AfricaEgyptEgypt
Egypt puts five thousand years of monuments along one river, with a warm sea beside it. You can reach the Giza pyramids at opening, sail a felucca between Aswan's granite islands, sleep out in the Western Desert and dive the Red Sea cheaply, and people go in every season.
EgyptEgypt in a nutshell
Best places to visit in Egypt
Turn these stops into a Egypt route
Pick your favourites and Stippl orders them, adds travel times and builds the day-by-day.
Plan your adventure in Egypt
Our travel routes through Egypt
Egypt is loved by culture seekers and backpackers alike. We recommend several routes through this country, here they are in full!
7 nights1 week, Sinai on its own
Sharm El Sheikh · Dahab
a genuinely separate Egyptian holiday, and our own data confirms it: Sharm holds 5.7% of the country's stops and appears on only 11.5% of its trips, the clearest below-floor figure in the country. People who come here do not go up the Nile.
9 nights10 days, the Western Desert and Alexandria
Cairo · Bahariya Oasis · White Desert
the alternative Egypt, almost never combined with the temple route. Siwa is a full day's drive from anywhere and Alexandria is a different civilisation.
10 nights10 days: the classic Nile, Cairo to Abu Simbel
Cairo · Giza · Luxor
the itinerary our own data actually shows. Cairo is on 76.4% of Egyptian trips and Luxor on 42.1%, and the Luxor to Aswan leg is usually a cruise, which is transport and a bed at once.
13 nights2 weeks, the Nile and the Red Sea
Cairo · Luxor · Aswan
adds the coast to the temples and fills the second week, which is what most fourteen-day trips do. The Luxor–Hurghada leg is a short drive rather than a flight.
Updated September 2026 · 14 min read · Written by the Stippl editorsWe read how travellers actually plan Egypt on Stippl, stop by stop and month by month.
Egypt is one river, one sea and one very large city, and ten days to two weeks covers the core of it. Almost everything worth crossing a continent for sits within a few kilometres of the Nile between Cairo and Abu Simbel: the Giza pyramids, the Grand Egyptian Museum with the complete Tutankhamun collection, the painted tombs of the Valley of the Kings at Luxor, and Philae at Aswan. Cairo alone holds 36.1% of every Egyptian stop planned on Stippl, and most routes start there.
Egypt gets planned for July almost as often as for October. Luxor and Aswan are dangerously hot in summer, yet the busiest month for Egypt on Stippl outweighs the quietest by only ×1.61, the flattest calendar we see anywhere. The Red Sea is part of the reason: Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh work in every month of the year, and the Nile does not.
Plan the Nile for the cool months and let the boat set the pace. 32.3% of Egyptian stops on Stippl are a single night, so the Luxor to Aswan cruise, which is transport and a bed at once, is what keeps the temples from becoming a blur. Fly between Cairo, Luxor and the coast, take the sleeper train to save a hotel night, and finish in Hurghada if you want the sea. If you cannot stand being approached by touts, the big sites will wear you down.
Plan Egypt in Stippl
Day-by-day planning, stays and budget in one app, with every place from this guide already on the map.
Download the appWho Egypt is for
History buffs
No other country keeps this many standing monuments from five millennia in one river valley, from the Giza pyramids to the temples of Luxor and Abu Simbel.
Divers and snorkellers
The Red Sea is among the best warm-water diving on earth and it is cheap, from Hurghada's reefs to Ras Mohammed and Dahab's Blue Hole.
Budget travellers
Food, transport and beds cost a fraction of European prices outside the resorts and the Nile cruises; the entry tickets are where the money goes.
Adventure travellers
The Western Desert and Sinai are open in a way most of the region is not, from the oasis at Siwa to the White Desert.
Beach-and-temple travellers
Egypt's second week is usually the coast: 20.1% of Egyptian stops on Stippl run four nights or more, and the Red Sea is where they are.
Maybe not for you: solo women who do not want to manage persistent street harassment, anyone who wants to be left alone by touts at the major sites, and anyone doing Luxor and Aswan from June to August, when the heat is dangerous.
The best time to visit Egypt
Cool season
October to April
The Nile season, cool and dry the length of the country, with Luxor and Aswan at their best. It is also peak season on the river, busiest in January.
Shoulder months
May and September
Upper Egypt turns difficult in May and is still hot in September, while the Red Sea is ideal in both. These are coast months with a short monument trip attached.
