A private 15-day family holiday: Cairo and Giza, Alexandria and El Alamein, a four-night Nile cruise from Luxor to Aswan, a night at Abu Simbel, two days in Aswan and a desert day in Fayoum, with both domestic flights included.
This private 15-day holiday is planned for families who want to see the great sites of Egypt without rushing children from one temple to the next. The days mix history with things young travelers remember: a felucca ride, a Nubian village dinner, whale fossils in the desert, a jeep ride and an evening at the Abu Simbel temples. Nights are split between Cairo, Alexandria, a four-night Nile cruise, a lakeside hotel at Abu Simbel and two nights in Aswan.
The route starts with the Pyramids of Giza and the Egyptian Museum, then drives through the monasteries of Wadi El Natrun to Alexandria on the Mediterranean, with a day at the El Alamein war memorials on the way back. A flight takes you to Luxor to board the cruise: Karnak, the Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut's temple, then Edfu, Kom Ombo and Philae. From Aswan you drive to Abu Simbel and stay the night, return for afternoon tea at the Old Cataract hotel, and fly back to Cairo for Islamic Cairo, a dinner at home with an Egyptian family and a last day trip to Fayoum. A certified Egyptologist guides the sightseeing, the vehicle is private for your family, and the flights from Cairo to Luxor and from Aswan to Cairo are included.
It is a weaker fit if you want beach days (there are none on this route) or if your children are very young and need long rests every day; in that case a shorter trip or a tailor-made plan works better. Our guide to Egypt with kids and family planning tips help you decide.
The pace is moderate, with some long road days balanced by free afternoons on the cruise and in Aswan. The longer transfers are:
Our representative meets you in the arrival hall of Cairo International Airport, helps with the formalities and walks you to your private air-conditioned vehicle. The drive to your hotel near the Giza pyramids takes 45 to 75 minutes, depending on traffic.
At 6 pm your guide meets the family at the hotel to go through the plan for the coming days and answer questions. Then you go out for a welcome dinner at a traditional Egyptian restaurant, a first taste of dishes such as koshari, grilled kofta, molokhia and fresh baladi bread.
Families arriving in the morning can add a first visit as an optional extra, for example the Museum of Islamic Art, or Saqqara and Memphis south of Giza. Ask us when you book so the guide can plan it around your flight.
After breakfast your Egyptologist takes you to the Giza Plateau. The three main pyramids were built for the kings Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure about 4,500 years ago; the Great Pyramid of Khufu was the tallest building on Earth for close to 4,000 years. Children usually love the panoramic viewpoint, where the three pyramids line up in one photo, and the included short camel ride nearby. Going inside the Great Pyramid needs a separate ticket; the passage is steep and narrow and not suitable for everyone.
Below the pyramids you see the Great Sphinx, carved from the bedrock of the plateau, and the Valley Temple of Khafre, built from huge granite blocks.
After lunch at a local restaurant you drive to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, opened in 1902 and still home to tens of thousands of objects, from the Narmer Palette and Old Kingdom statues to coffins, jewellery and papyri. Tutankhamun's treasures have moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum and the royal mummies to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, so your guide picks a family route through the highlights that remain. Photography needs a camera ticket in some halls.
The evening is free. A dinner cruise on the Nile is an optional extra for families who want to see Cairo lit up from the river.
After breakfast you leave Cairo by the Desert Road. About 100 km from the city, Wadi El Natrun was one of the first centres of Christian monastic life, where monks settled from the 4th century, following Saint Macarius the Great. Four monasteries are still active. You visit the Monastery of Saint Bishoy, founded in the 4th century, with its old church, keep and walls built to protect the monks from raids. A monk or your guide explains daily life in the monastery. Shoulders and knees should be covered.
You continue to Alexandria, about 1 hour 30 minutes further, the city founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC and capital of Ptolemaic Egypt for three centuries. After checking in to your hotel, there is time for a walk on the Corniche, the long seafront promenade along the Eastern Harbour.
