The pyramids are the easy part.
Giza takes one morning. Then comes the hard bit: which Nile boat, which tombs, whether the balloon is worth the 4am alarm, and how to see the reef without losing a day to the drive. Every Egypt tour, read and ranked.
Egypt’s most-booked, from Giza to the reef.
Every review →One list, ordered by how many travellers actually went. It is a fair map of what Egypt sells: the plateau, the tombs, the boats and the desert.
1
Luxor Valley of the Kings & Tutankhamun Tomb Trip
Guided full-day Luxor trip from Hurghada with Karnak, Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut, Memnon, plus optional Tutankhamun tomb and Nile boat.
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
Giza, the Nile, the tombs, the reef.
Almost every Egypt itinerary is built from the same handful of days. Here is each one, and the best way to book it.
One morning at Giza, and how to spend it.
All Giza tours →
Gates open early and the plateau is at its kindest before the coaches arrive. These three carry the most travellers; the full list splits the rest by how much of the day you want to give it.
Plateau, Sphinx, back by lunch
The three pyramids, the panorama point, the Sphinx enclosure and out. Enough for the photographs and the scale, not enough for the inside of a chamber.
Giza, Saqqara and Memphis in one sweep
Add the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the oldest of them all, and the open-air museum at Memphis. It is the day that explains how Giza happened.
Plateau in the morning, museum after
The stones make far more sense once you have stood in front of what came out of them. Two museums now split that story between downtown Cairo and Giza.
Between Luxor and Aswan, the road is water.
Three or four nights, a cabin, and temples that arrive at the rail rather than at the end of a coach ride. Edfu and Kom Ombo sit on the bank precisely because the river was always the way through.
The Red Sea does the other half of Egypt.
Hurghada, Sharm and Marsa Alam sit on one of the healthiest reef systems anywhere, and the boats leave every morning. Snorkel gear, a dolphin reef, an island sandbar and lunch on deck — most of it costs less than a museum day in Europe.
Giza for the price of lunch.
Egypt is the rare headline destination where the famous thing is not the expensive thing. Every tour on the site, sorted by what it actually costs.
Plateau mornings, museum entries, bazaar walks, camel hours and most Red Sea boat days.
Full-day archaeology with lunch, quad-and-camp desert nights, balloon flights, the long day trips.
Multi-night Nile boats, private Egyptologists, chartered dive days and the fly-to-Luxor runs.
Abu Simbel, the balloons, the White Desert.
Temples and reefs exist elsewhere. A mountain sawn into blocks and rebuilt uphill, a dawn sky full of baskets over a burial valley, and a desert made of chalk do not.
Abu Simbel
Ramesses II cut four sixty-foot versions of himself into a cliff above the Nile, and in the 1960s the whole facade was cut into blocks and lifted to higher ground before Lake Nasser drowned it. It sits three and a half hours south of Aswan, which is why the coaches leave in the dark. Twice a year, in February and October, the sunrise reaches the statues in the innermost chamber.
- 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&Abu Simbel+Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,023 reviews
The Luxor Balloons
Pickup is somewhere around 4am, a ferry crosses to the West Bank, and the baskets go up as the sun does. From a few hundred feet the whole plan of Thebes is legible at once: the green strip, the desert edge, and the tombs cut into the hills behind it. Wind is the one thing nobody can book around, and grounded mornings roll forward into the next day.
- 1Hot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers Included★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,319 reviews
- 24-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,142 reviews
- 34-Day 3-Night Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor&Abu Simbel+Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,023 reviews
The Western Desert
Five hours west of Cairo the sand stops being sand. Bahariya opens onto the Black Desert, all iron-dark hills, and then the White Desert, where wind has carved chalk into mushrooms and towers that glow after sunset. Most trips camp out there, which is the point — the sky is the other half of it.
- 12-Day Bahariya Oasis Camp and Desert Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 616 reviews
- 2Private tour El Fayoum Oasis and Wadi Rayan waterfall from Cairo★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 449 reviews
- 3Full-Day Tour to El Fayoum★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 294 reviews
Khan el-Khalili at dusk, Giza at dawn: that’s Cairo.
The city holds the plateau, both museums, a medieval bazaar still trading, Coptic churches older than most of Europe’s cathedrals, and a citadel on the hill above it. Traffic is the real constraint, so most good Cairo days are built around one district at a time.
- 1Pyramids & Great Sphinx Private Tour with Camel Ridefrom $48
- 2Tour to Giza Pyramids and The Egyptian Museumfrom $155
- 3VIP All inclusive Best of the best Giza Pyramids,Sakkara,Memphisfrom $144
Some Egyptian mornings cannot be arranged the night before.
Most of Egypt can be booked from the hotel desk after dinner. These four cannot: they run on flight seats, ticket windows, convoy departures and weather that decides for you.
- 01Hot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers IncludedBaskets all lift in the same short window after first light, so a morning’s capacity is fixed — and a windy day pushes everyone into the next one.
- 024-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air BalloonIt is three and a half hours south of Aswan each way. Departures are before dawn, and the fly-in seats are a small fixed number.
- 03Grand Egyptian Museum, Pyramids, Sphinx Tour & LunchEntry is timed. Turning up without a slot on a cruise-ship morning is how people lose an afternoon.
- 04Sound and Light Show at Giza PyramidsEach site runs its evening show on a rotating language schedule, so the English performance is not on every night.
When Upper Egypt hits 40°C, move the day to dawn or to water.
Luxor and Aswan spend June to September well above 40°C in the afternoon, and the Red Sea coast is not far behind. Egyptians have solved this for centuries: start before sunrise, disappear for the middle of the day, and come back out in the evening. Balloons, tombs and plateau tours all run early for exactly this reason; boats and reefs stay comfortable because the water does the work.
By base — where are you sleeping?
Cairo & Giza1,175 tours
Hurghada291 tours
Luxor124 tours
Sharm el Sheikh105 tours
Aswan229 tours
Marsa Alam23 tours
Alexandria112 tours- All 10 regions →
By experience — what kind of day is it?
Cairo, Luxor, Aswan: the run almost everyone takes.
Cairo & Giza
Saqqara
Luxor
The river
Aswan
Abu Simbel
HurghadaThe newest Egypt reviews.
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