The pyramids are the easy part.
Balloons over the Luxor West Bank, the reef wall off Giftun, four nights sailing down to Aswan and one clear morning on the Giza plateau. Which ones repay the early alarm, what you pay, and who runs them.
The bookings everyone lands for.
Giza at opening time, the balloon over the West Bank at first light, a boat between Luxor and Aswan, an hour on the Giftun reef. These fill first, and they are the ones worth building the rest of the week around.
Tour to Giza Pyramids and The Egyptian Museum
Private Cairo day to Giza Pyramids, Sphinx, and the Egyptian Museum, with hotel pickup, lunch, admissions, plus Egyptologist guidance.
From $155 per person
Read the review →
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Three pyramids, one good morning.
The gate opens at eight and the coach parties arrive around ten, so the hour in between is the one to book. Car or camel out to the panorama point where all three line up, the Sphinx from the causeway, then Saqqara or the museum in the afternoon. Below are the Giza tours that get the timing right.
The plateau, three ways.
Almost every Egypt trip opens at Giza, and the ticket you buy decides how the day goes. Three ways to do it, all priced and reviewed, so you can match one to the morning you actually want.
The classic morning
Pyramids, Sphinx, back by lunch
4 - 8 hours · from $48 · 6,335 reviews
Hotel pickup, the viewpoint where the three pyramids line up behind each other, the Sphinx from the causeway, and a camel or horse leg across the sand if you want one. Half a day, back in Cairo for the afternoon. This is the booking most first visits should make.
Compare the Giza mornings →
Into the chambers
Inside the Great Pyramid
from $14 · 2,448 reviews
The interior ticket is sold separately, capped daily and gone by mid-morning, so it is worth having inside the booking rather than queueing for it. A steep, hot, low climb up the Grand Gallery to the King’s Chamber. Skip it with a bad back or claustrophobia; take it otherwise.
See the interior tickets →
The older pyramids
Saqqara, Memphis and Dahshur
8 hours · from $90 · 3,110 reviews
Djoser’s step pyramid came first, the Bent and Red pyramids at Dahshur show the geometry being worked out, and Memphis keeps the fallen colossus of Ramses under a roof. Quieter than Giza, and a full day is what makes the sequence make sense.
See the three pyramid fields →
The best sky is inland.
Inland from the coast the light pollution stops after about an hour and the Milky Way turns up over the Bedouin camps, usually with a barbecue and a telescope under it. In Cairo the boats cast off around eight with dinner and a tanoura spinning on the top deck. Two very different nights, both bookable.
Giftun is forty minutes out.
Giftun’s sandbars, the drop-off at Ras Mohammed, dolphins over the shallow reef at Sha’ab El Erg. Boats leave Hurghada and Sharm every morning; these are the ones that carry decent kit, lunch and enough time in the water to be worth the crossing.
The balloon goes up at five.
Take-off is around five from the West Bank, over Hatshepsut’s terraces and the Colossi with the Nile going gold underneath. Flights run about forty-five minutes and stand down for wind, so book early in your stay and keep a spare morning in hand.
The Nile still does the travelling.
Three or four nights between Luxor and Aswan, with Edfu and Kom Ombo tied up alongside before breakfast and Philae on the last morning. No airport, no coach, and the temples arrive in the order they were built. Feluccas do the short version at sunset for the price of a coffee.
Pick the Egypt you came for.
Cairo and Giza at the top of the map, Luxor’s two banks in the middle, Aswan and Abu Simbel at the southern end, Alexandria out on the coast. Most trips manage two of them. The good ones manage three.
Start with the balloon, the reef or the tomb.
Twelve kinds of Egyptian day, each already priced and reviewed. Balloons and reefs, quad bikes and dinner boats, and a submarine window for the weeks when the water is too cold to get into.
Hot Air Ballooning43 tours
Snorkelling the Reefs48 tours
Diving & PADI Courses17 tours
Desert Safaris39 tours
Island Boat Days32 tours
Quad Biking45 tours
Dolphin Trips19 tours
Nile Dinner Cruises11 tours
Water Sports25 tours
Submarine & Glass-Bottom10 tours
Nile Cruises29 tours
Felucca Sailing15 tours
The best ones start before six.
Egypt’s distances are long and the honest trips say so. Luxor from Hurghada is around five hours of desert road each way and still worth it; Cairo from the coast is a short flight and home for dinner.
Three days, properly ordered.
Cairo and Giza first, then Luxor, then south to Aswan. It is the sequence almost every good Egypt trip follows, and each day below opens the list of tours that fit it.
Day 1
Giza, then the museum
The plateau at opening, the Sphinx from the causeway, lunch, then Tutankhamun’s gold in the afternoon. The two sit an hour apart in Cairo traffic, so book them as one day rather than two half ones.
Plan day one →
Day 2
Luxor from the air, then the tombs
Up at four for the balloon, down in time for the Valley of the Kings before the heat sets in, Hatshepsut’s terraces and the Colossi on the way back. Leave Karnak for five o’clock, when the light comes in low along the columns.
Plan day two →
Day 3
South to Aswan and Abu Simbel
The road convoy leaves Aswan around four in the morning and reaches the facade for sunrise, which is the point of going. Philae and the High Dam fill the afternoon, or take a felucca out to the islands and do nothing at all.
Plan day three →
Fresh off the Nile and the Red Sea.
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