Announcing Wander Women Red Sea: A Dive + Yoga Retreat

Oh, The Places We’ll Go

Subject to change, and expect surprises, but here’s the general idea.

 Day 1: Arrivals and a sunset poolside yoga class at our villas. Get to know each other over a group dinner with a basic Arabic lesson.

Day 2: After breakfast in the villa, head into town for some morning shore dives. Surface for an oceanfront lunch and sunbathing session at a local restaurant before an afternoon of SUP yoga and dinner out on the town.

Day 3: After a morning poolside vinyasa class, head out for a day exploring the dive sites of Gabr El Bint by boat. Choose between an optional night dive or fluorescent dive dive, and then dig into a pizza party back at the villas.

Day 4:  Choose your own adventure — head out to the PADI Continuing Education course of your choice. End the day with a relaxing aerial yoga class and an Egyptian cooking demo.

Day 5: Start the day with another poolside yoga class before a beach cleanup and a Project Aware cleanup dive. After, we’ll reward ourselves with dives at the world famous Blue Hole and Canyon dive sites. At night, we’ll screen underwater documentaries at our own little Wanderland Film Festival.

Day 6: Pack your bags, we’re heading to the desert! After a camel ride along the coast, we’ll arrive at our home for the night, the remote bedouin settlement of Ras Abu Galum. After two sendoff dives exploring the area, you’re free to snorkel, make friends with camels, join our partner yoga  class, or enjoy being lost in the middle of nowhere. At night, we’ll settle in for a traditional bedouin dinner.

Day 7: After a final yoga class on the beach in Ras Abu Galum, we’ll pack up to head back to Dahab. For a day of decompression adventures, we’ll head out the canyons with a local adventure tour company before a final farewell dinner.

Day 8: Breakfast at the villa followed by personal time + departure at your leisure. Not ready to say goodbye? Join us for our post-retreat Pyramid Plus Package to Cairo!

Where We’ll Stay and What We’ll Eat

We’ll be staying at a gorgeous seaside villa complex in north Dahab. With Arabic-inspired architecture, a luscious pool, and an onsite sauna, it will be a luxurious place to recharge between dives and desert adventures!

Shared rooms have two twin beds and private rooms have one double bed. Of course you can room with a friend but if you’re traveling solo, fear not, so are most of our Wander Women guests! We’ll do our best to pair you with someone we think you’ll click with based on your intake forms — and we’ll all be besties by the end anyway. Rooms vary slightly by layout and view and will be assigned based on booking order.

Every morning we’ll have delicious healthy breakfasts and dinners at the villa and at favorite local spots. For lunch, which is not included in order to give you some freedom, we’ll typically dine as a group at local Egyptian restaurants where you can order as you please, though of course you are welcome to go elsewhere. Vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and other diets can easily be accommodated.

The Diving

The Red Sea is hailed as one of the greatest dive destinations in the world. With relaxed dive conditions, abundant marine life, and a diverse array of dive sites, Dahab is the perfect place to explore it. We’ll dive Dahab’s famous shore dive sites like Lighthouse, Blue Hole and Canyon, as well as visit the sites of Gabr El Bint by boat, and Ras Abu Galum by camel. We’ll do a Project Aware cleanup dive, and give you the opportunity to sign up for an optional night dive or a UV night dive.

Read more about diving in Dahab and about diving in Ras Abu Galum.

You’ll also get to take home a fresh new continuing education certification! For the Choose Your Own Adventure day, choose between the following courses. Each are one day PADI dive courses that include two scuba dives. Courses are first come, first serve.

Underwater Naturalist: Play Marine Biologist for a day! Learn about the Red Sea’s local ecosystem as well as the underwater ecology of the world at large. Dive into aquatic life groupings, interactions and information and discuss how to maintain responsible interactions with aquatic life.

Digital Underwater Photographer: Ace the shot! Learn about underwater photography techniques, how to interact with marine life, and editing tips. An underwater camera or a camera rental (which we can help facilitate) is required for this course. Read my review of a longer version of this course here.

DPV: Learn to fly underwater! Spend a day learning to dive with Diver Propulsion Vehicles, personal motors that allow you to scoot through the sea, gliding over reefs and around schools of fish. There is a $100USD surcharge for this course.

Basic Freediver: Try it without a tank! The “DSD” of freediving, Basic Freediver teaches basic freediving principles, practices breathhold techniques, and gets your fins wet in the introductory skills.

Enriched Air: Dive safer and stay down longer! An Enriched Air certification is good for life and will allow you to dive on nitrox around the world. Plus, it feels great. If you need a break from diving for any reason, this course can be conducted as a dry course. Read my review of a longer version of this course here.

Dive and Downward Dog With Us

Many of you may recall I first visited Dahab from my first trip there as part of three weeks in Egypt in April of 2018. I knew almost instantaneously that this would be the sight of a future Wander Women Retreat.

For those that are new around here, I’m a PADI Divemaster and AmbassaDiver and I’ve worked in the dive industry as an underwater videographer, a writer for publications like Sport Diver and Scuba Diver magazines, and as the founder of Wander Women Retreats. I’m also a RYT 200 Registered Yoga Teacher, a Buti Bands and Sculpt instructor, and a regular yoga practitioner for over a decade.