Alexandria is known for its fish restaurants; dinner is your choice tonight, and your guide can recommend a family-friendly place. You spend the night in Alexandria.
The catacombs are a Roman-period burial complex of the 2nd century AD, cut into the rock on several levels and found by chance in 1900. A spiral staircase leads down to the tomb chambers, where Egyptian gods appear in Roman dress, a mix of styles that sums up Alexandria's history.
The new library, opened in 2002 near the site of the ancient Library of Alexandria, is a tilted disc of glass and granite carved with letters from scripts around the world. Inside you see the great reading room and, when open, the small museums of antiquities and manuscripts.
After a seafood lunch you drive along the Corniche to the Qaitbay Citadel, built in 1477 by the Mamluk sultan Qaitbay on the site of the Pharos, the lighthouse that was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Children can climb the walls and look out over the harbour and the fishing boats.
The evening is free in Alexandria, and you spend a second night here.
After breakfast you drive west along the coast to El Alamein, about 1 hour 30 minutes from Alexandria. Here, in 1942, the Allied Eighth Army stopped the advance of Rommel's Axis forces in battles that changed the course of the North African campaign. At the military museum, maps, uniforms, weapons and vehicles explain the battle in a way older children can follow. You then walk through the Commonwealth War Cemetery, where more than 7,000 soldiers are buried in quiet rows above the desert.
Lunch is feteer meshaltet, a flaky layered pastry baked in a wood oven and served savoury with cheese or meat, or sweet with honey and sugar.
The drive back to Cairo takes about three hours. The evening is free at your hotel; tomorrow starts with an early flight.
After an early breakfast you transfer to Cairo airport for the flight to Luxor, about one hour. Your guide meets you on arrival and takes you to your Nile cruise ship, your base for the next four nights. Lunch is on board.
Karnak, the temple of the god Amun, was built and enlarged over about 2,000 years. Walking through the Great Hypostyle Hall, with its 134 columns, children can stand at the foot of columns more than 20 metres tall. Your guide also shows the obelisks of Thutmose I and Hatshepsut and the sacred lake.
Nearby you visit Animal Care in Egypt (ACE), a charity clinic that gives free veterinary care to the donkeys, horses and other working animals of Luxor and teaches owners how to look after them. Many families find it a highlight of the trip.
Back on board, the evening is free for the sun deck or a walk in Luxor's market. Dinner is on the ship, and you spend the night on board in Luxor.
The day starts early to beat the heat. In the Valley of the Kings more than 60 tombs are cut into the hills for the pharaohs of the New Kingdom. With the standard ticket you enter three of the tombs open on the day, decorated with scenes of the king's journey through the underworld. The tomb of Tutankhamun, small but still holding his mummy, is included on this tour.
At Deir el-Bahari, the temple of Queen Hatshepsut rises in three terraces against the cliffs. She ruled as pharaoh for about two decades, and the reliefs record her expedition to the land of Punt. On the way back you stop at the Colossi of Memnon, two statues of Amenhotep III about 18 metres tall.
Lunch is on board as the ship sails south through the Esna lock towards Edfu. The afternoon is free on deck. Dinner is on board, and you spend the night on the ship.
The ship moors at Edfu. If your family would like to see it, the Temple of Horus, built between 237 and 57 BC, is the best-preserved temple in Egypt, with its pylon, roofed halls and sanctuary still standing; the ride from the river is usually by horse carriage. Otherwise the morning is free on board as the ship sails on.
After lunch on board you stop at Kom Ombo, a double temple from around 180 BC with two sanctuaries side by side, one for Sobek, the crocodile god, and one for Haroeris, a form of Horus. Children usually head straight for the Crocodile Museum next to the temple, with its mummified crocodiles found in a nearby cemetery.
The ship sails on to Aswan, passing villages and palm groves, and arrives in the evening. Dinner is on board, and you spend the night on the ship in Aswan.
