Egypt is four thousand years and one long river. The trick is the order.
Which Giza tour actually goes inside a pyramid. What the balloon over Luxor costs at first light. Whether the cruise south beats the road to Abu Simbel. Reviews of every tour you can book in Egypt.
Giza, a balloon over the Theban hills, the river south, one day on the reef.
The four bookings an Egyptian itinerary is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningPyramids & Great Sphinx Private Tour with Camel RideGiza at opening, while the Sphinx enclosure is still in shadow and the coaches are somewhere on the ring road.
02The dawn alarmHot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers IncludedUp at four and over the west bank as the light crosses the Valley of the Kings. The one Luxor booking nobody argues about.
03The river south4-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air BalloonFour days from Aswan down to Luxor with Abu Simbel attached. The temples arrive in the order the river gives them.
04The day offLuxury Cruise Trip to Orange Bay with LunchA boat out of Hurghada to Orange Bay with lunch on board and long enough in the water to earn it.
Old Kingdom, New Kingdom, and the museum that holds what was left behind.
Almost everyone comes for this and then has to choose. Four kinds of ancient day, what it costs to walk into each one, and which city it runs from.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · Pyramids & Great Sphinx Private Tour with Camel Ride
Giza and the SphinxThree pyramids, the enclosure, the camel touts at the gate.
The Theban west bankPainted tombs, Hatshepsut under her cliff, the Colossi.
Abu SimbelFour seated Ramesses near the Sudanese border.
The Cairo museumTutankhamun gold, and the kings who built the rest.
All 105 days on the Giza plateau →
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Egypt.
Every Egyptian tour we have reviewed →The tours that carry the most people in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Luxor Valley of the Kings & Tutankhamun Tomb Trip
Explore Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut and Memnon on a long, guided Luxor day trip from Hurghada for $76.
From · $76
Read our review →
2
Pyramids & Great Sphinx Private Tour with Camel Ride
from $48
3
Tour to Giza Pyramids and The Egyptian Museum
from $155
4
Cairo and Giza Highlights Full-Day Tour
from $76
5
Luxury Cruise Trip to Orange Bay with Lunch
from $53
6
Luxor Day Trip from Hurghada Small Group & Tutankhamun Tomb
from $95
7
Orange Bay Island Boat Trip w/ Breakfast and Lunch
from $34
8
Royal Seascope Submarine Cruise with Snorkel Stop
from $21
Cairo: Giza in the morning, indoors once the sun means it.
Everything in Cairo →
The pyramids sit at the end of a suburb, twenty minutes from a Nile hotel and forty from the airport. Do them early. Then put the middle of the day under a roof: the museum, the citadel, or the covered lanes of Khan el-Khalili.
Inside the chamber, or just the plateau
The plateau ticket covers the three pyramids, the Sphinx enclosure and the panorama point. Going inside the Great Pyramid is a separate ticket and a bent-double climb up a wooden ramp. Worth doing once.
Tutankhamun, and the room of kings
The gold mask and the nested coffins carry the crowd. The quiet room is the royal mummies, laid out at eye level: Ramesses II, Seti, Hatshepsut. Save it for when the plateau gets hot.
Khan el-Khalili, and the tea afterwards
Lanterns, brass, cotton and a great deal of theatre. Opening prices run at four times what anyone actually pays. Finish at a coffee house in the lanes behind the mosque and let the sellers come to you.
The Red Sea does not care that you came for the tombs.
A couple of hundred metres offshore the sand stops and the reef starts. Boat days out of Hurghada and Sharm, glass hulls for anyone who would rather stay dry, and the shallow water where the dolphins come through early.
What a day out in Egypt actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best Egyptian days come in under the fare from the airport.
Site entries, city walks, quad runs out into the desert and most of the Red Sea boat days.
Private Giza days with a guide, Abu Simbel by road, the balloon at first light, dinner on the river.
