In late February 2025, I realized a long-time dream of mine by visiting Egypt with my family. Even as a child, I admired the cultural riches of ancient Egypt and read many books regarding this topic, including Egyptian mythology. When I told my mother how I wanted to visit Egypt someday, she replied: “What’s there? Just a bunch of desert!” Her ignorance notwithstanding, there are numerous glowing reviews of Egypt left online by repeat travelers as well as many first timers vowing that they will never return. Also there are ever-present concerns about safety due to past and recent geopolitical events, but many visitors and locals claim that Egypt is very safe for tourists. So what is the truth? Is Egypt worth visiting? I believe the truth is totally subjective and depends on where you are coming from and the baseline expectations you possess. But for the most part, when done right and adjusting your expectations, you will not regret your decision to visit this country and it really should be on everyone’s bucket list. Here are my top tips to have a safe and enjoyable trip in Egypt!

1. FIND A REPUTABLE GUIDE/GROUP TOUR AND PLAN TO SPEND AT LEAST 1 WEEK FOR SIGHTSEEING

I joined many Egypt travel forums on social media platforms to scope out what would be the best way to travel to Egypt – group tour or DIY. Even though I am usually a huge fan of independent travel for the freedom and flexibility, I believe small group tours (around 10 people maximum) are the best in the case of Egypt. This is due to the fact that DIY travel is very difficult in Egypt – the infrastructure is simply not geared for it. Just booking train tickets or even domestic flight tickets online as foreigners are bafflingly frustrating ordeals: there are limited number of seats reserved for foreigners and the official websites don’t work properly at all (e.g. you won’t be able to pay with your credit card), there will always be some sort of a bug or error message hindering your transaction. Also renting a car and driving can be hair-raising, death-defying stunts. Dangerous driving habits of locals, poor signage and lackluster condition of roads make it precarious for visitors to drive on their own, not to mention military roadblocks or checkpoints at some locations.

There are numerous companies out there offering packaged tours, and it’s very important to do your research and check all the reviews. If you know exactly what you want to see, you can even create a customized itinerary yourself and ask individual travel guides to take you around on private transportation. The prices can vary wildly, so make sure you ask for quotes from reputable guides or travel agencies for comparison. I ended up choosing a small group package tour of “6 nights and 7 days” on Viator, starting from Cairo. To give you an idea of how much things cost and see a typical “Best of Egypt” itinerary, here was our packaged tour which we paid $1,700 for (2 adults and 1 child):

Day 1: Private driver picked us up from Cairo to go to the Giza train station, to take the overnight train to Aswan (12-13 hr+ ride).

Day 2: Private Driver picked us up from Aswan train station to take us to our Nile Cruise Ship, we rested and had lunch on ship. Then we had a guided tour of Aswan Dam and Philae Temple in the afternoon and enjoyed dinner and evening entertainment on ship.

Day 3: Left the cruise ship for guided tour of Abu Simbel Temple at 3:30a.m. (3 hour drive south). Came back on cruise ship by lunch, then sailed to Kom Ombo Temple, then had dinner and enjoyed evening on ship.

Day 4: Had an early morning guided tour of Edfu temple then sailed to Luxor to see Karnak and Luxor temples.

Day 5: Checked out of the cruise ship at predawn to take an early morning hot air balloon ride (optional, $65 pp extra) over Valley of the Kings, Luxor. Then had guided tour of Queen Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple, several tombs of pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings (Tutankhamun, Ramses III, etc.) We were then dropped off at Luxor train station for overnight train (10 hr+ ride) back to Giza.

Day 6: Private driver picked us up from the Giza train station and dropped us off at our hotel in Cairo.

Our airfare was not included in the package. We also stayed for 1 night in Giza the day before the tour started to see the Great Pyramids and the new Grand Egyptian Museum, which we booked separately. Then we stayed in Cairo for 1 additional night the day after we came back from the tour to see the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo, and took another separate day trip to Alexandria the next day before flying out, for a total of 8 nights and 9 days. Compared to the magnificence of all the other sights on the Nile cruise, Alexandria was rather disappointing and totally skippable. I would definitely recommend spending at least 1 week in Egypt to cover all the important sights. But if you want to relax and/or go diving at the famous Red Sea resort towns of Sharm El-Sheikh and/or Hurghada, you will need to add on more days.

