Dahab, Egypt, February 2026
There are places that stay in your memory because of monuments, famous landmarks or spectacular architecture. Dahab is not one of them. Dahab stays with you because of the wind.
February 2026 brought me for the 1st time to the eastern coast of Egypt, to a place where the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula meet the deep blue waters of the Red Sea. Every morning I would do yoga, healthy breakfast and then climb onto my bicycle, place my camera safely in the bag, and start riding through the dusty outskirts of town. The wind was always there. Sometimes gentle, sometimes relentless. More than once it carried fine desert sand directly into my eyes, forcing me to stop, clean my glasses and continue the ride.
The lagoon itself has become famous among windsurfers and kitesurfers. For decades, athletes and adventurers from all over the world have been coming here to take advantage of the steady winds and shallow waters. The colorful kites floating above the sea have become part of Dahab's identity just as much as the mountains surrounding it.
From a distance it all looks idyllic. Palm trees, blue water, white boats anchored offshore, and tourists enjoying winter sunshine while much of Europe remains cold and grey.
Yet the true soul of the region lies beyond the resorts.
One afternoon while cycling outside the main tourist area, I came across several camels grazing in the barren landscape between the sea and the mountains.
For many visitors, camels are simply an exotic attraction. For the people of the desert they have always been something far more important.
For centuries these animals were the foundation of life in Sinai. They transported water, food and goods across vast distances where no vehicle could travel. Entire trade routes depended on them. Even today many Bedouin families continue to rely on camels for transportation, tourism and traditional livelihoods.
Watching them move slowly across the dry terrain, perfectly adapted to conditions that would challenge most other animals, it becomes easy to understand why they earned the reputation as the ships of the desert.
The desert itself offers something increasingly rare in our modern world: silence.
Not complete silence, because the wind never truly stops, but a silence free from traffic, notifications and urban noise. While riding my bicycle along the dusty roads, I often found myself stopping for no reason other than to listen. The sound of the wind, distant waves from the Red Sea and occasionally the bells hanging from a camel's neck were often the only things breaking the stillness.
Unfortunately, not everything I saw was beautiful.
One aspect of Egypt that continues to disappoint me is the amount of rubbish scattered across otherwise stunning natural landscapes. Plastic bags, bottles, broken glass and various waste can often be found lying in the desert, along roadsides and even close to beautiful coastal areas.
The contrast is frustrating. Nature has created extraordinary scenery here: dramatic mountains, crystal-clear water and endless desert horizons. Yet in many places litter has become a permanent part of the landscape. It is not unique to Dahab, but it is visible enough that visitors cannot ignore it.
The irony is that tourism depends heavily on preserving exactly those natural environments.
Meanwhile, modern tourism continues to reshape the coast. Large buses arrive daily carrying visitors from resorts. Cruise boats and excursion vessels move across the Red Sea. New hotels and tourist developments continue to appear along the shoreline.
Some of this development brings jobs and economic opportunities. At the same time, it creates pressure on fragile ecosystems and gradually changes the character of places that once felt remote and untouched.
Still, despite these contradictions, Dahab retains a certain magic.
Perhaps it is the endless wind filling the kites above the lagoon. Perhaps it is the contrast between sea and desert. Or perhaps it is simply the feeling of riding a bicycle through a landscape where mountains, camels, windsurfers, tourists and Bedouin traditions all exist side by side.
As the afternoon light faded over the Red Sea and the silhouettes of the Sinai mountains grew darker, I packed my camera back into the bag and started cycling towards town.
The wind was still blowing.
In Dahab, it always is.
