10-Day Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor & Aswan Tour with Abu Simbel

A representative meets you at Cairo International Airport, holding a sign with your name, and a private, air-conditioned vehicle takes you to your hotel. After a long flight, that matters: you skip the taxi line and the haggling, and your driver handles Cairo's dense traffic while you watch the city unfold through the window.

The rest of the day is free. Rest, unpack, and let your body catch up with the time change, because tomorrow begins a run of full touring days. If you land early and want to stretch your legs, your hotel concierge or guide can suggest a relaxed outing nearby, but nothing is planned, so you can go at your own speed.

Before the evening is out, your guide confirms the next morning's pickup time, either at the airport or by a short welcome call. Keep some Egyptian pounds in small notes for tips and small purchases; an airport ATM on arrival is the easiest place to get them. No meals are included today.

After breakfast you head for the Giza Plateau and the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. Your Egyptologist explains how a state some 4,500 years ago organized the labor, food, and stone to raise them, and why Khafre's pyramid looks taller than Khufu's even though it is not: it sits on higher ground and keeps a cap of its original casing. Then you meet the Great Sphinx, cut from a single ridge of limestone.

From Giza you drive south to Saqqara, the vast burial ground of ancient Memphis. The Step Pyramid of Djoser, built by the architect Imhotep, is the earliest monumental stone building in Egypt and the direct ancestor of the smooth-sided pyramids you saw in the morning.

Last comes Memphis, the capital of a newly unified Egypt. Its open-air museum holds a colossal statue of Ramesses II, now lying on its back under a protective roof, and a calm-faced alabaster sphinx. After lunch at a local restaurant you return to your hotel in the evening.

The morning belongs to the Grand Egyptian Museum, a vast new museum on the desert edge near Giza, devoted to a single civilization. The Tutankhamun collection is shown together, from his gold mask to the gilded chariots and couches. Your guide leads you up the Grand Staircase, where pharaohs in granite and limestone line the steps, and through the King Tut halls.

Afterward you drive to the Citadel, the fortress Salah al-Din began in the 12th century to defend Cairo. Inside rises the Mosque of Muhammad Ali, its walls faced in alabaster and its two minarets as thin as pencils. From the terrace, Cairo spreads out in every direction, and on a clear day you can pick out the pyramids.

After lunch at a local restaurant you end in Khan el-Khalili, a market that has traded since the 14th century. Browse spices, lanterns, perfume, and silver, bargain with a smile, or rest over a glass of mint tea or lemonade in an old café before your transfer back to the hotel in the evening.

After an early breakfast you drive north on the desert road to Alexandria, about two and a half to three hours, arriving mid-morning. The city Alexander the Great founded in 331 BC became the capital of the Ptolemies and the intellectual center of the ancient Mediterranean, and today you see layers of that history.

Your Alexandria guide starts at the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa, a multilevel tomb complex cut into the rock in the Roman era, where Egyptian gods appear in Roman armor and Greek-style columns frame Egyptian-style reliefs. Next is Pompey's Pillar, a red granite column from Aswan that has stood over the ruins of the Serapeum temple since Roman times.

After lunch at a seafood restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean, you visit the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the modern successor to the ancient Library, its tilted roof shaped like a disk rising from the sea (entry to the interior exhibitions is extra). You finish at the 15th-century Qaitbay Citadel, built where the Lighthouse of Alexandria once stood, with views along the Corniche. In the early evening you drive back to Cairo, arriving at night.

An early transfer takes you to Cairo Airport for the morning flight to Luxor. Your Luxor guide meets you and heads straight for the East Bank, the side of the river the ancient Egyptians associated with the living.

Karnak Temple comes first. Built and rebuilt over roughly 2,000 years, it is the largest religious complex of the ancient world, and its Hypostyle Hall holds 134 massive columns, many still carrying traces of their original paint. Walk slowly and look up: the central columns are tall enough that the hall feels like a stone forest. At the entrance, an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes guards the way in.

You continue to Luxor Temple on the corniche, where colossal statues of Ramesses II and a single obelisk stand before the gate and long colonnades lead toward the sanctuary. The two temples were once linked by a processional avenue of sphinxes that you can still see. After lunch at a local restaurant you check in to your Luxor hotel with the evening free.