Multi-day cruises, a driver for the week, and the flights south that save a whole day.
Luxor is a working town with a necropolis on the far bank.
Karnak and the temple in the middle of town sit on the east side. The tombs and the mortuary temples are on the west, behind a ridge of limestone. The balloon goes up before either bank opens, which is the only way to see both at once.
Every Luxor day out →Cairo for the pyramids, Luxor for the tombs, the coast for everything after.
Where you sleep decides what you can reach before the heat arrives. Six bases, and the best day out from each of them.
Three things that only happen in Egypt.
Deserts and old stones turn up all over the region. A painted tomb you can walk into, a balloon over a necropolis, and a temple that was sawn up and moved uphill do not.
The Valley of the Kings
Sixty-odd tombs are cut into the rock behind Deir el-Bahari, and the paint inside them is three thousand years old and still bright. A standard ticket admits you to three of whichever are open that week. Tutankhamun, Seti I and Ramesses VI each cost extra and each get argued about. No flash, no tripods, and the air down the corridors is thicker than you expect.
- 1Luxor Valley of the Kings & Tutankhamun Tomb Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 13,208 reviews
- 2Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut Temple Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 1,404 reviews
- 3Luxor Tour with Valley of Kings, Karnak & Tut Tomb★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,082 reviews
The Luxor Balloon
Baskets lift off the west bank in the dark and drift over the mortuary temples while the sun comes up behind the river. Flights depend entirely on the wind, and a scrubbed morning is normally rebooked for the next one rather than refunded. It is the only view that holds the tombs, the temples and the green strip in a single frame.
- 1Hot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers Included★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,319 reviews
- 2Hot Air Balloon Ride over Luxor Relics★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,681 reviews
- 3Luxury Sunrise Balloon Ride in Luxor with Hotel Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,104 reviews
Abu Simbel
When the High Dam flooded Nubia, both temples at Abu Simbel were cut into blocks and rebuilt sixty metres higher inside an artificial hill. Four seated statues of Ramesses II still face the sunrise, and twice a year the light runs the length of the hall to the sanctuary at the back. Most people arrive by road from Aswan, leaving around three in the morning.
- 14-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,142 reviews
- 2Abu Simbel Temple Day Trip with Hotel Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 2,807 reviews
- 34-Day 3-Night Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor including Abu Simbel, Air Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 612 reviews
Everything good in Egypt happens before ten or after four.
From April to October the middle of the day on an open site is punishing, and Upper Egypt is harder than Cairo. The country already runs this way: balloons at first light, tombs at opening, the desert at dusk. Put the hours in between under a roof or on the water.
South of Luxor the Nile narrows and Egypt goes quiet.
Aswan is granite islands, feluccas tacking across to the Nubian villages, and the last easy stretch of river before Sudan. Abu Simbel is three hours further south by road and the convoy leaves in the dark.
- 14-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air Balloonfrom $349
- 2Abu Simbel Temple Day Trip with Hotel Pickupfrom $70
- 34-Day 3-Night Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor including Abu Simbel, Air Balloonfrom $329
Four Egyptian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before from a hotel desk. These four run on flight seats, balloon weather, convoy times and ticket offices that shut early.
- 014-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air BalloonThe road convoy leaves Aswan in the small hours and the flights are a thin daily allocation. Neither is a same-day decision.
- 02Hot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers IncludedBaskets launch at first light and the good mornings fill weeks ahead through the cool season. Wind cancels flights, and the rebooking goes to whoever is already on the list.
- 034-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air BalloonCabins move as a block with the sailing schedule. Turning up in Aswan hoping for a berth to Luxor is how people end up on the train.
- 04Luxor Valley of the Kings & Tutankhamun Tomb TripThe headline tombs are separate tickets sold at the gate, in cash, and they run out on the days the cruise boats are in.
Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, then the sea: the route almost everybody does first.
HurghadaBy place, north to south
By kind of day: tomb, reef, dune or river
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