Hot season
June to August
The heat in Luxor and Aswan is genuinely dangerous and sightseeing shrinks to the early morning. The Red Sea resorts carry on as normal, with warm water every day.
- Book the sleeper train weeks ahead between October and April. Watania's cabins from Cairo to Luxor and Aswan are a small inventory and sell out in the season, and a night on board saves a night of hotel.
- Egypt is planned later than almost anywhere: 20.1% of Egyptian trips on Stippl are created inside a fortnight of departure. Most are planned about 67 days ahead, which works for the coast and is tight for winter cabins on the sleeper and the cruise boats.
- Summer is planned as often as winter, and the Nile is not built for it. If July or August is your only window, put most of the days on the Red Sea and keep Luxor and Aswan to a short stretch of early starts.
- The Red Sea is a year-round coast and the Nile is an October to March river. Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh work in every month, so a trip split between the two can run in any season if the temples come first in the cool months.
Add your Egypt dates and we'll flag the weather per stop
Stippl shows the season, crowds and prices for every place on your route.
Festivals, and when to avoid them
Abu Simbel sun festival
The rising sun reaches 65 m into the temple and lights the statues at the back, on these two dates only. Abu Simbel and Aswan fill for both, so book Aswan early or come another week.
Christmas and New Year
The busiest stretch of the cool season on the Nile, when Luxor, Aswan and the cruise boats run full. Book the sleeper train, the cruise and the hotels well ahead.
Ramadan
Restaurants close in daylight, the streets come alive after sunset and sites keep shorter hours. Come anyway, but do not eat, drink or smoke in public during daylight.
Eid al-Fitr
The three days at the end of Ramadan are the busiest domestic travel of the Egyptian year. Book trains and flights before you arrive rather than on the day.
Describe your trip, get a Egypt itinerary in seconds
Everything in this guide is already in Stippl. Tell the planner how long you have and what you like: it builds the route, the days and the travel times, and you edit whatever you want.
Things to do in Egypt
Photo by Alessandro Zanini via Unsplash
Photo by Abdullah Elhariry via UnsplashThe Giza pyramids at opening
Reach the plateau when the gates open, before the coaches and in the only tolerable light of the day. Going inside the Great Pyramid is a separate ticket from the plateau.
The Grand Egyptian Museum
See the complete Tutankhamun collection shown together for the first time, beside the pyramids at Giza. Anything written before it opened sends you to the old museum on Tahrir Square instead.
The Valley of the Kings
Walk down into the painted tombs cut into the hills across the river from Luxor. The tombs of Seti I and Tutankhamun are each ticketed separately, so choose before you queue.
A felucca at dusk in Aswan
Sail between the granite islands on the Nile at Aswan as the light goes. It is the slow hour of a Nile trip, and an hour on the water is enough.
Abu Simbel before dawn
See the temples that were cut into blocks and moved 65 m uphill in the 1960s to escape Lake Nasser. Most people leave Aswan before dawn for the three and a half hour road.
Diving Ras Mohammed or the Blue Hole
Dive or snorkel the Red Sea off South Sinai, at Ras Mohammed near Sharm El-Sheikh or Dahab's Blue Hole. It is the reason a third of Egypt's visitors never see a temple.
Egyptian food: what to eat
Lentils, macaroni, rice, chickpeas, tomato sauce and fried onions
Slow-cooked fava beans with cumin, garlic and lemon
Egyptian falafel, made with fava beans rather than chickpeas
Vegetables stuffed with spiced rice and herbs
Spiced minced meat baked inside bread
Bread pudding with milk, cream, nuts and raisins
Hibiscus tea, hot or iced
Discover food spots in Stippl
Find restaurants and markets on the map, save them to your itinerary, works offline too.
Egypt customs and what not to do
Baksheesh is a wage, not a tip
Tomb custodians, torch-holders and shoe-watchers live on small gratuities, and refusing reads as rudeness rather than thrift. Keep a separate pocket of small notes.
Cover shoulders and knees
Cities, bazaars and every religious site expect covered shoulders and knees, and shoes come off in mosques. The beach resorts are the one exception.
Nothing in daylight in Ramadan
During Ramadan nobody eats, drinks or smokes in public between dawn and sunset, and visitors are expected to do the same outdoors.
The right hand is for food
Eat, pass dishes and hand over money with the right hand, at a family table and at a ticket window alike.
Greet before you ask
A "Salaam alaykum" opens a conversation with a shopkeeper or a guard, and skipping the greeting closes it before it starts.