After breakfast you cross to the West Bank, the realm of the dead in ancient Thebes. In the Valley of the Kings, pharaohs of the New Kingdom were buried in tombs tunneled into the hills, their walls covered with painted scenes and texts guiding the king through the night. Your ticket typically covers three tombs; Tutankhamun's tomb requires a separate ticket that is not included, though his treasures are the ones you saw at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

Next is the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, a sequence of wide terraces against a sheer wall of golden cliff, built for one of the few women to rule as pharaoh. Look for the reliefs of her expedition to the land of Punt, with incense trees and exotic fish. A photo stop at the Colossi of Memnon, two weathered seated statues of Amenhotep III, follows.

After lunch at a local restaurant you visit an alabaster workshop, where artisans demonstrate how they shape and polish the stone by hand. You return to your hotel in the evening to rest before the drive south.

After breakfast you leave Luxor in a private air-conditioned vehicle for the three-to-four-hour drive south to Aswan. The road follows the Nile through sugarcane fields, date palms, and villages, with the desert never far beyond the green strip. It is a good chance to see everyday rural life in Upper Egypt up close.

In Aswan your guide begins the city tour with a felucca sail (the felucca fare is not included) around Elephantine Island and the smaller islands in the river. Aswan's granite boulders, Nubian villages, and the colonial-era Old Cataract Hotel, where Agatha Christie stayed, make this one of the prettiest stretches of the Nile.

You also visit the Unfinished Obelisk, still lying in its ancient quarry. It cracked before it could be freed, and had it been finished it would have been the largest obelisk ever made. After lunch at a local restaurant, and depending on timing, you may visit the Nubian Museum (entry not included), which traces the history and culture of the Nubian people. You check in to your hotel by evening, and dinner is on your own.

You set off very early, while the desert is still dark, for the journey of roughly three hours by road convoy to Abu Simbel near the Sudanese border; a short flight is an optional extra. The reward is the Great Temple of Ramesses II, its facade carved straight into the mountain and fronted by four seated colossi of the king, each about 20 meters tall. Beside it stands the smaller temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor and to Nefertari, Ramesses II's favorite queen, one of the few temples of the era to give a queen such prominence.

Both temples were cut into blocks and moved to higher ground in the 1960s, in a UNESCO rescue that saved them from the waters of Lake Nasser after the High Dam was built. Inside the Great Temple, look for the reliefs of the Battle of Kadesh.

After the visit you drive back to Aswan, with lunch on the way or on arrival, and transfer to Aswan Airport for your flight to Cairo, landing in the evening. Bring a light layer for the cold predawn start.

Once breakfast is done, the day is yours. After a week of early starts, many travelers simply sleep in, swim, and take a slow lunch. Others use the time to return to a favorite site at their own pace or wander a neighborhood such as Zamalek, the leafy island district with cafés, galleries, and Nile views.

If you want to keep exploring, your guide or the hotel concierge can arrange optional extras, booked and paid separately. Popular choices include a day trip to Fayoum Oasis, with its lake, waterfalls, and desert scenery; a felucca sail on the Nile at sunset; a visit to Coptic Cairo, where the Hanging Church and the Ben Ezra Synagogue sit within the old Roman fortress of Babylon; or the sound and light show at the Giza Pyramids in the evening.

Whatever you choose, leave a little time to pack and to check your flight details for tomorrow. Only breakfast is included today, which gives you the freedom to try a Cairo restaurant of your choice for lunch and dinner.

Breakfast at the hotel is your last meal of the trip. Depending on your flight time, you may have a few hours for a final walk, a coffee by the pool, or last-minute packing of the spices and souvenirs you collected along the way.

When it is time, a private driver takes you to Cairo International Airport for your international departure. Cairo traffic can change by the hour, so your driver plans the timing around congestion and check-in, and you arrive without a scramble. Security screening at the airport starts at the terminal entrance, so give yourself a margin there too.

A couple of practical notes before you leave. Genuine antiquities cannot be exported, so make sure any old-looking pieces you bought are modern replicas. Keep some small banknotes for your driver and porters, since gratuities are not included. With that, your journey from the Mediterranean to the Sudanese border comes to an end at the same airport where it began.