Holiday types

Egypt Holidays: The Main Kinds of Trip and Who They Suit

Egypt holidays come in six recognisable shapes: a cultural tour, a Nile cruise, a Red Sea beach or diving week, culture plus beach, a desert trip, or a Cairo city break. A week of temples between Cairo and Aswan has almost nothing in common with a fortnight of diving on the Red Sea. For a first visit, the culture-and-beach fortnight is the one to book; here is who each of the others suits.

What does a classic cultural tour cover?

The standard cultural trip is Cairo, then Luxor, then Aswan, with the Nile between them. Cairo gives you Giza, Saqqara and the museum collections. Luxor gives you Karnak, the Valley of the Kings and the west bank temples. Aswan gives you Philae, the granite quarries and the road or flight to Abu Simbel. Eight to twelve days is the honest range. Under a week you are choosing between Cairo and the south rather than seeing both.

It is a tiring holiday. Guides start early to work ahead of the heat and the coach parties, and two or three major sites in a day is the limit before they stop registering. Cairo traffic can swallow an hour crossing the river. If your idea of a holiday involves lie-ins, build in rest days or accept that you will see less.

Is a Nile cruise worth it?

Yes, for three or four nights, and for the river rather than the temples. A Nile cruise is transport and hotel in one. The temples it calls at, mainly Esna, Edfu and Kom Ombo, are the same ones you would reach by road from Luxor, so you are not buying access to anything exclusive. What you are buying is the river: green bank, desert edge behind it, and villages that have not changed shape much. Three nights running downstream from Aswan, four against the current from Luxor, is the standard.

The large boats have a real drawback. At Edfu and Kom Ombo they moor two and three abreast, so you cross other boats' lounges to get ashore, and the onboard entertainment is thin. A dahabiya, a small sailing boat with a handful of cabins, is slower, quieter, noticeably more expensive, and moors where the big boats cannot. If the budget stretches, take one. Feluccas are good for an afternoon's sailing at Aswan. Sleeping on one for two nights, no plumbing, mattress on deck, suits far fewer people than book it.

Red Sea beach and diving: which coast?

The Red Sea is not one place. Hurghada is the biggest and most built up, with the cheapest flights and the most worn inshore reef, so the good diving is a boat ride out. El Gouna next door is purpose-built, tidy and priced accordingly. Marsa Alam, further south, is quieter, with better reefs and its own airport but little around it. In Sinai, Sharm el-Sheikh has the resort machinery and access to Ras Mohammed; Dahab is cheaper, scruffier and built around shore diving.

The coast works all year. Winter water is cool enough that most people want a thicker wetsuit from December to March, and Hurghada gets windy, which is exactly why the kite and windsurf crowd go then. Summer is hot on land but bearable with a sea breeze, while Luxor at the same time is not. A week is enough for a straight beach holiday. Ten days or more if you are diving and want to reach the offshore reefs.

Combining culture and beach

This is the default choice, and the reason people pick Egypt over a straight beach destination. Five to seven days of temples, then a week at the sea. Hurghada is roughly four hours by road from Luxor, which makes the transfer simple; Marsa Alam is further, but flying home from its own airport can save you the drive back. Do the culture first. The temple half is early mornings and long days, and nobody wants that after a week of doing nothing.

It suits couples and families who do not agree about holidays: one gets the archaeology, the other gets the water, and both get a fortnight instead of a compromise. It is also the safest choice if you do not yet know how much ancient Egypt you actually want. Five days of temples will tell you whether you would come back for a fortnight of them.

Desert trips: who are they for?

Two nights in the Western Desert out of Cairo covers the black volcanic hills and the chalk formations of the White Desert, camping out on a trip run from Bahariya oasis. Siwa, out towards the Libyan border, is a different proposition: a long drive, an oasis with its own Berber language and salt lakes you can float in, and not worth attempting in under three or four days. Both are cool-season trips, roughly October to April. Government travel advice for the far west changes, so check it before committing.

Desert nights get genuinely cold, and facilities in a proper camp amount to a spade. These trips suit people who have already done the temples, or who want a hard contrast midway through a longer stay. Two nights is usually the right dose. A week in the sand is a specialist taste, and if you are not sure you have it, you do not.

