7 Day Cairo Luxor and Aswan Tour

Your Egypt Best Vacations representative meets you inside the arrivals hall at Cairo International Airport, holding a signboard with your name, and stays with you through the visa-on-arrival desk and passport control. Private transfer to your Cairo hotel, where the rest of the day is yours to rest or wander. Your representative confirms tomorrow’s pick-up time before leaving you.

Overnight: Cairo  |  Meals: No meals included

Your private guide collects you from the hotel for the Giza Plateau. You see the three main pyramids — Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure — from close up and again from the panoramic viewpoint that takes in all three, then continue down to the Great Sphinx and the valley temple of Khafre. Going inside a pyramid chamber is possible but needs a separate ticket bought at the gate on the day.

Lunch at a local restaurant, then the Grand Egyptian Museum, which opened to the public on 4 November 2025. The grand staircase carries monumental statuary up to the main galleries, and the Tutankhamun wing shows the tomb’s contents together for the first time. Allow around three hours here. Transfer back to your hotel afterwards.

Overnight: Cairo  |  Meals: Breakfast and lunch

Morning transfer to Cairo Airport for the flight to Aswan, about an hour and twenty minutes. Your Aswan guide meets you in the arrivals hall and you begin at the High Dam, completed in 1970, which ended the annual Nile flood and created Lake Nasser behind it.

A short motorboat crossing takes you to Agilkia Island for the Temple of Isis. Built over the Ptolemaic and Roman periods and dedicated to Isis, it stood on the island of Philae until the old Aswan Dam left it submerged for most of each year; between 1972 and 1980 it was dismantled into more than 40,000 blocks and rebuilt on higher ground here. You finish in the northern granite quarry at the Unfinished Obelisk, which would have stood around 42 metres and weighed close to 1,100 tonnes had a crack not stopped the work. Lunch at a local restaurant, then transfer to your hotel for a free evening.

Optional add-on: Nubian village Tour

Overnight: Aswan  |  Meals: Breakfast and lunch

Check out after breakfast and drive north. Kom Ombo, about 45 minutes from Aswan, is the only Egyptian temple built as two mirrored halves — the southern side for Sobek the crocodile god, the northern side for Horus the Elder — each with its own gateway, hypostyle hall and sanctuary. Main construction dates to Ptolemy VI, with Roman emperors including Tiberius, Domitian and Caracalla adding to it across roughly four centuries. The small Crocodile Museum next door holds mummified crocodiles recovered nearby.

Continue about an hour to Edfu and the Temple of Horus, built between 237 and 57 BC. Sand and village debris buried it for centuries, which is exactly why its roof, walls and inscriptions survive so completely; it was cleared in the 1860s. Lunch at a local restaurant, then the last stretch to Luxor, around an hour and a half. Driving time across the whole day comes to roughly four hours, split by the two temples and lunch.

Overnight: Luxor  |  Meals: Breakfast and lunch

After breakfast you cross to the west bank for the Valley of the Kings, where 65 numbered tombs and chambers are cut into the limestone. A rotating selection is open at any time and your guide picks three of them on the day, based on what is open and how the crowds are moving. The tombs of Seti I, Ramses V and VI, and Tutankhamun need separate tickets and are not included.

Continue to Deir el-Bahari and the terraced temple of Hatshepsut, who ruled for about twenty years as senior co-ruler alongside her stepson Thutmose III. You finish at the Colossi of Memnon, two quartzite statues of Amenhotep III standing around 18 metres high — the most visible remains of what was once the largest temple on the west bank. Lunch at a local restaurant, then back to your hotel for a free evening.

Optional add-on: Sunrise hot air balloon flight over the Luxor west bank

Overnight: Luxor  |  Meals: Breakfast and lunch

Begin at the Karnak Temple Complex, roughly 100 hectares of temples, pylons, chapels and obelisks added to by pharaoh after pharaoh over some 2,000 years. The Great Hypostyle Hall alone holds 134 columns, and the standing obelisk of Hatshepsut is the tallest still in place in Egypt. You also see the sacred lake and the avenue of ram-headed sphinxes at the entrance.

Continue to Luxor Temple on the east bank, built mainly by Amenhotep III and Ramses II and dedicated to the Theban triad of Amun, his consort Mut, and their son Khonsu. The processional avenue of sphinxes linking it to Karnak, about 2.7 kilometres long, reopened in 2021.

Lunch at a local restaurant, then transfer to Luxor Airport for the one-hour flight to Cairo. Your representative meets you on arrival and transfers you to your hotel for the final night.

Overnight: Cairo  |  Meals: Breakfast and lunch

Start at the Citadel of Saladin, begun in 1176 to defend Cairo and expanded by successive rulers for the next 700 years. Inside stands the Mosque of Muhammad Ali, built between 1830 and 1848 and faced in alabaster, which is why Cairo calls it the Alabaster Mosque. The terrace outside gives one of the best views over the city.

Continue to Coptic Cairo, built inside and around the walls of the Roman fortress of Babylon. You visit the Hanging Church, suspended above the fortress gatehouse; Abu Serga, traditionally held to stand where the Holy Family sheltered; and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, whose storeroom yielded around 300,000 medieval manuscript fragments now known as the Cairo Geniza.

Finish at Khan el-Khalili, a working market since 1382, for lanterns, spices, silver and coffee at El Fishawy. Transfer to Cairo International Airport for your departure flight. Timings on the final day are arranged around your flight, so tell us your departure time at booking and we will fit the sightseeing around it.

Meals: Breakfast