Two countries under one name: the Nile with its temples, which needs a plan, and the Red Sea, which needs only a charter — few people do both in one trip
Egypt is two trips under one name, and the decision to make before the ticket is not whether but which: the Nile with Cairo and Luxor runs October to April, while Hurghada and Sinai run all year and need no plan at all. If your passport qualifies, the visa is simply bought at the airport.
The visa on arrival is the whole procedure: a sticker bought at a bank counter before passport control, or arranged in advance on the official portal. It costs about €26 for a single-entry visa of 30 days; you pay in dollars or euros, not pounds. If you fly to Sharm el-Sheikh and stay in Sinai you can skip it — the Sinai stamp is free and valid for fifteen days, but it does not take you to Cairo or Luxor. Cairo airport (CAI) is 15 km from the city as the crow flies, and Hurghada airport (HRG) 9 km from the resort.
Each place has its own page — what makes it worth the detour, and how long you need.
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
You do not do the whole country. Tourist Egypt is three separate worlds: Cairo with the pyramids and the new Grand Museum; Upper Egypt, where Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel line up along the Nile and are done by cruise or train; and the Red Sea, with Hurghada on one shore and Sinai on the other. The classic week is Cairo plus Luxor and Aswan with a cruise between them. Anyone who wants the sea as well adds Hurghada at the end — four hours by coach from Luxor — and that is the only combination people genuinely do.
Tickets have nearly doubled in pounds since 2023, while in euros the base tickets are almost unchanged; the extras are what rose. The Giza plateau is about 700 pounds, the inside of the Great Pyramid another 1,500, the Grand Egyptian Museum 1,450 and online-only, and the Valley of the Kings with three tombs 750 — all for foreigners, all in a local currency that keeps moving. Most major sites have gone card-only. For a week along the Nile allow a hundred to a hundred and fifty euros a head for entries alone, which is more than people usually assume about 'cheap' Egypt.
How it actually was when we were there, and what was worth it.
Headlines about tickets that have tripled are counting in pounds. In euros the base tickets have barely moved since 2023, the extras…
What made Giza tiring was getting between the pyramids, and that had to be negotiated. Since the new gate and the buses it no longer…
The same three temples, two entirely different weeks. The difference is not what you see but when you see it, and with how many people.
Two resorts on the same sea that look identical in a brochure. There are four differences, and all four show on the first day.
One sentence at passport control changes about €26 and the whole shape of the trip. It is worth knowing which sentence, and when.
The Grand Egyptian Museum next to the Giza pyramids officially opened on 1 November 2025 after two decades of building. For the first time the complete Tutankhamun collection is in one place — over five thousand objects that had been scattered between storerooms and the old museum on Tahrir.
When the Aswan dam began filling Lake Nasser in the 1960s, Abu Simbel and some twenty other temples were cut into blocks and moved to higher ground. Abu Simbel went 65 metres up and 200 metres back, so that the sun still lights the inner sanctuary twice a year — just one day later than before.
Which is why 'Upper Egypt' is not the north but the south: upper means upstream. Luxor and Aswan are Upper Egypt, the delta with Alexandria is Lower. Once that clicks, the map of the country stops being confusing.
More than twenty million people in the wider city, and you can hear it: traffic is counted in hours, not kilometres. The three-line metro is the only transport that does not stand still, and a ticket is between 10 and 20 pounds depending on the number of stations.
Forty-five kilometres east of Cairo the New Administrative Capital is rising, with the tallest building in Africa. The ministries have already moved; a visitor never sees it, but it explains why old Cairo is at once overcrowded and neglected.
That is why ticket prices in pounds have more than doubled while in euros they rose less than it seems.
This isn't a ranking — it's a route. Any one of these could carry a whole trip.
Ten hours from Cairo, by the Libyan border: salt lakes you float in as in the Dead Sea, the temple where Alexander the Great was declared son of the pharaoh, and a mud town that dissolves in rain — of which there is almost none. Go for three days, not less, and it is the one place in the country where tourism is not felt.
Chalk mushrooms and rock icicles shaped by wind over millions of years, four to five hours from Cairo to the Bahariya oasis, then on by jeep. Done as a night under the stars with a Bedouin guide; you do not go alone, because there are no roads. The best single day away from the Nile.
The oldest continuously working monastery in the world, at the foot of Mount Sinai since the 6th century. The climb starts at two in the morning to reach the top by sunrise, which is why you sleep here. You come from Sharm in three hours, from Dahab in an hour and a half.
The step pyramid of Djoser — older than Giza's and the first great stone building on earth — half an hour south of Cairo. The nobles' tombs with their painted reliefs are better preserved than anything at Giza, with a tenth of the people. Done the same day as Coptic Cairo, in the afternoon.
The southern Red Sea coast, three hours below Hurghada, where the reefs start at the beach and dugongs and turtles are seen from the shore. There are fewer hotels and they are spread out, which is exactly why you choose it. The airport has charter flights; without one, you come via Hurghada.
Hieroglyphs were unreadable for fifteen hundred years until Champollion cracked them in 1822 using the Rosetta Stone, the same text in three scripts. What decided it was his knowledge of Coptic, a descendant of ancient Egyptian.
The Egyptians used a calendar of 365 days, twelve months of thirty days plus five extra. Julius Caesar took it over and built from it the calendar Europe used for sixteen centuries.
Short answers to what people ask most before setting out.
It costs about €26 at the airport and is valid 30 days; it can also be arranged in advance on the official portal. If you fly to Sharm el-Sheikh and stay in Sinai you get a free Sinai stamp for 15 days, which does not take you to Cairo.
For the Nile and Cairo, October to April — in summer Luxor passes 40 degrees and touring temples becomes endurance rather than sightseeing. The Red Sea is pleasant all year, with the water around 22 degrees in winter.
Food, transport and rooms are; the tickets are not. Nearly doubled in pounds since 2023 and almost unchanged in euros, they still come to a hundred to a hundred and fifty euros a head for a week of sites along the Nile.
Keep going — these destinations and stories pair well with this one.
Ten towns in a line, from the capital to the sand at Tozeur — in the order they're actually travelled, not listed
The north by train, the south by road, and in July you leave Marrakech for the coast
Istanbul, then one direction: Cappadocia by plane, Ephesus and Pamukkale by train, or the Lycian coast by bus
The whole of Egypt fits into one query — six questions and you know which of them suits you.
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All photographs come from Wikimedia Commons and are used under the licence stated beside each one.
