Explora Egipto is an Egypt-based tour operator. We run private, guided trips inside
Egypt for English-speaking travelers: the Giza pyramids, the temples of Luxor and Aswan, Abu Simbel,
and Nile cruises in both directions. Everything we quote covers the ground arrangements
here in Egypt, run by our own guides and drivers rather than subcontracted to a chain of
intermediaries.
One thing stated plainly, because it is the question that decides whether we are the right fit:
we do not sell, book, quote or coordinate your international flight to Egypt. You
arrange that yourself, which leaves you free to choose your departure airport, your routing and your
airline. Domestic Egyptian flights inside an itinerary, where the itinerary needs them, are ours to
handle and are included.
The four multi-day tours are the core of what we run. They cover the same essential monuments
and differ in how many nights you have and how much breathing room the pace leaves you.
A side-by-side comparison of all of them, with what each covers, is on the
Egypt tour packages page, and the wider range including
private and custom arrangements is on Egypt tours.
The stretch of river between Luxor and Aswan holds the greatest concentration of standing temples
anywhere in Egypt, and most of them sit on the bank. Sleeping on the boat means the temples come to
you instead of you driving to them, and it removes the daily pack-and-move that tires people out on
an overland itinerary.
The two directions cost the same and see the same sites. What changes is the rhythm. Sailing
upstream against the current is slower and gives more hours on deck; downstream is quicker and
leaves more time ashore.
How the boats differ, what a cabin actually gives you and which formats exist are covered on the
Nile cruise page, and the practical side, best month, which direction
and the questions worth asking any operator, is on
how to choose a Nile cruise.
Plenty of travelers reach us with flights booked and a few days to fill, or with a Red Sea resort
already reserved and a wish to see something older than the hotel. These are built for that.
What the ticket costs, the two fixed sun festival dates, and whether to drive from Aswan or stay
the night are covered on
visiting Abu Simbel.
If you would rather assemble your own days than take a fixed itinerary, each base has its own set
of half-day and full-day trips.
Most Egypt trips sold in English are sold by a company in your own country, which then buys the
actual trip from an operator here. That middle layer is not a scam and it has real advantages: you
contract under your own consumer law, you get support in your own timezone, and in some markets you
get insolvency protection. Those are worth something and we will not pretend otherwise.
What booking directly with us changes is the distance between you and the people doing the work.
The guide meeting you at the airport is ours. The vehicle is ours. When a tomb closes for
conservation on the morning you were going to see it, the person rearranging your day is standing in
Luxor rather than relaying messages through two offices. And the itinerary is written to what you
asked for rather than assembled from a catalog.
Ask us anything specific before you commit: which boat by name, how large the group is, which
language the guide works in, who you call at two in the morning. Concrete answers to concrete
questions tell you more about an operator than any review page.
Every itinerary lists both, in full, on its own page. In general terms, our quotes cover
accommodation, a licensed Egyptologist guide who works in English, private air-conditioned transport
with a driver, prepaid monument entry for the sites on the itinerary, and domestic Egyptian flights
where the itinerary requires them.
They do not cover your international flight,
travel insurance,
tips, drinks, optional interiors
that carry their own separate ticket, or anything personal. The detailed breakdown, including why we
list the exclusions as carefully as the inclusions, is on
what is included in an Egypt tour. If you want to
check the value of what is already covered, we publish the ministry-verified
Egypt monument entrance fees with the official
source named.
Egypt and Jordan combine well because they are close and genuinely different: the pharaonic world
on one side, the Nabataean and Roman world on the other. We run the Egyptian half and coordinate it
with your dates for the Jordanian half. Details are on
Egypt and Jordan tours.
October to April is the comfortable window for the Nile valley, and the peaks inside it are the
end of December and Easter. The quietest weeks with the same good weather are the second half of
January and the first half of December. Summer is hot in the valley and works if you invert the day,
starting at opening time and spending the middle hours indoors or on the water. The season by season
detail, including the spring khamsin wind and how Ramadan changes the rhythm of a day, is on
the best time to visit Egypt.
Seven days covers Cairo and a Nile cruise properly. Eight to ten adds Abu Simbel and enough
margin that a delay does not cost you a site. Under five days, the honest answer is to concentrate
on one thing and do it well rather than compress the classic route. We work this through properly,
counting usable days rather than nights sold, on
how many days you need in Egypt.
The tourist corridor between Cairo, Luxor and Aswan is heavily policed and the practical risks
for a visitor are heat, dehydration and traffic rather than anything dramatic. The things that
actually cause travelers trouble are sunstroke on an unshaded plateau and crossing a Cairo street,
both of which are manageable once you know to expect them. We go through how to read the State
Department advisory, and which regions it actually concerns, on
is Egypt safe for Americans.
Yes, on a US passport, and you can get it online before you fly or on arrival at the airport. The
prices you find published for it disagree with each other because three different things get called
the visa fee, and the one bought on arrival has a payment catch worth knowing before you land. The
current figure, the official source and the Sinai exception are on
the Egypt visa for US citizens.
No, and bottled water is cheap and everywhere, so it is a non issue once you know. What actually
catches people out is ice, salad and the restrooms at the big sites, which we cover in
can you drink the water in Egypt.
Loose, light and covering, and there is no color you need to avoid whatever you may have read.
The full answer, including whether shorts work at the pyramids, is on
what to wear in Egypt.
Our guides work in English. Away from the tourist trade, English is less common, and a handful of
Arabic words goes further than you would expect for how little effort it takes.
A few things worth knowing in advance, written for travelers coming from the United States rather
than translated from our Spanish site:
the balloon flight over Luxor, which is the one
optional extra most people say they would repeat, and
how to recognize the gods on a temple wall,
which takes about ten minutes and changes what you see for the rest of the trip.
The fastest way to get a real answer is to send us your dates, how many of you are traveling and
what you most want to see. We will tell you what fits, what does not, and what we would cut if it
were our trip. If your dates cannot hold what you are asking for, we would rather say so than sell
you a compressed version of it.
Message us on WhatsApp and we will reply with something specific.
Circuitos, cruceros por el Nilo y excursiones con guia egiptologo en espanol. Elige el tuyo o escribenos por WhatsApp y lo disenamos a tu medida.
