If you are going on a vacation to Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt), you carefully calculate your future expenses: $ 100 - excursions and entertainment, $ 15 - visa, $ 50 - purchases and souvenirs ... Stop! Do you know that you can save these notorious dollars? A trifle, of course, but it is better to spend them on something else, and not on a simple stamp in your passport. How to do it? The secret is called the Sinai Visa.
However, our tourists are not idle people, and therefore some legal information will not harm them. To begin with, this free option to enter Egypt was made possible as a result of the Camp David Peace Agreement, signed after the 1978 war. According to its provisions, Israel undertook to transfer to Egypt - the rightful owner - the south of the Sinai Peninsula previously captured by him . However, during the occupation, Israel built many hotels on the local Red Sea coast (in fact, the Sharm el-Sheikh resort itself grew out of the investments of its northern neighbor), airports, and improved infrastructure. And therefore, when transferring the territories, this state counted on some compensation for the invested funds. Thus, the political decision directly affected tourism: it was decided that Israelis could enter the peninsula for free and stay there for 15 days. So the Sinai visa was invented.
At first, it was put only to Israeli citizens, but since 1982, amendments to the Camp David Agreement were adopted. According to new regulations, a Sinai visa is issued to all foreign tourists arriving in Egypt for up to 15 days through the airports of Sharm El Sheikh, Sant Catherine and Taba, the sea port of Nuweiba and the land checkpoint Taba. The indicated tourists should only declare that they are not going to leave South Sinai and go beyond its borders.
So, let's decide if we need a Sinai visa. If you plan to spend the whole vacation lying on the sand of the beaches, swimming in the warm sea and relaxing at the all-inclusive hotel, as well as in the entertainment centers of Sharm El Sheikh and the surrounding area, this is the option for you. And even if you plan to visit Mount Moses, the monastery of St. Catherine, Nuweiba, Dahab and even Israel with Jordan - you can do this with the Sinai stamp in your passport. And even in the coral reserve of Ras Mohammed you will leave - however, only by sea. But neither Cairo, nor Luxor, nor Alexandria will be able to visit with this document. Sinai visa in Hurghada is not issued, but before vacationers in this resort there are great opportunities to travel with tours at least the whole country.
Now consider what you need to do to get this free stamp. When you get off the plane, you are given a migration card form. It must be filled in: indicate the name, date of birth, country of your citizenship, the hotel in which you are going to relax. And on the back of the form you need to write: SINAI ONLY (SINAI ONLY). With the card filled in, you proudly walk past the booths that sell visas, straight to the border guards. Put your passport, migration card, and say: “Pliz, put the Sinai stamp” (please put a stamp). Previously, there were times when border guards tried - illegally - to force tourists to buy visas. They said that supposedly only the Israelis or only in Taba got a Sinai visa. 2013, however, was a turning point: after the revolution, when the tourist flow into the country became a little impoverished, the government became somewhat more loyal to those who come here “for free.”