Getting from Israel to Egypt?

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evilclown

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Will be in Israel in January. Heard diving in Eilat is not the greatest Red Sea experience. Am thinking about going to Egypt while i'm in the region but it seems that travel between the two countries is pretty much impossible. Most airlines seem to take you al the way back to europe and then back again. Any suggestions for egypt? Shram el Sheikh?? travel between israel and shram??? dive spots in egypt???
thanks.
 
as you noticed, the don't have a 'selection' of direct flights between the two countries.

If you're planning on traveling to countries where Islamic/Muslim is the predominant faith and also to Israel also, ask them in Israel not to stamp your passport, or to stamp it on an "insert".

It will make your going through customs in the Islamic/Muslim countries much easier.

Certain Islamic countries will deny you admisssion if you have a stamp in your passport from Israel. Such as Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Supposedly Egypt allows it.

So this shouldn't be a problem with your trip to Israel and in combination with Egypt, but just something to consider when you go to Israel. It will keep you from having to get a new passport (without Israeli stamps/visas) if you ever try to travel to the above countries....
 
there are direct flights between tel aviv and cairo. i just did an expedia search and found one for $430 non-stop. there are also buses i believe.

you can also cross the border at Eilat into Sinai, then take a bus or cab down to Sharm el Sheik. the diving there is spectacular. i would imagine a boat trip off Eilat would also be able to take you to some great spots as well, but i've never done that.
 
thanks. that's weird, the flights didn't show up when i looked earlier today, even now i had to look twice but it eventually showed up, thanks!
 
It is pretty easy to get into Egypt from Israel and back again at the Eilat / Taba crossing.

I did this 2 years ago. My wife and I were visiting friends in Jerusalem and wanted to dive the red sea. We took a taxi from Jerusalem to the Taba crossing and walked across the border there. Then we spent the night in Taba Heights (about 15 min taxi ride down the road). We took a 3rd taxi from there to Sharm where we boarded our liveaboard dove for 5 days then repeated the taxi rides in reverse. It really was easy. We could have done the entire drive in one day each way, but decided to put in the overnights in Taba to make sure to have time for unexpected difficulties with the crossings.

The only warning I offer about crossing into Egypt at Taba is that if you are going to dive on a liveaboard and go off shore to the marine parks you need to have a full egyptian entry visa, not one only for the Siani Penninsula. We had some problems with that but eventually got everything worked out. We also decided to cut our dives short the last day to make sure we had 24 hours of no dive time before driving through the mountains back up to Taba. Some of them got pretty high.

Good Luck with your trip.
 
The only warning I offer about crossing into Egypt at Taba is that if you are going to dive on a liveaboard and go off shore to the marine parks you need to have a full egyptian entry visa, not one only for the Siani Penninsula.
It's not only to the marine parks. Even visiting Ras Mohamed needs a full Egyptian visa.
 
To make it simple, you need a Full Egyptian Visa to go *anywhere* south of Sharm El Sheikh and/or west of St. Katherine monastery and the mountains around it.

At the border you can get a 14 day permit limited south to Sharm and west to St. Katherine. It will allow you to dive to Tiran, several dive sites near Sharm (but *NOT* Ras Mohammed), Dahab, Nuweiba etc etc.
 
We also decided to cut our dives short the last day to make sure we had 24 hours of no dive time before driving through the mountains back up to Taba. Some of them got pretty high.

I measured the highest point om the road between Sharm and Dahab last month. My gps reported 666 meters.
 
We also decided to cut our dives short the last day to make sure we had 24 hours of no dive time before driving through the mountains back up to Taba. Some of them got pretty high.

Good Luck with your trip.

The only place where I've heard of DCS cases related to driving after diving is in the Aqaba-Amman road, Jordan.

In Israel there is the Eilat-Mitzpe Ramon road which gets up to about 800 meters and is about 2 hours from Eilat. Never heard of a case of DCS symptoms related to this altitude- Myself, I drive it all the time after diving in Eilat.

In Sinai the road is even lower- even at the "high" passes near Nuweiba/Dahab road, which is also a few hours from Sharm. I wouldn't worry about it (and yes, I know of dozens of divers who drove this road more than once after safaris, including me :wink: ).
 

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