Crete vs Egypt

This is the question that decides most trips, and the answer is in the table above. The Red Sea is warm enough to swim in every month of the year. Its coldest water, about 22°C in February and March, is roughly what Crete's sea reaches in June. That still feels fresh rather than warm to many people, and for midwinter Marsa Alam and Sharm are a degree or two warmer than Hurghada. Rain on the Red Sea coast is so rare it doesn't really count.

Crete's sea season runs from about June to October. From December to April the water is 16-18°C, daytime highs are 15-20°C and Heraklion has around ten rainy days a month in winter. The cities stay open all year, but many beach hotels close for the winter, and most flights from the rest of Europe are seasonal too, running roughly from spring to autumn.

Summer flips it. In July and August Hurghada and Sharm reach 37-38°C in the shade, and the beach turns into a place you visit early and late. Crete averages around 30°C, with a cooling sea breeze, though heatwaves above 40°C do happen. On the north coast that breeze is the meltemi, a strong, dry north wind that blows from about mid-May to mid-September, mostly in the afternoon, and can make the sea choppy. The south coast is usually calmer for swimming.

Two smaller things to know about Egypt in winter: evenings get cool (January nights in Hurghada are around 12°C, so pack a jacket), and Hurghada is a windy place in general. That makes it a great kitesurfing spot and a less great one for lying still on a sunbed.

Choose this one by what you'll do in the water.

Under the surface, Egypt wins easily. The Red Sea has real coral reefs. Ras Muhammad National Park, about 40 minutes by road from Sharm El Sheikh or one to two hours by boat, has more than 220 kinds of coral and over a thousand species of fish. In Sharm and Marsa Alam the reefs run close to the shore, and some hotels have a reef you can swim to from their own jetty. Around Marsa Alam, Abu Dabbab bay is known for green turtles feeding on seagrass, and now and then a dugong. In Hurghada itself the town beaches are mostly sandy shallows and the good reefs are offshore, so you go by boat, for example to the Giftun islands. Bring reef shoes: sea urchins and stonefish live where you'd step.

On the beach, Crete wins. The Balos lagoon and Elafonisi, with its pink-tinged sand and shallow water you can wade across to the island, are two of the most famous beaches in Greece, and in 2026 Crete had 154 Blue Flag beaches, more than any other region of Greece. The sea is very clear, but it's the Mediterranean: rocks, sand and a few fish, not coral. Both are in the far west of the island, a long day from Heraklion, and very busy in July and August. Egypt's beaches are mostly hotel beaches, with a few well-known exceptions such as Abu Dabbab and Sharm El Luli near Marsa Alam and Ras Um Sid in Sharm.

Two safety notes for the Red Sea. Shark attacks are rare, but there have been deadly ones in recent years, including near Hurghada in June 2023 and near Marsa Alam in December 2024, the second outside the marked swimming area. And the UK Foreign Office warns that the safety of dive and excursion boats "varies considerably". In November 2024 a dive boat capsized off Marsa Alam, and in March 2025 a tourist submarine sank off Hurghada, killing six. Book boats through your hotel or a well-reviewed operator and check the life jackets.

Egypt has the bigger wonders. Nothing on Crete compares with the temples of Luxor or the pyramids of Giza, where the new Grand Egyptian Museum opened in November 2025, right next to them. The catch is distance. Luxor is about 300 km from Hurghada: four to five hours each way, so a day trip usually leaves at 4 or 5 in the morning and gets you back 14-18 hours later. Cairo is an hour's flight. From Sharm El Sheikh, St Catherine's Monastery and the sunrise climb of Mount Sinai are three to four hours away by road. These trips are worth it, but they're expeditions, not afternoons.

Crete puts its history within reach. Knossos, the great palace of the Minoans, is 5 km from Heraklion, and city bus 2 goes there every 15 minutes or so, and the Heraklion Archaeological Museum holds the frescoes and treasures found there. Each costs 20 EUR (the old combined ticket is no longer valid), and museum tickets are booked for a set time slot. Add the Venetian harbors of Chania and Rethymno, mountain villages, wineries and the Samaria Gorge (open from May to mid-October), and you can fill a week without a single 4 a.m. alarm. That's why Crete wins here for a beach holiday, even though Luxor is the greater sight. Our 5 Days in Heraklion guide plans it day by day.

Crete is made for independent travel. Hire cars are everywhere, the KTEL buses link the towns and the main beaches, and you can drive from Heraklion to a south-coast village for lunch on a whim. Drive defensively, though: Crete's roads have a poor safety record, with fast local drivers and unlit mountain bends, and quad bikes are best skipped.

Egypt's Red Sea is a resort holiday. The resorts are self-contained zones, and the UK Foreign Office advises booking activities through your hotel or approved operators. Self-driving is possible but not relaxing: Wikivoyage calls driving in Egypt "downright dangerous", UK drivers need an International Driving Permit, and there are regular police checkpoints. Most visitors take the hotel transfer, the hotel trips and a taxi now and then.

