood when everyone else just wants falafel.
Decision-making works best as a dinner dictatorship- because in Dahab, eating together is half bonding, half battle strategy, with the twinkling street lights and alleyway dogs as your referees.
Day Trips Gone Wrong
Day trips in Dahab always start as grand adventures and end as cautionary tales. Take the Eel Garden reef, a snorkeler’s paradise of swaying sea grass and dancing fish, until you realize half your gear is still in the hotel and renting fins here costs more than your bus ticket from Cairo.
The Coloured Canyon looks like a short hike on Google, but in reality it’s a sand-filled obstacle course where your shoes become glorified buckets. A trip to Ras Abu Galum sounds dreamy- Bedouin huts, turquoise water, camel rides- until you’re two hours into a bone-rattling pickup truck journey that feels like a chiropractic session gone wrong.
And then there’s Mount Sinai, pitched by the group’s overachiever as “totally doable” at midnight. By 4 AM, you’re cold, half-asleep, and bargaining with God for stronger quads.
In Dahab, day trips aren’t about conquering bucket-list spots, they’re about embracing the unpredictability with a story wild enough to tell over coffee in Cairo. The fix is simple: pack snacks, lower your expectations, and bring friends who will still laugh with you when you’re lost, tired, and covered in sand.
Fast & Furious: Sinai Drift
Getting around Dahab looks simple until you actually try it. Tuk-tuks appear out of nowhere, blasting shaabi music and swerving through alleys like they’re auditioning for Fast & Furious: Sinai Drift. And there’s always one friend who swears, “we can just walk,” forgetting that in Dahab even the rides, like pickup trucks rattling toward Blue Lagoon, turn into stories of their own, complete with windswept hair.
The real trick isn’t the distance; it’s keeping the group together when half the crew hops in a tuk-tuk, the other half disappears for fresh mango juice from a roadside stall, and suddenly you’re the unofficial tour guide, dropping pins like breadcrumbs. The golden rule? However long Google Maps promises, add some wiggle room- because getting lost here usually means stumbling into hidden beach swings, surprise bonfire jams, or that one café with the best hummus you’ve ever had.
The Dahab After-Hours Manual
Nightlife in Dahab is a test of stamina disguised as fun. Half the group settles into beanbags at the Lighthouse strip, sipping karkade and declaring this the real Dahab vibe. The other half drags you to Carol’s beachfront bar, where barefoot dancing in the sand somehow segues into a midnight philosophy chat with someone who “left everything to live by the sea.”
And then there’s always the wildcard who insists on Rush or Shams, convinced tonight’s the night they’ll finally nail fire poi (until their scarf becomes part of the show).
By the end, friendships aren’t tested over who drank what, but over who’s responsible for walking the half-asleep crew back through The Mamsha’s sandy streets, while stray dogs form an unofficial after-party entourage.
The only guarantee? Tomorrow morning, someone will still make it to the sunrise at the Laguna shore- only to shame the rest of you.
Post-Travel: The Instagram Olympics
Leaving Dahab doesn’t mean the chaos ends, it just moves online. Suddenly, everyone’s a curator, sorting through 3,000 nearly identical sunset shots, all “with slightly better vibes.”
There’s always one friend who drops a 40-slide photo dump captioned “just Dahab things,” while another edits their feed like it’s a Vogue spread, complete with moody desert portraits and strategically placed tea glasses.
The group chat becomes a battlefield of “send me that picture” requests, while unflattering camel-ride angles mysteriously vanish from circulation.
And of course, the unspoken competition begins: who posts first, who gets the most likes, and who somehow manages to make the Bedouin Village market look like Bali.
In the end, the Instagram Olympics aren’t about who wins; they’re about which friends tag you in the good photos and which ones will have you plotting your revenge for the next girls trip.