After breakfast a short motorboat ride takes you to Agilkia Island and the Temple of Isis at Philae. The temple was dismantled and rebuilt here in the 1970s, in a UNESCO campaign, to save it from the water between the old and new dams. It was one of the last places where the old Egyptian religion was practised, and it holds one of the latest known hieroglyphic inscriptions, dated AD 394.
Aswan's main market street runs parallel to the river. Spices, dried hibiscus for karkade, Nubian baskets and scarves are sold side by side with fruit and bread for local families. Your guide helps with prices and bargaining.
Dinner is on the ship, and you spend your last night on board.
After breakfast you leave the ship and drive south across the desert to Abu Simbel, about 280 km and three and a half hours, with a stop on the way.
Ramses II had two temples cut into the sandstone cliff above the Nile. Four seated colossi of the king, about 20 metres tall, guard the Great Temple; inside, the reliefs show his battle at Kadesh, and twice a year, around 22 February and 22 October, the rising sun reaches the statues in the sanctuary. The smaller temple is dedicated to Queen Nefertari and the goddess Hathor. Between 1964 and 1968 both temples were cut into blocks and rebuilt 65 metres higher to save them from Lake Nasser, and your guide explains how.
You check in to a hotel by the lake, then return to the temples after dark for the Sound and Light show, projected onto the facades. Dinner is at the hotel, and you spend the night at Abu Simbel.
After breakfast, and an early look at the temples if you want it, you drive back to Aswan, arriving before lunch, and check in to your hotel.
In the afternoon you take tea on the terrace of the Old Cataract hotel, opened in 1899 above the granite rocks of the first cataract. Agatha Christie stayed here, and the hotel appears in the 1978 film of her novel Death on the Nile. Tea is served with pastries and sandwiches, with a view over the river and Elephantine Island.
If you have energy left, the Nubian Museum tells the story of Nubia from prehistory to the villages flooded by Lake Nasser, with a model of a Nubian house that children enjoy. The ticket is not included.
The evening is free; your guide can suggest a local restaurant for Nubian food.
After breakfast you drive to the High Dam, 13 km south of town. Completed in 1970, it ended the yearly flood, supplies water and electricity and created Lake Nasser, which forced the rescue of Abu Simbel and Philae. Then you visit the Unfinished Obelisk in the ancient granite quarries: had it been finished it would have stood about 42 metres tall, but a crack stopped the work, leaving the marks of the quarrymen in view.
A traditional felucca sails you around Elephantine Island, home of the ram-headed god Khnum, guardian of the Nile's source, past the granite boulders and the botanical gardens of Kitchener's Island. It is the quietest hour of the day on the river.
The boat drops you at a Nubian village on the West Bank, with houses painted in bright colours. A local family welcomes you for a home-cooked Nubian dinner. Breakfast and dinner are included today, and you spend the night at your Aswan hotel.
After breakfast you transfer to Aswan airport for the flight to Cairo, about 1 hour 20 minutes. You check in to your hotel in central Cairo and rest.
The Mosque of Ibn Tulun, completed in AD 879, is one of the oldest mosques in Cairo still in its original form, with a vast open courtyard and a spiral minaret that children can climb when it is open. Next to it, the Gayer-Anderson Museum is two Ottoman-era houses joined together and filled by a British officer with furniture, carpets and objects in the 1930s. Then you walk through Khan el-Khalili, a market since the 14th century, and stop at El Fishawy, a café open since 1797, for mint tea or a fresh juice.
In the evening you are guests of a local family at their home for a traditional dinner: a relaxed way to see daily life in Cairo and to compare school, food and holidays across the table. You spend the night at your Cairo hotel.
After breakfast you drive south-west to Fayoum, about two hours. In Wadi El Rayan two lakes, fed by drainage water from the oasis, are joined by a channel that forms small waterfalls, a rare sight in Egypt and a favourite picnic spot for Egyptian families.
A 4x4 takes you across the desert to Wadi Al-Hitan, the Valley of the Whales, listed by UNESCO in 2005. Some 40 million years ago this desert was the bottom of a sea, and the fossil skeletons of early whales, still with small hind legs, lie in the open along a marked trail. The Fossil and Climate Change Museum shows a complete skeleton of Basilosaurus isis, about 18 metres long. After a short jeep safari in the dunes, lunch is served in the desert.