If your idea of a good holiday is a sunbed, a pool and someone else doing the planning, that difference doesn't matter. If you like to wander, it matters a lot.

Cretan food is one of the reasons people go back: olive oil, wild greens and herbs, dakos (barley rusk with tomato and cheese), kalitsounia (small cheese pies), staka (a rich butter made from sheep or goat cream, eaten with eggs or stirred into the wedding pilaf) and a glass of tsikoudia, the local raki, that often arrives free at the end of the meal. You eat in tavernas, in villages and by the harbor, and it's one of the main reasons to go.

Egyptian food is good too, and cheap: koshari (rice, lentils and pasta under tomato sauce and crispy onions), ful medames (stewed fava beans) and ta'ameya, Egypt's falafel made from fava beans. But on a Red Sea all-inclusive holiday most people eat at the hotel, buffet or a la carte, and rarely go out. On an all-inclusive you'd eat the buffet on Crete too; the difference is that on Crete it's worth leaving it. Alcohol is easy to get in resorts, but drinking outside licensed places is illegal.

One practical point: gut trouble is common among visitors to Egypt, even in good hotels. Drink bottled water, and the CDC recommends hepatitis A and typhoid vaccines.

The package price is closer than people think. "Egypt is cheaper" is the usual assumption, but in a February 2026 list of spring deals from Poland, a week of five-star all-inclusive in May cost about the same in Crete (3,089 zł), Hurghada (3,029 zł) and Sharm El Sheikh (3,139 zł). It's one sample, not a rule, so compare your own dates. In winter there's simply no competition: Egypt sells beach packages, Crete mostly doesn't.

On the ground, it depends what you buy. One euro buys about 59 Egyptian pounds (October 2026). In the Post Office's 2025 surveys of resort prices, a coffee cost about 2.50 EUR in Sharm El Sheikh against about 4 EUR on Crete, but a local beer cost about 6.40 EUR in Sharm against about 4.70 EUR on Crete. Food and coffee are cheaper in Egypt, alcohol is not.

Add the 30-dollar visa to Egypt's price, and budget for tips. Tipping, baksheesh, is part of how people in tourism earn a living, restaurants often add a 10-12% service charge, and small notes for porters, cleaners and guides add up over a week. Don't let anyone pressure you into paying for a service you didn't ask for.

Crete is closer. From London the flight to Heraklion takes about four hours and to Hurghada about five and a half. From Germany, Poland or Serbia the difference is similar, roughly an hour to an hour and a half. Crete has two main airports, Heraklion and Chania. Egypt's Red Sea has three: Hurghada, Sharm El Sheikh and Marsa Alam, which is about 60 km from Marsa Alam town itself.

Crete needs no visa. Greece is in the Schengen area, so UK, US and Serbian citizens can visit without a visa. The EU's Entry/Exit System, fully running since April 2026, registers non-EU visitors at the border, which can mean a longer queue. The ETIAS travel authorization is not in operation yet.

Egypt needs a visa. A single-entry tourist visa costs 30 US dollars, online on the official e-visa portal or in cash at the airport on arrival (don't buy it from agents, who charge more), and your passport must be valid for at least six months after you land. One shortcut: flying into Sharm El Sheikh for under 15 days and staying in Sharm, Dahab, Nuweiba or Taba, EU, UK and US citizens get a free Sinai only stamp. It doesn't cover trips outside those resorts, including Ras Muhammad, St Catherine, Cairo or Luxor, so if you plan any of them, buy the visa. Check what applies to your passport before you go.

In Egypt's favor: Hurghada and Sharm have flights all year, while most routes to Crete stop over the winter.

The UK Foreign Office calls the Red Sea tourist areas generally low risk, says most of the roughly one million British visits to Egypt a year are trouble-free, and does not advise against travel to the resorts or Luxor. It does say terrorists are likely to try to carry out attacks in Egypt, it advises against travel to North Sinai and some border areas far from the resorts, and its August 2026 update added a section on tensions in the wider Middle East. It also notes that most sexual assaults reported to the British Embassy took place in Red Sea resorts, often by someone the victim had already met, including hotel and excursion staff. Add the boat safety and stomach issues above, and Egypt asks for more care than Crete.

Crete's main risks are natural: wildfires, heat and the occasional earthquake, plus the usual party-resort advice about spiked drinks in places like Malia. Summer brings a high wildfire risk (from April to October, says the Foreign Office), and in July 2025 about 5,000 tourists were moved out of hotels near Ierapetra during a fire. Make sure emergency alerts are switched on in your phone's settings, and follow local advice.

Check your insurance. In Greece, the EU's EHIC and the UK's GHIC cover state healthcare. In Egypt they don't, so make sure your travel insurance covers medical evacuation, and diving and boat trips if you plan them. The Foreign Office notes that rescue at sea can cost over 4,000 US dollars an hour and starts only once payment is guaranteed.