--- title: "Egypt travel guides, city by city | Wimup" description: "Egypt on Wimup: Top 10 city guides, what to know before you go, and the videos worth watching first." url: https://wimup.com/country/egypt type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-06 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Egypt From **Cairo and Alexandria** to **Luxor, Aswan and the Red Sea coast**, Egypt distilled to what is worth your time, mapped and filmed. ## Quick answer First-timers give **Cairo** four days for Giza, the Grand Egyptian Museum and Islamic Cairo, then move south to **Luxor and Aswan** for the temples and the river. Add the **Red Sea or South Sinai** if you want reef diving. Travel between **October and April**: the Nile valley in high summer is punishing rather than merely hot. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Oct–Nov · Mar–Apr - **Ideal length:** 10–12 days - **Budget per day:** $90–160 - **Language:** Arabic - **Getting around:** Flights & Nile trains - **4** City guides - **108,750,000** People - **1** Video guide Egypt is easy to travel and impossible to exhaust. Cairo holds the pyramids, the Grand Egyptian Museum and a thousand years of Islamic architecture inside one metro network, and the river carries the rest of the itinerary south to Luxor and Aswan. ## 4 Egypt city guides 1. [Cairo](https://wimup.com/city/cairo.md): Africa · 10 picks 2. [Luxor](https://wimup.com/city/luxor.md): Africa · 10 picks 3. [Aswan](https://wimup.com/city/aswan.md): Africa · 10 picks 4. [Siwa Oasis](https://wimup.com/city/siwa.md): Africa · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 108,750,000 - **Area:** 1,001,450 km² - **Density:** 108.6 / km² - **Capital:** Cairo - **Major cities:** Cairo, Alexandria, Giza, Shubra El Kheima, Port Said - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Egyptian pound (E£) Cards work in hotels and city restaurants. Carry small notes for taxis, tips and the extras at sites. - **Language:** Arabic Egyptian Arabic is the everyday dialect. English is common in tourism and across central Cairo. - **Calling code:** +20 - **Power:** 220V · Type C/F - **Emergency:** 122 police · 123 ambulance - **Visa:** e-Visa · 30 days Most visitors need one. A single-entry tourist visa costs $30 through the official portal, and the fee rose in March 2026. - **Getting around:** Flights & sleeper trains EgyptAir links Cairo to Luxor, Aswan and both coasts in about an hour. The overnight train covers the same Nile route in ten to thirteen. - **Tipping:** Baksheesh, in small notes Around 10 percent in restaurants, and a few pounds for the small services nobody bills you for. ## When to visit - **Jan** (good) - **Feb** (good) - **Mar** (best) - **Apr** (best) - **May** (good) - **Jun** - **Jul** - **Aug** - **Sep** (good) - **Oct** (best) - **Nov** (best) - **Dec** (peak) ## Fun fact Around 95 percent of Egyptians live on the roughly 4 percent of the country the Nile waters. The map is enormous; the inhabited strip is not. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Egypt is one long queue of tourists **Reality:** Giza and Karnak are crowded from mid-morning and quiet at opening. Start at the gate, break through the afternoon, and the same sites feel half empty. - **Myth:** You have to book a package to see any of it **Reality:** Trains, domestic flights, museum tickets and licensed guides are all bookable independently. A package buys convenience, not access. - **Myth:** It is all desert and ruins **Reality:** The Red Sea and Sinai coasts hold some of the best reef diving anywhere, and Alexandria is a Mediterranean city with its own food, its own accent and its own weather. - **Myth:** Nobody will leave you alone **Reality:** Touting is real at the big sites and thins out fast away from them. A friendly, unambiguous "la shukran" ends most of it. - Greet before you ask. As-salamu alaykum first, then the question, changes the whole exchange. - Carry small notes. Baksheesh for a hand with a bag or a door opened is the norm, and nobody can break a large bill. - Cover shoulders and knees at mosques and churches, and bring a scarf for your hair. Many mosques lend a robe at the door. - Friday is the day off and the midday prayer empties the streets. Plan museums and long journeys around it. - Ask before photographing people, and put the camera away at checkpoints, bridges and anything military. - Eat and pass with your right hand. The left one stays out of shared dishes. ## Famous Egyptian faces - **Umm Kulthum**: Singer whose Thursday night broadcasts stopped the Arab world - **Naguib Mahfouz**: Novelist, and the first Arabic-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature - **Omar Sharif**: Actor of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago - **Mohamed Salah**: Liverpool forward and captain of the Egypt national team - **Ahmed Zewail**: Nobel laureate in chemistry, and the founder of femtochemistry - **Cleopatra VII**: The last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt - **Gamal Abdel Nasser**: President who nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956 - **Tutankhamun**: Boy pharaoh whose tomb was found near-intact in 1922 - **Ramesses II**: Pharaoh behind Abu Simbel and much of what stands at Karnak - **Hatshepsut**: Pharaoh whose terraced temple sits under the cliffs at Deir el-Bahari - **Imhotep**: Architect of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara - **Anwar Sadat**: President, and joint Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1978 - **Boutros Boutros-Ghali**: Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1992 to 1996 - **Abdel Halim Hafez**: Crooner known across the Arab world as the Dark Nightingale - **Mohamed Abdel Wahab**: Composer who pulled Arabic music toward the orchestra - **Amr Diab**: Pop singer who has topped Arabic charts since the 1980s - **Youssef Chahine**: Director who carried Egyptian cinema onto the festival circuit - **Faten Hamama**: Actress at the centre of Egyptian film’s golden age - **Taha Hussein**: Writer and reformer known as the Dean of Arabic Literature - **Nawal El Saadawi**: Physician and writer on women’s rights in the Arab world - **Alaa Al Aswany**: Novelist behind The Yacoubian Building - **Magdi Yacoub**: Heart surgeon, and founder of the Aswan Heart Centre - **Zahi Hawass**: Archaeologist and former minister of antiquities - **Ahmed Elgendy**: First African to win Olympic modern pentathlon gold, Paris 2024 - **Feryal Ashraf**: Karate gold at Tokyo 2020, the first Olympic gold won by an Egyptian woman ## Must-try Egyptian food - **Koshari**: Rice, lentils and macaroni under tomato sauce and fried onion. - **Ful medames**: Slow-cooked fava beans, the standard Egyptian breakfast. - **Ta'ameya**: Egypt's falafel, made with fava beans rather than chickpeas. - **Molokhia**: Jute-leaf stew, green and heavy with garlic, served over rice. - **Mahshi**: Vine leaves, courgettes and peppers stuffed with herbed rice. - **Fattah**: Rice and crisped bread under garlic, vinegar and meat. - **Hawawshi**: Spiced minced meat baked inside flatbread until the edges crisp. - **Kebda Eskandarani**: Alexandrian liver, fried hard with chilli, garlic and lemon. - **Feteer meshaltet**: Layered pastry folded thin, served sweet or savoury. - **Shawarma**: Meat shaved off the stack into bread with tahini and pickles. - **Sayadeya**: Fish baked over cumin-spiced rice, an Alexandria staple. - **Grilled sea bass**: Picked off the ice at the counter, then grilled whole. - **Om Ali**: Warm bread pudding with milk, nuts and coconut. - **Basbousa**: Semolina cake soaked in syrup. - **Kunafa**: Shredded pastry over cream or cheese, drenched in syrup. - **Roz bel laban**: Rice pudding, served cold under cinnamon. - **Karkade**: Hibiscus tea, hot in winter and iced through the summer. - **Sahlab**: Thickened warm milk under cinnamon and chopped nuts. - **Asab**: Sugarcane juice, pressed to order at street counters. ## By theme - [Scuba diving](https://wimup.com/scuba-diving.md) ## Films - [48 Hours in Cairo](https://wimup.com/watch/cairo.md), 1:10:20 ## FAQs ### How many days do you need in Egypt? Ten to twelve for a first trip: four or five in Cairo, then the Nile between Luxor and Aswan. A week works if you fly one leg instead of sailing it. ### When is the best time to visit Egypt? October to April. March, April, October and November give warm days without the summer peak, and the Nile valley is punishing in July and August. ### Is Egypt expensive to visit? Not by European standards. Food, domestic flights and transport are cheap; the costs that add up are site tickets, guides and Nile cruises. ### Do you need a visa for Egypt? Most visitors do. A single-entry tourist visa costs $30, bought online before you fly or on arrival at the airport, and the fee rose in March 2026. ### Can you drink the tap water in Egypt? Stick to bottled or filtered water. It is cheap and sold everywhere, and it is the easiest way to avoid losing a day of the trip. ## Related countries - [Morocco](https://wimup.com/country/morocco.md) - [Algeria](https://wimup.com/country/algeria.md) - [All of Africa](https://wimup.com/africa) Part of [Africa](https://wimup.com/africa.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.egypt.travel/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.