11-Day Full Egypt: Pyramids, Fayoum Desert & Nile Cruise

Pyramids to the Nile Valley and the Fayoum oasis

The 11-day Full Egypt tour extends Dune Raider Adventure's classic circuit with a full Fayoum desert day — Wadi El Hitan's whale fossils and Magic Lake — sandwiched between Cairo's pyramids and museums and the Nile cruise from Luxor to Aswan, ending with Abu Simbel and an Egyptologist guide throughout.

DAY 1 — Cairo Arrival, Giza & Khan El Khalili

You land in Cairo, clear customs, and get driven straight to the pyramids — the Giza plateau is the first stop, before the day's heat sets in and before the group has even checked into the hotel. The Great Pyramid of Khufu is the last of the ancient Seven Wonders still standing, built around 2560 BC from over two million blocks of limestone, and you can walk right up and put a hand on it. The Sphinx sits a short walk away, worn down by four and a half thousand years of wind.

From Giza it's the Egyptian Museum (or the Grand Egyptian Museum, depending on what's open when you travel) for Tutankhamun's gold, then into Khan El Khalili in the evening for dinner — a bazaar that's been trading spices, silver, and copperware since the 1300s. Sit down for tea at El Fishawy, a café that's been open, more or less continuously, since 1773. The night is at your Cairo hotel.

DAY 2 — Fayoum — Waterfalls, Whale Valley & Magic Lake

A change of pace out of Cairo entirely, on a long day trip to Fayoum. First stop is Wadi El Rayan, a protected desert basin holding two connected lakes and Egypt's only waterfalls, then on to Medawara Mountain and Wadi El Hitan, the Valley of the Whales — a UNESCO World Heritage site where the fossilized skeletons of some of the earliest whales, animals that still had legs, lie exposed in the desert rock.

Lunch is out here in the desert. The afternoon finishes at Magic Lake, where the color shifts with the light, before the drive back to Cairo in the evening. The night is at your Cairo hotel.

DAY 3 — Citadel, Islamic Cairo & Coptic Cairo

A day inside Cairo itself, starting at the Citadel of Saladin, built in the 1170s and still the high point most of the city is seen from — its Ottoman-era mosque, added by Muhammad Ali in the 1830s, has a skyline of domes and minarets modeled on Istanbul rather than Cairo's older mosques.

From there it's Islamic Cairo, the medieval core of gates, mosques, and covered markets, then Coptic Cairo — one of the oldest continuously inhabited Christian quarters anywhere, with churches built into and over far older Roman fortifications. Dinner is on a Nile dinner boat, a slow loop past the city lit up after dark. The night is at your Cairo hotel.

DAY 4 — Flight to Luxor

A transfer to Cairo Airport for a short flight south to Luxor, arriving with the Nile Valley's different pace already noticeable — quieter, greener, slower than Cairo. Check in to your hotel, with the rest of the day free before tomorrow's temples.

DAY 5 — Abydos, Dendera & Boarding the Cruise

Abydos, one of Egypt's oldest sacred cities, holds the Temple of Seti I — its wall carvings among the best-preserved reliefs anywhere, still holding traces of their original color in places. Dendera's Temple of Hathor is a short drive further, with an astronomical ceiling and a set of crypts you can climb down into.

Back in Luxor by early afternoon, you check out of the hotel and board the Nile cruise ship — the pace of the trip changes here, the boat doing the work instead of a bus. Dinner and the night are on board.

DAY 6 — Luxor East and West Banks

Karnak Temple is the big one: roughly 200 acres, built up over some 2,000 years by more than 30 pharaohs, with a hypostyle hall of 134 columns so large it changes the light and sound around you. Luxor Temple sits closer to the river, smaller and more contained, and lit up after dark in a way that makes the evening visit worth planning for if timing allows.

In the afternoon you cross to the West Bank, where the pharaohs stopped building visible monuments and started hiding their tombs instead. The Valley of the Kings holds over 60 tombs cut into the hillside, Tutankhamun's among them. Hatshepsut's mortuary temple rises out of the cliff face in three broad terraces, and the Colossi of Memnon — two 18-meter seated statues — are what's left standing of a mortuary temple that mostly didn't survive. By evening the boat is underway, sailing south toward Esna and Edfu.

DAY 7 — Edfu, Kom Ombo & Sailing to Aswan

Edfu's Temple of Horus is the best-preserved temple in Egypt, largely because it spent centuries buried under desert sand and silt before excavation uncovered it whole — the falcon god's statue still stands guard at the entrance. Kom Ombo is unusual: a double temple split symmetrically down the middle, one half dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek, the other to Horus. Both stops are short shore excursions from the boat, usually by horse-drawn carriage from the dock at Edfu.

The ship keeps sailing through the afternoon and into Aswan, the Nile narrowing and the granite hills closing in as the desert starts to feel closer to the water.

DAY 8 — Abu Simbel

An early start for Abu Simbel — it's a three-hour drive each way, which is why most people leave before dawn. Ramesses II built the Great Temple with four 20-meter statues of himself at the entrance, angled so that twice a year, in February and October, sunlight reaches all the way into the inner sanctuary. The Small Temple next to it, dedicated to his wife Nefertari, is one of the rare ancient Egyptian monuments where a queen's statues stand the same height as the king's.

You're back at the boat by early afternoon for lunch and a slower rest of the day — dinner and the night are back on board, still docked at Aswan.

DAY 9 — Aswan

You check out of the cruise ship this morning — bags off, last breakfast on board — then spend the day seeing Aswan itself, a different register of Egypt, Nubian rather than pharaonic in feel even with three and a half thousand years of temples nearby. The High Dam, finished in 1970, is what created Lake Nasser and rescued Abu Simbel from being flooded; the Unfinished Obelisk, abandoned mid-carving in ancient granite quarries after a crack appeared, shows exactly how the Egyptians cut stone at that scale. Philae Temple, dedicated to Isis, was moved stone by stone to Agilkia Island in the 1970s to save it from the same rising water — you reach it by boat.

The afternoon slows down with a felucca sail around Elephantine Island and a visit to a Nubian village, brightly painted houses and a different language from the Arabic spoken further north. Dinner and the night are at a hotel in Aswan.

DAY 10 — Flight to Cairo

A last Aswan breakfast, then the transfer to the airport for the short flight north to Cairo — the Nile Valley behind you, the city's noise and scale a contrast after days of temples and the quiet of the boat.

The rest of the day is free — lunch and time to rest before the trip's last full day in the capital. Dinner and the night are at your Cairo hotel.

DAY 11 — Departure

A last Cairo breakfast, then the transfer to the airport for departure. Eleven days, the Nile Valley end to end, and a desert day trip to Fayoum in between.

Price Includes

• All accommodation per itinerary (hotels + Nile cruise cabin)
• English-speaking Egyptologist guide throughout
• Entrance fees to all sites listed
• Meals as noted (full board on cruise, breakfast at hotels)
• Bottled water during touring

Does Not Include

• All transfers and internal transport (4x4, cruise ship); domestic flights, Cairo–Luxor and Aswan–Cairo
• International flights
• Egypt entry visa
• Optional activities (hot-air balloon, private guide upgrade)
• Travel insurance
• Tipping / gratuities
• Personal expenses
• Drinks beyond bottled water

Price

$2,750 USD / €2,354 EUR / 139,900 EGP per person. Indicative rate at today's exchange rate — contact us to confirm current pricing for your group and season.