Orange Bay

Orange Bay is the postcard-perfect star of Hurghada's boat trips, a brilliant white sandbar fringing Giftun Island where impossibly clear turquoise water shelves into deeper blue. On calm days the colours look almost artificially saturated.

Most people arrive by day-boat or speedboat as part of an island-hopping trip, spending the day swimming off the sandbar, snorkelling the surrounding reefs and lazing on loungers with a beach-club buffet. The reef life just offshore is genuinely good, with vivid corals and reef fish only a short fin from the sand.

It can get busy at peak times, but the sheer beauty of the setting carries it. Go for an easy, family-friendly day of sun, sea and snorkelling straight off one of the Red Sea's prettiest beaches.