Marsa Alam, end to end
The simplest way to see the 2027 eclipse is to be asleep inside the path the night before and to walk outside in the morning. On the Egyptian Red Sea coast that is an ordinary beach holiday with an extraordinary morning attached. Here is what it takes, and what we have measured so far.
Do you need a car?
Not for this version of the trip. The whole point of sleeping inside the path is that you do not have to move on the morning of the eclipse — no drive, no checkpoint, no traffic, nothing between you and the sky. You will want a transfer from the airport, and that is a booked car rather than a rented one.
A car only becomes necessary if you take rung 2 or rung 3 ofthe cost scale, where you deliberately trade safety for something else.
Where to sleep, and what it costs
We sample the 10 cheapest listings on Booking.com for the nights of 31 July 2027 to 4 August 2027; all 10 of them came in under our budget cap. The figure below is the third cheapest of that sample, for 2 adults sharing — we publish the third rather than the very cheapest, because one odd listing can drag a floor anywhere:
| Stay | Who | Total for the stay |
|---|---|---|
| Eclipse window, inside the path | 2 adults sharing | €71Booking.com, 16 August 2026 |
| Eclipse window, inside the path | 1 adult, measured separately | €71Booking.com, 16 August 2026 |
Read those two rows again. A lone traveller pays what the couple pays. These are whole units priced per unit, not per head, so travelling alone does not halve this line — it doubles it per person. We measured the solo case rather than dividing, precisely because dividing would have told you something false.
The headline here is how small this line is. Lodging is not what makes this trip expensive. Getting there is.
Flying in: Hurghada or Marsa Alam
Two airports serve this coast — Hurghada (HRG) to the north, Marsa Alam (RMF) to the south. HRG has far more European traffic; RMF puts you closer. Which one wins depends on the price gap and on the real cost of the transfer south, and we have not finished measuring either.
Flights for the eclipse window are not on sale yet. Carriers open roughly eleven months out, which puts the 2 August 2027 dates on sale in early September 2026. So this is not the eclipse price — it is the same route, same duration and the same lead time, in a control window a few weeks earlier, measured on Google Flights on 16 August 2026:
| Route | Departing | Return fare, per person |
|---|---|---|
| Paris CDG → Hurghada | 2 July 2027 | €981Google Flights, 16 August 2026 |
| Paris CDG → Hurghada | 7 July 2027 | €982Google Flights, 16 August 2026 |
| Paris CDG → Hurghada | 10 July 2027 | €768Google Flights, 16 August 2026 |
| Paris CDG → Hurghada | 11 July 2027 | €768Google Flights, 16 August 2026 |
| Paris CDG → Hurghada | Eclipse window | not on sale yet |
We are recording this route on a fixed schedule from now until the sale window opens, so that when the eclipse dates appear you will be able to see what the same seat cost before anyone was thinking about the eclipse. That comparison is the reason this site started measuring a year out.
Wadi el-Gemal, as an option
Documented as an option once the extra drive is costed and the gain in totality is taken from the calculator rather than from a brochure.
What to book now, and what to leave
Leave the flights. You cannot book what is not on sale, and the first prices to appear on a route like this are rarely the best ones.
Lodging is the one to watch. It is cheap today and it is the line that moves first when a place gets a reputation. We are tracking a panel of properties here so that the curve exists rather than the anecdote.
