Egypt travel questions, answered

Before you book

Two decisions shape everything else: how many days you have, and whether the southern leg is spent on a boat or in hotels. Eight days is the common shape, with Cairo and Giza, a short flight south, and three or four nights between Luxor and Aswan. Ten days lets you add Abu Simbel without a punishing pre-dawn round trip. Under a week, most of the time goes on airports and transfers. Hotel class, which tombs you pay extra for, private or shared, can all be adjusted later. The length cannot, because flights are booked around it.

An enquiry produces a useful quote when it carries four things: your dates or a rough window, how many of you there are and how the rooms are shared, whether Abu Simbel and a dawn balloon matter to you, and a budget band. Without the band, quotes get pitched at the middle and nobody is satisfied. On lead time, four to six months is not excessive for December and January, because the good boats go first. November, March and April need two to three months. Summer can be arranged in a few weeks.

How these trips are actually arranged

Trips here are quoted by enquiry rather than sold through an online checkout, and they are run on the ground by an operator in Cairo. That structure is normal for Egypt: European sellers routinely hand the ground arrangements to a local firm. It means a day or two of back and forth instead of instant confirmation, and prices that move with season and party size. The trade is that dates, boats and hotels are checked against real availability before any deposit. Whoever you book with, get the boat named in writing, not just a star rating.

Money and practicalities

The currency is the Egyptian pound, which has moved sharply in recent years, so any advice about how much to carry ages badly. Cards work in hotels, larger restaurants and proper shops. Cash covers tips, markets, taxis, small cafes and the attendant at a site toilet. Small notes matter more than the total you bring, because changing a large note at a kiosk is often impossible. ATMs are common in Cairo, Luxor, Aswan and the Red Sea towns, and occasionally empty, so draw cash before a cruise rather than during one.

Tipping is not optional politeness here. Baksheesh is part of how people are paid, and a guide, driver and boat crew are each tipped at the end of their stage rather than daily. Ask for the current going rate when you book, because it moves with the pound. Separate small notes go to the man who opens a gate or points out a detail in a tomb, and you can decline politely. On clothing: shoulders and knees covered at mosques and churches, a scarf for women in mosques, shoes off. Red Sea resorts are the exception.

What sits outside the quoted price

Outside the quote sit international flights, your visa, insurance, tips, most lunches and dinners on land, drinks on the boat, the single supplement, and several tickets sold separately at the sites. Not all extras are worth buying. The chamber inside the Great Pyramid is a steep, bent-double climb up a hot corridor to a bare granite room, and plenty of people wish they had skipped it. Nefertari's tomb in the Valley of the Queens is priced far above an ordinary ticket and, if you care about painting, is the one thing worth overpaying for.

Getting between Cairo and the south

The flight from Cairo takes about an hour to Luxor and a little longer to Aswan, and is what most itineraries use; departure times shift, so an early slot can move. The sleeper train is cheaper and a way to save a hotel night, not a highlight, since the cabins are basic and you arrive tired. Abu Simbel is roughly three hours each way by road from Aswan, starting before dawn, or a short flight that has you back by lunchtime. On the ground you travel by private car with a driver.

Safety and health

Government travel advice is written region by region, and that is the part people miss. The corridor most trips use — Cairo, the Nile valley between Luxor and Aswan, and the Red Sea coast — is assessed separately from North Sinai and several border areas, which carry warnings. Read your own foreign ministry's page for the specific places on your itinerary, close to departure, rather than a reassuring summary from a tour company. If part of a route stops making sense while your trip is being planned, you should expect to be told.

Day to day, the things that spoil trips are stomach upsets, heat and traffic. Use bottled water for drinking and teeth, skip ice in small places, and carry rehydration salts; most cases pass within a day or two. The heat is a planning problem, not a comfort problem: the sites are unshaded, Upper Egypt regularly passes 40C in summer, and winter nights in Aswan drop into single figures, which catches people out. Traffic is the genuine hazard. Ask for a car with working seat belts, and do not cross Cairo roads alone.

When we would tell you not to book

Not every enquiry should become a booking. A first trip with young children in July is a bad idea, and saying so is more useful than selling it. Three days taking in Cairo, Luxor and Abu Simbel does not work; something gets cut or the trip becomes transit. And if a budget only reaches a boat we would not put our own families on, the better answer is a shorter trip on a good boat than a longer one on a poor one. Egypt rewards seeing fewer places slowly.