How to bag cheap winter sun in Hurghada, Egypt’s ultra-affordable Red Sea resort

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The complete half day’s experience with Sytze Boomsma’s El Gouna Mountain Goats – driving up a sandy wadi into the Red Sea Mountains in a fleet of Land Cruisers, hiking into the desert for an hour, plus dinner – had cost just £28. open image in gallery The El Gouna Mountain Goats experience is great value Even if yoga in the desert isn’t your thing, Egypt’s Hurghada coast represents good value for money when it comes to winter sun. The town is within driving distance of the Nile and is more a part of normal Egyptian life, with prices to match El Gouna is a huge and well-conceived endeavour, and it has attracted a big semi-resident population of expat villa owners, some of whom were on the Mountain Goats hike with me. open image in gallery Sunset yoga doesn’t have to cost the earth Hurghada started out as a fishing village no more than 100 years ago, and that fish market – about to be moved to bigger premises – is an insight into all the reef species still being caught locally.