This page is about Egypt Best Vacations: who we are, where we work and how we run our tours. We are a licensed Egyptian tour operator with our own office in Luxor, founded and led by Egyptologist Essam Ali. Egypt Best Vacations launched in March 2020 as the trading name of Standard Tours, a company founded in 1999.
Most travellers book Egypt through a company in their own country, which then passes the trip to a local operator. We are that local operator. When you write to us you are talking to the people who plan your route, choose your guide and meet you at the airport.
Essam Ali is a professional Egyptologist. He lives and works in Luxor, the city that holds Karnak, the Valley of the Kings and the temple of Hatshepsut, and he still leads tours in person.
That background decides how every trip is built. The guide beside you at the Pyramids or inside a royal tomb has studied the history and can answer the question you did not plan to ask. Our guides are licensed, English-speaking Egyptologists, chosen for what they know about the sites and not only for the languages they speak.
It also decides what we leave out. We would rather give you a full morning in one great temple with a guide who can read its walls than rush you past three.
Essam Ali
Founder · Egyptologist · Luxor
In Egypt, the right guide makes a huge difference.
AtlantaTraveller, TripAdvisor review
Winner of the TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Award in 2024, 2025 and 2026. Read our reviews on TripAdvisor.
The company behind Egypt Best Vacations was founded on 18 February 1999. It holds Egyptian tourism licence no. 1082.
In March 2020 Essam Ali launched Egypt Best Vacations as the company’s brand for guided tours led by Egyptologists.
To show Egypt the way an Egyptologist would show it to a friend: fewer sites, more time at each, and a guide who can read what is written on the walls.
Tours of two to six days are private: your own guide, driver and vehicle.
Longer itineraries travel with no more than 16 guests, or privately on request.
We publish the Egyptian star rating and its Western equivalent side by side.
On tour packages our representative meets you inside arrivals and helps with the visa.
Every tour page lists exactly what is and is not included in the price.
You pay by secure online payment link, in your own currency if you prefer.
Our routes cover Cairo and the Pyramids, the Grand Egyptian Museum, Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel, Alexandria, the Red Sea and the Western Desert, with Nile cruises by ship, dahabiya or felucca.
Egypt Best Vacations was founded in March 2020 by Essam Ali, a professional Egyptologist based in Luxor. He still runs the company and leads tours himself. It is the trading name of Standard Tours, which was founded in 1999.
Yes. Egypt Best Vacations is the trading name of Standard Tours, which holds Egyptian tourism licence no. 1082. Our office is at 1 St. Joseph Street, off Khalid Ibn El-Walid Street, Luxor.
In Luxor, Upper Egypt, a short drive from Karnak and the Valley of the Kings. We are a local operator with our own office, not an overseas agency reselling other companies’ trips.
Trips of two to six days are private, with your own guide, driver and vehicle. Longer itineraries travel as small groups of no more than 16 guests, or privately if you prefer.
We reply with a route and a price planned around them.