Khalas means enough
Said once and firmly, it ends the pitch of a tout or a hawker faster than any polite refusal in English.
Do
- Carry notes of 5, 10 and 20 pounds for baksheesh; nobody has change
- Use Uber in Cairo, which takes the price haggle out of every ride
- Agree the price before a taxi, a camel ride or a felucca where there is no app
- Bring a torch for the tombs, which saves paying a custodian to shine theirs
Don't
- Accept a "gift" of papyrus, which turns into a demand for payment
- Let an unofficial guide attach himself to you at a temple gate
- Drink tap water or take ice in cheap places, Cairo included
- Wear shorts or bare shoulders into a mosque or a bazaar
What an Egypt trip costs
Backpacker
€43
Guesthouse beds, kushari and street food, the sleeper train and Uber around Cairo.
Mid-range
€86
A comfortable hotel, restaurant meals, domestic flights and the main entry tickets.
Luxury
€258
A pyramid-view hotel at Giza, a Nile cruise between Luxor and Aswan and every ticket you want.
Track what you actually spend
Set a daily budget per country and log expenses in any currency while you travel.
Visas, SIM cards and getting around
Entry & visa
An e-Visa, before you fly
Most passports need a visa, EU and UK included: buy the e-Visa online before travel for €26, or pay cash on arrival. Passports need six months' validity.
Money
Cash, in Egyptian pounds
The Egyptian pound runs the country outside the big hotels. ATMs are widespread in the cities; carry small notes, because nobody has change.
Connectivity
A SIM at Cairo airport
Vodafone, Orange and Etisalat sell SIM cards in the arrivals hall at Cairo airport, and a tourist pack of 10 to 20 GB of data is cheap.
Getting around
Fly, or take the sleeper
EgyptAir links Cairo, Luxor, Aswan and the Red Sea in about an hour, and the Watania sleeper to Luxor and Aswan saves a hotel night. In Cairo, use Uber.
Health
Expect a stomach upset
Stomach upsets are usual, so pack rehydration sachets. Good hospital care is concentrated in Cairo, which makes insurance with evacuation cover worth having.
Water
Bottled, everywhere
Tap water is not safe to drink anywhere in Egypt, Cairo included. Drink bottled water and skip the ice in cheap places.
Tipping
Baksheesh, constantly
Small gratuities are how custodians, drivers and guards are paid rather than an extra. Budget for them as a daily line and keep the notes apart from your wallet.
Power & plugs
European plugs fit
Sockets are type C and F at 220 V, so European plugs and chargers work without an adapter or a converter.
Language
Arabic, English at the sites
Egyptian Arabic is spoken everywhere and English is widely used in tourism. A greeting in Arabic goes a long way with shopkeepers and guards.
Egypt questions, answered
Give the river more nights than the list suggests. 32.3% of Egyptian stops planned on Stippl are a single night, and a single night on the Nile means a day spent moving. Lay the route out in Stippl, let the Luxor to Aswan cruise carry a few of those nights, then show it to people who have been, in the Egypt travel subreddits or Facebook groups.
Almost all of them. Cairo holds 36.1% of every Egyptian stop planned on Stippl, more than a third of the country on its own, and most routes that include it begin there. Give it the first nights of the route and treat the Giza pyramids and the new museum as part of the Cairo stay.
Yes, and plenty of people do: Egypt's busiest planning month on Stippl outweighs its quietest by only ×1.61. Put those days on the Red Sea, which works in every month, because June to August in Luxor and Aswan is genuinely dangerous heat.
At the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, beside the pyramids, where the complete collection is shown together for the first time. It is no longer at the old Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square, and any guide written before the new museum opened sends you to the wrong building.
North and Middle Sinai do, along with the north of South Sinai beyond the road from St Catherine to Nuweiba. The Nile route from Cairo to Aswan, Sharm El-Sheikh, Dahab and the Red Sea coast carry none, so the classic trip is ordinary travel.
If you have two weeks, yes, as the second week. 20.1% of Egyptian stops on Stippl run four nights or more, and most of those are on the coast. Hurghada is a short drive from Luxor, so the Nile and then the sea is one route rather than two holidays.
Every guide is written by the Stippl editors and checked against the trips our travellers actually plan. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
Plan Egypt in Stippl
Everything in this guide, ready to drop into your Egypt route, with planning and bookings in one app.
