What to do

Things to Do in Egypt: An Honest, Ranked List

Most lists of things to do in Egypt give you the same ten sites in the same order with no opinion attached. This one ranks them and says plainly where the heat, the queues and the ticket price stop being worth it. The judgements are about what these places are actually like on the ground, not what a brochure says.

Are the Pyramids of Giza and the Grand Egyptian Museum still the best first stop?

Yes, and the order matters. Do the Grand Egyptian Museum first, then the plateau. The museum sits a couple of kilometres from the pyramids and now shows the complete Tutankhamun collection in one place, so the objects and the tombs they came out of finally make sense together. Give it half a day. A rushed hour there is wasted money.

At Giza, walk. The plateau is larger than photographs suggest, and the standard drive between viewpoints skips the quiet ground behind the pyramids. Going inside the Great Pyramid is the usual false economy: a hot, crouched climb up a narrow passage to an empty granite room. Skip it unless the space itself is the draw. The evening sound and light show is dated, and we would not book it.

Is a Nile cruise worth it, or should you take the train?

A cruise between Luxor and Aswan is worth it, with one caveat. The sailing is the point: the green strip, the desert edge behind it, and temples at Edfu and Kom Ombo reached from the water rather than a car park. Most large boats run the same three or four nights on the same schedule, so you meet thirty other boats at each stop. Going early is the only real fix.

Dahabiyas, the small sailing boats, take a dozen or so passengers, moor on sandbanks and keep no fixed timetable. They cost more and cover less ground. If you have the days, take one. If you only want Luxor and Aswan themselves, the sleeper train or a short flight does that, and no cruise is required.

How long do the Valley of the Kings and Abu Simbel really need?

The Valley of the Kings needs a morning, and it rewards paying extra. The standard ticket covers three tombs of your choosing. The two worth the separate fee are Seti I, the longest and best painted, and Nefertari over in the Valley of the Queens, where visits are short and numbers capped. Go at opening. By mid-morning the tombs are airless and the light is flat.

Abu Simbel is a full day: roughly three hours by road each way from Aswan, or a short flight. The temples deserve it, and the story of the whole complex being cut apart and moved uphill in the 1960s is half of what you are looking at. Worth the early alarm. Not worth pairing with anything else that day.

Where is Egypt worth visiting beyond the temples?

The Red Sea is the strongest non-pharaonic reason to come. The reefs off Sharm el-Sheikh and Marsa Alam are in decent condition by world standards, the wrecks are famous among divers, and the diving works all year. The resort towns are dull. Fly in, get on a boat, and expect nothing from the streets.

The White Desert, reached from Bahariya oasis, is chalk eroded into mushrooms and towers, and it is best camped in rather than driven through. Access has been restricted at times, so it needs checking rather than assuming. Siwa is eight to ten hours from Cairo, out towards the Libyan border: salt pools, a collapsing mud-brick fortress, and a slower pace than anywhere else here. Both suit a long trip or a second visit.

What is worth a day in Cairo and Alexandria?

Islamic Cairo is the most underrated thing on this list. The run of Al-Muizz street, the mosque of Ibn Tulun with its spiral minaret, and the working lanes behind Khan el-Khalili are a medieval city still in daily use, and cost almost nothing to walk through. Give it a full day on foot, best in the late afternoon.

Alexandria is a half-truth. Almost nothing of the ancient city survives above ground, and people who arrive expecting Cleopatra leave flat. Go for the corniche, the fish, the catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa and the modern library. It is two and a half to three hours from Cairo by train and worth an overnight rather than a special journey.

Which things to do in Egypt are overrated, and which are quietly better?

Overrated: the camel photograph arranged at the Giza gate, the shopping stops built into cheap cruise itineraries where the commission is the real product, and any tour that promises four sites in one day in July, when Luxor is regularly above 40C. Ballooning over Luxor divides people; the view is good, the pre-dawn scrum less so.

Better than their reputation: Saqqara and Dahshur, forty minutes or so south of Giza, where you can walk into a pyramid without queueing and hear nothing. Also Luxor's west bank away from the tombs, and Aswan itself, which most itineraries treat as a departure point rather than a place to spend two nights.

Common questions

How many days do you need in Egypt?+

Eight to ten days covers Cairo, Luxor and Aswan at a sane pace, with a few nights on the Nile in between. Five or six days is possible but means flying internally and skipping most of Cairo. Add the Red Sea, Siwa or the Western Desert and you are into two weeks.

When is the best time to go?+

November to March. Days in Upper Egypt are warm and the evenings cool, which matters when you are walking open sites. Summer in Luxor and Aswan regularly passes 40C and makes midday sightseeing genuinely unpleasant. The Red Sea works all year. Christmas and Easter are the busiest and priciest weeks.

Do you need a guide, or can you travel independently?+

You can travel independently, and plenty do. A guide earns their fee in two places: reading tombs and temples, which are close to meaningless without someone explaining the walls, and absorbing the constant approaches at major sites. Elsewhere, in Cairo streets and on the Red Sea coast, you do not need one.

How much hassle should you expect at the big sites?+

Persistent, rarely threatening. Expect offers of camels, scarves, and unrequested help at ticket gates and inside tombs, usually ending in a tip request. Carry small notes, decide in advance what you want, and say no once and clearly. It is at its worst at Giza and mild almost everywhere else.

What is not worth booking before you arrive?+

Day trips sold online at a markup, extra tomb tickets, and most bazaar-adjacent activities. Domestic flights, Abu Simbel transport, cruise cabins and Nile boats do need booking ahead, especially between December and February, when the good small boats fill months out.