2. TAKE A NILE RIVER CRUISE TO HIT UP ALL (OR MOST) OF THE BEST OF THE BEST EGYPTIAN SIGHTS AT ONCE

Yes, I know – Luxor and Aswan are VERY far south of Cairo. Since it is such a long way and a hassle to get to, I ran across some people who said they skipped going down south when they visited Egypt. In my humble opinion, you are missing out on the best of the best sights in Egypt by doing this – the most incredible ancient temples and tombs are all located near and between Aswan and Luxor. As a history enthusiast, I have visited many archaeological sites throughout the ancient world – Roman, Greek, Hittite, Chinese, Mayan, Trojan, etc. But absolutely NONE could hold a candle to the grandeur of the attractions in southern Egypt (or the Upper Nile, as they say). My jaw was on the floor!! And the most enjoyable way to see all of these sights all at once are by taking the Nile river cruise. Also don’t miss the early morning hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings in Luxor – it’s spectacular!

But I must admit that the 10-13 hour overnight train ride between Cairo/Giza to Aswan/Luxor are quite harrowing and if I had to do it over again, I would opt for taking domestic flights despite the higher price. Even the “first class” or “special class” trains are dilapidated and extremely noisy, you will hardly be able to get any sleep at all. Definitely save yourself the trouble and fly instead of taking the train!

3. ADJUST YOUR EXPECTATIONS

Needless to say, Egypt is a developing country and it’s likely that you will not find all of the creature comforts or the sanitation standards of your home country. For one, you cannot drink the tap water. It’s fine to shower in and brush your teeth with, but you should be drinking bottled water at all times. We were a bit apprehensive about eating fresh vegetables and fruits initially, but reputable restaurants, hotels and your Nile cruise ship should be using purified or filtered water to wash their produce. We drank lots of freshly squeezed juices (sugar cane, mango, strawberry, guava, etc.), enjoyed fresh salads as well as delicious local delicacies (like stuffed pigeon) and didn’t get sick. But we only ate on the cruise ship, local restaurants that tour guides took us to, and eateries that we saw good reviews on the internet beforehand (no street food or random restaurants). So it’s good to be on the safe side and fortify your gut biome with yogurt, kombucha, kimchi and other probiotic rich foods before your trip to prevent any gastric maladies. Also I brought probiotic supplements with me just in case.

Egypt relies heavily on tourism, so most people you come across on your trip will be able to speak at least a little bit of English to communicate with you. But don’t expect everyone to speak at a fluent conversational level. Even some of the tour guides were speaking English at various levels – some were perfectly understandable and some were not. It’s really a luck of the draw but we were lucky enough to get a good guide for the bulk of our trip (his services were included in the Nile cruise). But if you’re more comfortable with a guide speaking your native language instead of English, be sure to seek them out with your country’s tour agencies. We saw guides speaking many languages leading groups from Korea, China, Japan, Germany, France, Spain, Russia, etc., so they are definitely available.

4. MENTALLY PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE TIP CULTURE AND OTHER CULTURE SHOCK

As the negative reviewers will tell you on the web, the worst part of visiting Egypt is the constant haranguing for tips. Due to the extremely low wages and poor economic conditions in Egypt, the tip (“bakseesh” in Arabic) culture has gone beyond pervasive to the territory of onerous. Basically EVERYONE who provides ANY service to you expects a tip – the drivers, the guides, the porters, bathroom attendants, waiters, etc. Even innocuous services that you don’t normally tip for in other countries, like a train station employee showing you to your train and seat, asked us for a tip. And the guards at the temples and the tombs that you will visit will try to point out some details/hidden features or offer to take pictures of you and ask for a tip. If you don’t want to be harassed, just ignore them or say a firm ‘no thank you’ and walk away.

And then there are the poor children who are trying to sell you trinkets, or just straight up ask for money. You can keep small change (either dollars or Egyptian pounds) in your pockets to give to them, but beware that once you give to one child, they might start fighting over the money and other very persistent children will follow you around. It was very tragic to see this, and I even heard of solo travelers who were swarmed by children and robbed of their valuables, so beware and always stay close to your group and local guide 😦

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Egyptians say that “Egypt is a gift of the Nile” and I agree – it absolutely boggles the mind to think that fueled by the wealth generated by the fertile lands around the Nile, the ancient Egyptians were able to build such colossal monuments with Bronze Age technology (3,000-4,000 years ago). It truly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me, for good and for bad. As I stated above, I don’t think there’s any other country with as many ancient monuments of the same scale as Egypt and you will definitely be impressed. It’s not exactly the most relaxing place to visit as your itinerary will be JAMPACKED but it will be so worth it! It may even be one of the most memorable trips of my life, one I won’t soon forget.