Sample Itinerary · Most-Booked Path
What 8 Days In Egypt With Us Actually Look Like.
A day-by-day walkthrough of our most-booked 8-day Egypt vacation: Cairo, the Pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum, fly to Luxor and check straight onto your Nile cruise ship for Karnak, a day on Luxor's west bank for the Valley of the Kings, then four nights sailing south through Esna, Edfu, and Kom Ombo to Aswan, optional Abu Simbel, and a flight back to Cairo. Real days, specific inclusions, written by the team that operates the trip. Hesham guides most of these tours, Suhaila plans them, and our Cairo desk runs the day-to-day.
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Day 1Cairo Arrival
Land in Cairo. Breathe. Meet your team.
Your flight from JFK, IAD, or ORD lands at Cairo International. Our driver meets you at arrivals with a placard, so there's no taxi negotiation and no language friction. Transfer to your hotel in Giza, where your private guide briefs you over Egyptian mint tea. Light dinner, early sleep. You've arrived.
Included Today
- Airport pickup with name placard
- Private air-conditioned vehicle
- Hotel check-in assistance
- Welcome briefing over tea
- WhatsApp number for your Cairo team
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Day 2Cairo & Giza
Pyramids at dawn. Tutankhamun by afternoon.
7am at the Pyramids of Giza, before the heat and before the coaches arrive. Your Egyptologist walks you through Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure's tombs, the Solar Boat museum, and the Sphinx up close. Lunch overlooking the plateau. In the afternoon, the Grand Egyptian Museum (opened 2026), where Tutankhamun's complete collection of 5,398 objects is displayed together for the first time in history. Sunset back in Cairo.
Included Today
- Private Egyptologist guide · 8 hours
- Giza Plateau admissions (all 3 pyramids)
- Grand Egyptian Museum entry
- Lunch with Pyramid view
- Air-conditioned vehicle
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Day 3Fly To Luxor · Cruise Embarkation
Land in Luxor, check onto your ship, walk into Karnak by golden hour.
The flight from Cairo to Luxor takes about 50 minutes. Your Nile cruise ship is waiting at the dock, so you check into your cabin, not a hotel room. Karnak comes first: the largest religious complex ever built, expanded by successive pharaohs over 1,300 years. Your guide walks you through the columns of the Hypostyle Hall as the light turns amber. Luxor Temple in the early evening, then a felucca sail past it as the sun goes down. Dinner back on board. The ship stays moored here tonight, but from today your week runs on cruise time, not hotel time.
Included Today
- Domestic flight Cairo → Luxor
- Cruise check-in (no hotel)
- Karnak Temple admission
- Luxor Temple visit
- Felucca sail at sunset
- Dinner on board
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Day 4Luxor West Bank
A balloon at sunrise, then the Valley of the Kings.
The hot air balloon over the Theban Necropolis lifts off at 5am and costs $120pp if you go. It's optional, and it's the photo most of our travelers end up printing. After breakfast, the Valley of the Kings: three royal tombs, chosen from whichever are open that season (Ramesses VI and Seti I most often, plus one more on rotation). Hatshepsut's terraced temple at Deir el-Bahari, then the Colossi of Memnon on the way back to the ship for lunch. No embarkation today; you handled that yesterday. The ship pulls away from Luxor in the evening and crosses Esna Lock late at night, the same 1800s mechanism still doing the work while most of the ship is already asleep.
Included Today
- Hot air balloon (optional · $120pp)
- Valley of the Kings · 3 royal tombs
- Hatshepsut Temple
- Colossi of Memnon
- Lunch on board
- Esna Lock crossing (late evening)
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Day 5Edfu & Kom Ombo
Edfu by horse and carriage, Kom Ombo at sunset.
You arrive at Edfu early, while the town is still waking up. The short ride from the dock to the temple is by horse-drawn carriage, a local tradition that's half the fun of the stop. Edfu Temple itself is the best-preserved in Egypt: full reliefs, an intact ceiling, hieroglyphs sharp enough to read without your guide translating every line. Back on board for lunch, then a genuinely lazy afternoon on the sundeck while the ship sails south. You reach Kom Ombo just before sunset, timed so you walk through the only temple in Egypt built for two gods, Sobek the crocodile and Horus the falcon, as the light turns gold. A small museum next door holds the crocodile mummies. Dinner back on board while the ship sails on toward Aswan overnight.
Included Today
- Edfu Temple by horse and carriage
- Lunch on board
- Kom Ombo Temple at sunset
- Crocodile museum visit
- Full board (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
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Day 6Aswan
Philae, the High Dam, then a sunset felucca to a Nubian village.
The ship arrives in Aswan overnight, so you wake up already there. Philae Temple comes first: a motorboat crossing gets you to the island where the temple was rebuilt in the 1970s, cut apart block by block and moved to higher ground before the High Dam could flood the original site. The Aswan High Dam itself is a short stop after. Late afternoon, a felucca carries you across to a Nubian village for sunset, real homes and real families rather than a staged show (an optional add-on at $80pp). You're usually invited into a family's living room for tea and introduced to somebody's pet baby crocodile. Dinner back on the ship.
Included Today
- Philae Temple + motorboat crossing
- Aswan High Dam visit
- Sunset felucca + Nubian village (optional, $80pp)
- Tea with a Nubian family
- Full board (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
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Day 7Abu Simbel · Fly To Cairo
Ramesses II at dawn, or not, then back to Cairo.
Abu Simbel is optional, and it's a full production either way. By road it runs about three hours each way and costs around $150pp. By plane it's a 45-minute hop for closer to $450pp, worth it if six hours in a van before breakfast doesn't appeal. Either route gets you to Ramesses II's temples carved into the cliff face on the Sudan border, the trip's emotional high point for a lot of our travelers. Disembark the ship afterward, fly Aswan to Cairo, and check into your hotel by mid-afternoon. The evening is yours: book an optional excursion through your guide, or just walk Zamalek and have dinner at your own pace. Nothing fixed tonight.
Included Today
- Abu Simbel optional: road ~$150pp or flight ~$450pp
- Cruise disembarkation
- Domestic flight Aswan → Cairo
- Hotel check-in, Cairo
- Evening free (optional excursion available)
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Day 8Last DayDeparture
Breakfast, checkout, and the flight home.
Nothing scheduled this morning beyond breakfast and packing. Checkout is whenever your flight requires it; our driver times the airport transfer to your departure, not the other way around. You'll land back home with a phone full of temple photos and, if you took the balloon, one shot everyone will ask about for years.
Included Today
- Breakfast at your hotel
- Checkout
- Private transfer to Cairo International
- Final WhatsApp check-in from your team
This Is The Baseline
We operate 42 other multi-day itineraries, and customize every one.
Add Alexandria, extend the Nile cruise to 7 nights, drop in the White Desert, swap to a private dahabiya, or build in a Red Sea diving stretch. Tell us what you want and Suhaila or one of our consultants will respond from Cairo within 4 hours during US-friendly hours.
Related Itineraries · Other Trip Lengths