You drive back to Cairo in the late afternoon for your last night.
After breakfast your driver takes the family to Cairo International Airport in time for your international flight; airlines usually ask you to arrive three hours before departure. This is the end of the tour.
If your flight leaves late in the day, ask us when you book about an extra visit, such as the Grand Egyptian Museum with its Tutankhamun galleries, or the Royal Mummies Hall at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. Both are optional extras.
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Children pay less, see the children policy below. Christmas, New Year and Easter dates add 25%. Prices are per person in US dollars.
For families, the school holidays of October, Christmas, February and Easter are the most comfortable times: Cairo is around 20 to 25 °C by day and Aswan and Abu Simbel 23 to 30 °C. Alexandria can be windy and wet in December and January. In July and August, when many families travel, Upper Egypt passes 40 °C, so the visits start very early and the middle of the day is spent on the ship or at the hotel pool. Christmas, New Year and Easter are the busiest weeks and need early booking.
Every family member needs a passport valid for at least six months from arrival, including babies. Many nationalities can buy a tourist visa on arrival at Cairo airport or apply for an e-visa on the official portal, visa2egypt.gov.eg; rules and fees depend on the passport. The visa is not included in the tour price.
The currency is the Egyptian pound. Cards work in hotels and larger shops; keep small notes for markets, toilets at some sites and small purchases. Tips are not included. The tipping guide in the travel policies below gives the usual amounts for guides, drivers and cruise staff.
All prices are per person in US dollars. The price changes with the season (winter 1 October to 30 April, summer 1 May to 30 September), the accommodation level and the size of the group. Christmas, New Year and Easter dates add 25%. Your quote lists the final price and everything it covers. After the deposit, changes to your itinerary cost US$25 per request, plus any third-party fees.
A deposit of 30% of the total tour cost is required at the time of booking. The final payment is due 30 days before departure, and bookings made within 30 days of departure are paid in full. We accept Visa or Master Card by secure online payment, Visa or Master Card by email, and wire transfer. We confirm every booking by email.
No-show travelers are charged 100%. During peak events in Egypt, hotels and Nile cruises do not refund deposits. Groups of more than 10 people may have different terms.
Add each child and their age in the enquiry form so the quote is exact.
Optional visits, such as a hot air balloon ride in Luxor, a Sound and Light show or a felucca ride, are not in the price. Tell us which ones you want and we add them to your quote with their cost.
Not included in the price: International flights; Egypt entry visa; Optional tours; Nubian Museum ticket; Personal expenses; Drinks during meals; Tips & gratuities; Travel insurance; Camera fees (where required).
Tipping is customary in Egypt and is not included in the price. A usual amount for a private tour is US$8 to 10 per person per day for your guide, US$4 to 5 for your driver and US$5 to 8 per person per day for the crew on a Nile cruise. Your guide can advise you on the day.
It works best for children from about six years old and for teenagers, who can manage the walking and enjoy the felucca, the camel ride, the desert and the Abu Simbel evening. Younger children are welcome too; tell us their ages and we can shorten some days or add rest time, since the tour is private.
Four days include a long drive: Cairo to Alexandria (about three hours with the monastery stop), El Alamein back to Cairo (about three hours), Aswan to Abu Simbel and back (about three and a half hours each way, on two days) and Fayoum (about two hours each way). The vehicle is private, so you can stop when the children need a break.
No. Your guide and vehicle are private for your family. The Nile cruise ship and the hotels are shared with other guests, as on any cruise or hotel stay.
Children sharing a room with their parents usually pay a reduced rate, which depends on their age and on the hotels and ship. Send us the ages of the children and we will quote the exact price.
Yes. Many families add three or four nights in Hurghada or Sharm El Sheikh after Cairo, with a short domestic flight. Tell us when you enquire and we will adjust the plan and the price.
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