This private 5 day Cairo Luxor and Aswan tour from Egypt Best Vacations is the shortest itinerary on which you can see the Pyramids, Abu Simbel and the Valley of the Kings in one trip. Two internal flights and a three-hour train do the travelling for you: Cairo for the Giza plateau and the Grand Egyptian Museum, a flight south to Aswan for Philae and the dawn run to Abu Simbel, the train north along the Nile to Luxor for the West Bank and Karnak, and a flight back to Cairo for the Citadel and Khan el-Khalili before you leave. From $1,015 per person at 5-star hotels, with a licensed Egyptologist guide throughout and daily departures.
Most short tours make you choose. Our 4 Day Cairo and Luxor Tour Package skips Aswan; our 4 Day Cairo Aswan Abu Simbel Tour skips Luxor. The fifth day is what removes the choice — and the order of the route is what makes it possible. You go to Aswan first so that the Abu Simbel excursion, which leaves before dawn, comes early in the trip while you are fresh, and the train then carries you downstream to Luxor rather than back the way you came. Compare it with our other five-day routes on the 5 day Egypt tour packages page.
Day one is the Giza plateau — the three pyramids and the Sphinx — with the afternoon at your hotel. Day two is a morning flight to Aswan and the town’s three set pieces: the High Dam, the Unfinished Obelisk still lying in its granite quarry, and the Temple of Isis at Philae, rebuilt on Agilkia Island when its original island was drowned. Day three is Abu Simbel, the two temples of Ramses II and Nefertari raised 65 metres above the rising lake between 1964 and 1968, followed by the seated train to Luxor along the Nile Valley.
Day four is Luxor: the Valley of the Kings, the terraced temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari and the Colossi of Memnon on the West Bank, then Karnak — the largest temple complex in Egypt, at roughly 100 hectares — on the East. Day five flies you back to Cairo for the Grand Egyptian Museum with the complete Tutankhamun collection, the Citadel of Saladin, founded in 1176, with the Alabaster Mosque of Muhammad Ali inside it, and Khan el-Khalili before your departure transfer. With one more day the pace is more relaxed, and you can add Coptic Cairo on our our 6 day Cairo Luxor and Aswan tour, from $1,090.
Prefer the best hotels in each city? The 5 day luxury Cairo Luxor and Aswan tour follows the same route in Diamond or Elite hotels on half board, from $1,899 per person.
Egypt Best Vacations representative will meet you at Cairo International Airport to help you through the arrival and visa regulations. Meet your guide outside the arrival terminal to begin your 5-day Egypt tour. Embark on a guided tour of the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx, where your Egyptologist explains how and why the kings of the Old Kingdom raised these monuments — and separates the real engineering from the myths. Savor your lunch at a local restaurant, then transfer to your hotel.
Note: The order of Day 1 sightseeing adjusts to your flight arrival time. For evening arrivals, the Pyramids visit moves to another day of your itinerary.
Meals Plan: Lunch Only
Today your tour heads south. After an early breakfast at the hotel (or a breakfast box for very early flights), you fly from Cairo to Aswan, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Your guide meets you outside the arrivals hall at Aswan Airport.
First stop is the High Dam, completed in 1970 to end the Nile’s annual flood and generate hydroelectric power; it created Lake Nasser behind it. Then take a motorboat to the Temple of Philae, the island sanctuary of Isis, built mostly in the Ptolemaic period and moved stone by stone to Agilkia Island in a UNESCO rescue between 1977 and 1980. End at the granite quarry of the Unfinished Obelisk: about 42 metres long, it would have been the largest obelisk ever raised had it not cracked while being carved. Transfer to your hotel. Overnight in Aswan.
Optional tour: Nubian Village in Aswan
Meals Plan: Breakfast Only
Pick-up from your Aswan hotel is at about 4:00 am, with a breakfast box for the road. The drive south to Abu Simbel is about 280 km and takes 3 to 3.5 hours across open desert, so you arrive around 8:00 am, before the heat and the biggest crowds.
You have about 2 hours at the site. The Great Temple of Ramses II, carved into the mountainside around 1264 BC, is fronted by four seated colossi about 20 metres high. Next to it stands the smaller temple dedicated to his queen, Nefertari, and the goddess Hathor. Your Egyptologist explains how both temples were cut into blocks and rebuilt 65 metres higher between 1964 and 1968 to save them from Lake Nasser. Twice a year, on about 22 February and 22 October, the rising sun reaches the statues in the temple’s inner sanctuary.
You’re back in Aswan by about 2:00 pm. In the afternoon you board the seated train to Luxor (about 3 hours, air-conditioned), which follows the Nile past villages, palm groves and sugarcane fields. On arrival, you transfer to your hotel. Overnight in Luxor.
Meals Plan: Breakfast Only
After breakfast, cross to the West Bank and the Valley of the Kings, where the pharaohs of the New Kingdom were buried in tombs cut deep into the rock to hide them from robbers. More than 60 tombs have been found here. Your standard ticket covers three, and your Egyptologist picks the three best that are open on the day. (Tutankhamun, Seti I and Ramses V & VI need separate tickets)
Next is the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, the terraced mortuary temple of one of the few women to rule Egypt as pharaoh, for about 20 years in the 15th century BC. Her official statues and reliefs show her with the traditional pharaoh’s headdress and false beard. Stop at the Colossi of Memnon, the two 18-metre statues of Amenhotep III that once guarded his mortuary temple.
After lunch at a local restaurant, cross to the East Bank for Karnak, the largest temple complex in Egypt, built and enlarged by pharaohs over some 2,000 years. Its Great Hypostyle Hall has 134 giant columns. Finish at Luxor Temple, linked to Karnak by the restored Avenue of Sphinxes; both temples were dedicated to the Theban Triad of Amun, Mut and Khonsu. In the evening, transfer to Luxor Airport for your flight back to Cairo. Overnight in Cairo.
Optional tour: Sunrise Hot Air Ballooning Over Luxor
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
After breakfast, one last treasure hunt — and it’s the biggest. At the Grand Egyptian Museum, the finds you’ve been circling all week come together: Tutankhamun’s funerary collection reunited in full, colossal statuary in the grand atrium, and gallery windows that frame the very pyramids you stood beneath on Day 1.
Lunch at a local restaurant, then climb to the Citadel of Saladin, the medieval fortress guarding Cairo’s skyline, where the alabaster domes of the Mohammed Ali Mosque catch the afternoon light and the whole city unrolls below the walls. Finish among the lantern shops and spice stalls of Khan El-Khalili, Cairo’s legendary bazaar since the 14th century — the right place for a farewell mint tea and a souvenir that actually means something.
Then your driver takes you to Cairo Airport for departure. Five days, three cities, and the full sweep of ancient Egypt — and when the Nile calls you back, Egypt Best Vacations will be ready with your next chapter.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
