12-Day Full Egypt: Cairo, Nile Valley & Grand Circuit

Pyramids, Old Cairo, and the full Nile Valley

The 12-day Full Egypt tour gives Cairo two extra days over the classic 10-day route — Saqqara's Step Pyramid and Memphis, a felucca sail from the Citadel of Saladin, and a full day of Islamic and Coptic Cairo — before the same Nile cruise from Luxor to Aswan and Abu Simbel, with an Egyptologist guide throughout.

DAY 1 — Cairo Arrival, Giza & Khan El Khalili

Your flight lands in Cairo and a Dune Raider driver is waiting past customs with your name on a sign. From the airport it's straight to the Giza plateau, first stop before the day's heat sets in: the Great Pyramid of Khufu, 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 — Saqqara & Memphis

A short drive from Cairo to Saqqara: the step pyramid of Djoser, built around 2650 BC and generally considered the oldest large stone building on earth, a couple of centuries older than Giza's pyramids and arguably where the whole idea of pyramid-building started.

A stop at Memphis follows, once the capital of unified Egypt for most of the Old Kingdom; what's left of it now sits mostly in an open-air museum, including a fallen colossus of Ramesses II. The evening is free to explore Cairo on your own before dinner. The night is at your Cairo hotel.

DAY 3 — The Citadel of Salah El-Din & a Felucca on the Nile

A lighter day inside Cairo, built around the Citadel of Salah El-Din (Saladin), begun in the 1170s as a fortress against the Crusades and still the high point most of the city is seen from. The Ottoman-era Mosque of Muhammad Ali, added in the 1830s, has a skyline of domes and minarets modeled on Istanbul rather than Cairo's older mosques — the alabaster interior alone is worth the climb up.

In the afternoon, a felucca sail on the Nile — no engine, just wind and the river, a slow way to see the city from the water. Dinner and the night are 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 — Islamic Cairo, Coptic Cairo & a Nile Dinner Cruise

Cairo's older Islamic quarter fills the morning: medieval gates, mosques, and madrasas built up over centuries under the Fatimids, Mamluks, and Ottomans, most of it still standing and still in use. Coptic Cairo follows, one of the oldest continuously inhabited Christian quarters anywhere, its old churches and the Ben Ezra Synagogue tucked into narrow lanes near the old Roman fortress walls.

Dinner tonight is on a Nile dinner boat, a slow loop past the city lit up after dark and a fitting last evening on the river before the trip winds down. The night is at your Cairo hotel.

DAY 12 — Departure

A last Cairo breakfast, then the transfer to the airport for departure. Twelve days, the pyramids to Old Cairo to the full Nile Valley — safe travels, and let us know how the trip went.

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; 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

$3,000 USD / €2,568 EUR / 152,619 EGP per person. Indicative rate at today's exchange rate — contact us to confirm current pricing for your group and season.