Red Sea on a budget?

[Conor]

general
first make up your mind what you're looking for. sharm dahab and hurghada are busy places with almost thousends of divers and party folks. however if you are into wreck diving then these are the places to go.

Erm....there is no wreck diving in Dahab and it is not 1000's of divers...its very mellow (in fact is my new definition of mellow), the reefs around there are famous for there quality and beauty.

Sorry but it begs the questions....have you been? If so did we go to the same Dahab?

 

[swisstrav]

but between hurghada and sharm.

i agree there are no wrecks in dahab

swisstrav

 

[Jai Bar]

Low budget? It seems that in your case- getting from the US to Sinai- the air tickets are the biggest expense.

Most liveaboards average at 100-120$ per day including meals and unlimitided diving which usually averages to 3.5 dives/day.
Land-based diving can be settled to something around 15-25$ per dive. You'll have to take care of hotel and food (both can vary from something like 40$/day up to several hundreds of $ if you sleep and eat in luxurious hotels...)
To some extent, bargaining does help in Sinai.

As you can see, in both cases the diving will cost you something around 80-130$/day. It also depends whether you bring your own equipment (you don't need weights and/or tanks). Airline tickets will cost you probably at least twice.

Therefore, if you are already paying so much just to get there, why not take a nice liveaboard and have as many dives as possible? You won't regret it, and it is the most effective way when you are time-limited...