Egypt vs Greece: which trip should you take?

What do you actually see in each?

Greece's classical sites are mostly floor plans. At Delphi, Olympia and most of Crete you are looking at foundations, column bases and a good museum, and doing the rest in your head. The Acropolis is the exception, and it is a half-day. What Greece keeps above ground is later work: Byzantine churches, Venetian harbours, hill monasteries and whole island towns that people still live in.

Egypt's are standing, roofed and painted. Karnak still has its columns and part of its ceiling. Tombs in the Valley of the Kings hold their colour after three thousand years, which no photograph prepares you for. The Giza pyramids were already about two thousand years old when the Parthenon was built. If ancient sites are why you travel, Egypt is not a rival to Greece — it is a different order of thing.

The caveat is setting. Giza sits on the edge of Greater Cairo, ring road and suburb directly behind the plateau, so the famous photographs are true from one angle and misleading from every other. Luxor's west bank is better — still farmland and desert — but nowhere in Egypt is as quiet as a small Greek island site.

Which is easier, and how much hassle is there?

Greece can be self-planned in an evening. You hire a car at the airport, book ferries online, and nobody needs to meet you anywhere. English is spoken everywhere a visitor goes, cards work, and if a plan falls through you improvise. The real friction is ferries: timetables shift with the wind, connections between island groups are poor, and a three-island trip in ten days spends more of itself on boats than people expect.

Egypt is the opposite. Cairo traffic has no rules you can read, tourist vehicles are stopped at road checkpoints, and at Giza and on Luxor's west bank you are approached constantly — camel rides, scarves, photographs, small tips for a door being opened. None of it is dangerous and all of it is wearing. It drops away almost entirely with a driver and guide, which is why Egypt trips are usually quoted privately rather than bought off a website.

Which costs more?

Day to day, Egypt is cheaper. Meals, taxis and drivers all cost less than the equivalent in Greece in season, though foreigner entry fees at the major Egyptian sites have risen steeply and are no longer the bargain they once were. And the way most people sensibly travel Egypt — a private guide and car, two or three domestic flights, a boat between Luxor and Aswan — stacks up. A well-run Egypt trip often lands at a similar daily figure to a self-driven Greek island holiday, with the money buying different things.

Season moves the Greek number far more. The same room on a popular island can cost several times more in August than in early June, and flights follow. Egypt's swing is gentler, with Christmas, New Year and February the busiest in Luxor and Aswan. One line people forget: tipping in Egypt is constant and expected, from drivers to tomb guardians. Treat it as a real part of the budget rather than loose change.

Where do you eat better?

Greece, comfortably. The taverna format — grilled fish, oil, tomatoes, cheese, a jug of local wine — is hard to get wrong, so you can walk into somewhere at random and eat well. Greek wine is decent and cheap. Egypt cannot match that consistency for a visitor, mainly because the food most visitors are served is hotel and cruise buffet, which is dull almost everywhere.

Egyptian food itself is better than its reputation, but you have to be taken to it: koshari, ful and taameya for breakfast, molokhia, slow-cooked lamb, bread straight off the oven floor. It is starchy, meat-heavy and light on vegetables by Mediterranean standards. Alcohol is available but limited, and Egyptian wine is expensive and not good. If eating is a main reason you travel, that settles it.

Beaches and sea: which one wins?

Split the question. Underwater, the Red Sea beats anything in Greece — reef within swimming distance of shore in places, high visibility, and water warm enough to swim in December. Greece has clear water and very little in it. Above water it reverses: Greek beaches come with a village, a headland and somewhere to eat, while the Red Sea coast is mostly purpose-built resort strip with desert behind.

Two warnings. Egypt's Mediterranean coast is not worth building a trip around for a foreign visitor: short season, ordinary sea by Greek standards, resorts built for domestic holidays. And if you want character rather than a pool and a reef, the Red Sea will disappoint you. Go for the diving, or for flat days after the sites, not for the place itself.

Which works better with children?

Greece, for almost any age. Drives are short, the sea breaks up every day, children are welcome in restaurants at any hour, and self-catering means you are not negotiating menus. A bad day in Greece still ends in the water. Nothing about it demands stamina from a five-year-old, and nothing about it demands much from the parents either.

Egypt with children works, but only if the trip is built for it. Heat, early starts, long transfers and one temple after another wear children out fast. What fixes it: a boat between Luxor and Aswan, so your room travels with you instead of packing between hotels, with a pool to come back to in the afternoon; two sites a day rather than four; and Red Sea days at the end. Roughly seven upwards is when the stories start to land.

How tiring is each trip?

This is the difference people underestimate. Egypt runs on early mornings, because heat and coaches both arrive by mid-morning. A typical day starts around dawn, involves several hours of walking on stone in full sun, and puts you back in a car afterwards. Eight days of Cairo, Luxor and Aswan done properly is closer to a work trip than a holiday, and plenty of people come home needing a rest.

Greece makes no such demand: the plan can change at breakfast and nothing is lost. That is not a criticism of either country, it is the choice you are making. Egypt is worth being tired for, but it should be planned with the tiredness in mind — fewer sites, a slow middle, and something flat at the end rather than a flight home straight off the last temple.

Egypt vs Greece: which wins if you can only pick one?

The seasons barely overlap, which decides the question. Greece works from May to October; in winter, island ferries thin out and much of what you came for is shut. Egypt works from October to April; in summer, Luxor and Aswan go well past 40C with the sites open in the middle of it. The overlap is late April into May, and late September into October. That is the window for doing both.

Logistically it is easy. Athens to Cairo is under three hours, and both are well connected to northern Europe, so combining them is a routing question rather than an expedition. Do Egypt first, while you have energy, then Greece to recover; the reverse order tends to end badly. Ten days is not enough for both — two and a half to three weeks is the honest minimum.

The verdict, if you only get one: Greece if you want a holiday, Egypt if you want to see something. For most people in most years that means Greece, because it is the trip that goes to plan and sends you home rested. Choose Egypt in the year you have an appetite for the effort, because there is no European substitute for standing under the roof of Karnak's hypostyle hall, and the effort is simply what it costs.