Sharm El Sheikh Museum: a guide to visiting on your own

Sharm El Sheikh has a state museum of antiquities with genuine artefacts, and you can get there on your own in a single taxi ride. No tour is needed for this.

Below is everything you need: how to get there, when it is open, how much the ticket costs and how to pay for it. That last point matters more than the rest, since it is where most visitors trip up.

🚕 Getting there from your hotel

You need to get to the state museum on your own. Hotels do not run free shuttles there, so plan on a taxi or a rental car.

Taxi via inDrive

The easiest option is to download the inDrive app. You see the fare in advance and set your own price.

This avoids arguments over the meter and change, which on a resort saves both time and nerves.

Street taxi

You can flag down a white and blue taxi at your hotel gate. Always agree on the full fare in Egyptian pounds before you get in, not after.

The order matters: price first, then get in. Negotiating once you are already in the car is noticeably harder.

Think about the way back too. Taxis do not always wait around outside the museum, especially late in the evening, so it is simpler to either ask the driver to wait for an extra fee or book a taxi through the app in advance, while you still have signal inside the halls.

Verified contacts

We can also share contacts for taxis and transfers we have checked, if you need them. You then agree the time and price with them directly.

What the museum actually is

The Sharm El Sheikh Museum is a large state museum of antiquities on the Sinai Peninsula.

It holds around 5,200 genuine historical artefacts: animal mummies, sarcophagi, weapons, pottery, jewellery and other items from different historical periods.

The collection is not built around one ruler or one era, but shows a cross-section of everyday life and burial customs across thousands of years. Set aside an hour and a half to two hours for a visit: you can rush through the halls in twenty minutes, but there is not much point in that.

🕐 Opening hours

The museum is open daily, with a break during the day:

• 10:00 to 13:00, ticket office until 12:00
• 17:00 to 23:00, ticket office until 22:00

Note the ticket office: it closes an hour before the museum itself in both sessions. Do not cut it close to closing time.

It is better to visit in the evening, once the heat has eased off.

The evening session runs until 23:00, which fits neatly into one outing: the museum, then dinner and a walk around town. During the midday break, from 13:00 to 17:00, the museum is closed entirely, so there is no chance of turning up there by accident after lunch.

💳 Paying for tickets

Foreign visitors pay for tickets by Visa or Mastercard issued by an international bank.

Cash, whether dollars or Egyptian pounds, is not accepted for the entrance ticket. This is the main surprise for anyone who turns up with cash and no working card: they simply will not sell you a ticket.

If your card does not work

Most international Visa and Mastercard cards work without any trouble in Egypt. But if the one you are carrying does not work for whatever reason, cash will not rescue you at this particular till either: only card payment is accepted.

It is worth checking this before you set off for the museum, not at the ticket window. If there is no working card on hand, the original artefacts are off the table for that trip, and the private exhibition in Naama Bay remains the fallback.

For pounds for water, taxis and small expenses, see our guides on currency exchange in Sharm El Sheikh and getting cash from an ATM without a card.

What to bring

• your passport or a copy of it
• a working bank card
• a smartphone with internet
• a small amount of Egyptian pounds for water and small expenses
• a light layer, since the halls are air-conditioned

The card and passport are not a formality here, they are the condition of entry. The pounds come in once you are past the till: water, the taxi back and odds and ends.

The alternative in Naama Bay

The private King Tut Museum is on the lower floor of the Genena City mall, handy to visit while walking around Naama Bay.

It is a fundamentally different format, and the two should not be confused.

The main difference between the two museums

The price gap is nearly fourfold, and it makes sense: in one case you are paying for originals, in the other for replicas in a convenient location.

If you want to see genuine ancient artefacts, choose the state Sharm El Sheikh Museum.

If you want to see the whole city too

The museum takes a couple of hours, and it pairs well with a walk around the city. We run an individual sightseeing tour of Sharm El Sheikh: the Old Town, mosques, the Old Market, a cafe carved into the rock and a viewpoint over the city.

The museum is not part of that programme, you get there on your own. But if you would like to see the city once with someone who knows it well, this is a sensible way to do it.

And if Cairo is on your itinerary, there is a choice between two large museums there, and it is not an obvious one: we cover it separately in Egyptian Museum vs Grand Egyptian Museum: key differences.

In short

Visit the Sharm El Sheikh Museum on your own, by taxi, in the evening, with a Visa or Mastercard and your passport. The ticket costs around 200 EGP.

The ticket office closes an hour before the museum, cash is not accepted, and the air conditioning runs cold. Keep these three things in mind and the trip should go smoothly.