Is Cairo worth a short city break?

Yes, for three or four days, and only if you want a city rather than a rest. Giza and Saqqara fit into one day, the main museum collection into another, and that still leaves time for the medieval city: the mosques and madrasas along al-Muizz street, the Khan el-Khalili, the Citadel. Most touring itineraries skip that part entirely, which is a mistake, because it is the half of Cairo that is still lived in rather than visited.

Be clear about the cost of it. Cairo is loud, dusty and hard on the nerves, and traffic will take hours you did not budget. Alexandria tempts people as a side trip and disappoints anyone expecting ancient ruins, since most of the Ptolemaic city lies under the harbour or under the modern one. Go for the corniche, the seafood and the faded early twentieth-century streets, or do not go.

When should you go?

October to April is the season for everything inland. December and January are coolest and busiest, and Luxor prices peak over Christmas and New Year. February and March give the best balance of weather and crowds, and are the months to aim for. May and September are hot but noticeably quieter and cheaper. June to August in Luxor and Aswan regularly passes forty degrees, meaning an early start and nothing after mid-morning. It is doable. It is not a fair first impression of the place.

Ramadan shifts about eleven days earlier each year, so check where it falls. Sites and museums stay open, transport runs, and the evenings give you the best atmosphere of the year. The trade-off is the daytime: many restaurants outside hotels close, guides and drivers are fasting through long hot days, and the hour before sunset empties the roads as everyone races home to eat.

What do Egypt holidays cost, and how are they put together?

Egypt is cheap on the ground and less cheap than it looks once tickets mount up. Every site has its own ticket, several charge separately for individual tombs or interiors, and a serious day in Luxor means a handful of them. Ticket prices are raised often, so price a specific itinerary rather than trusting a figure you read months earlier. The predictable costs are flights and the beach week; the culture half is where the total moves.

There are three ways to buy it. Large operators sell Red Sea package weeks cheaper than any independent outfit can match, so if a pool and a reef is all you want, use them. Fixed-date group tours cost less than private ones and move at the pace of the slowest person in the group. Arranging privately through an operator based in Cairo costs more per head in small parties, but you set the pace, the sites and the guide. For the culture half, that is the one to pay for: the guide decides whether any of it means anything.

Common questions

Is Egypt safe for tourists?+

The main corridor of Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, the Nile and the Red Sea resorts is heavily policed and has been quiet for years. Government travel advice does restrict parts of North Sinai and the desert near the Libyan border, and it is revised from time to time, so read the current version before booking. The everyday problem at the big sites is persistent selling, not crime.

What are the entry rules?+

Most British, European, North American and Australian passport holders can buy a tourist visa on arrival or apply online beforehand, and the online route saves queueing at the airport. Your passport needs six months left on it. Short stays around Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab can sometimes run on a Sinai-only entry permit, which does not cover the rest of the country. Rules change, so check the official source before you book.

Can you travel Egypt independently instead of on a tour?+

Yes, and cheaply. Domestic flights are frequent, the sleeper train between Cairo and Aswan works, and getting around cities is straightforward. What you give up is Egyptology. A tomb wall is decoration until somebody explains what each register is doing, and the gap between a good guide and a poor one is wider in Egypt than almost anywhere. Plenty of people travel alone and hire guides by the day.

How does tipping work?+

Baksheesh is part of daily life, so budget for it rather than resent it. Carry small notes constantly: for the man who opens a gate, the driver, the housekeeper, the boat crew. Guides and drivers on a multi-day trip expect a meaningful sum at the end. Get small denominations early, because nobody has change, and decline politely for services you did not ask for.

Will I get ill?+

Some people do, usually for a day or two. Drink bottled or filtered water, including for brushing teeth, and be wary of salads and ice in the cheapest places rather than avoiding street food on principle. On a summer trip the bigger risk is heat. Dehydration and headaches after four hours in the Valley of the Kings catch out more visitors than anything they ate.

Is Abu Simbel worth the effort?+

More than almost any optional extra in Egypt. It is either a short flight from Aswan or a drive of three hours or so each way, starting before dawn, and the temples justify either. The scale does not survive photographs. Nor does the strangeness of knowing the whole thing was cut apart and rebuilt higher up in the 1960s, with the joins still visible once you look.