This private luxury Cairo and Luxor tour covers the two places every first visit to Egypt is really about — the Giza Plateau and ancient Thebes — in four days, without a coach, a group, or a fixed departure date. You travel with your own Egyptologist, your own driver and your own vehicle, on the days you choose.
Cairo comes first: the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx in its enclosure, and the Grand Egyptian Museum, where the complete Tutankhamun collection is displayed together for the first time.
Then you fly south to Luxor for the west bank and the east bank in a single day — the Valley of the Kings, Deir el-Bahari, the Colossi of Memnon, then Karnak and Luxor Temple across the river. Your last morning is Cairo again: Saladin’s Citadel, the churches and synagogue of Coptic Cairo, and Khan El Khalili.
Domestic flights, entrance fees, half-board hotels and every transfer are inside the price. What is not inside the price is a stranger asking the guide to repeat the question you already asked.
Your Egypt Best Vacations representative meets you inside the arrivals terminal at Cairo International Airport, holding a signboard with your name, and stays with you through visa and passport formalities. Your driver is waiting at the car.
Private transfer to your hotel. Nothing is scheduled for the rest of today — most people arrive tired and the itinerary is deliberately built around that. Dinner at your hotel is included.
Meals: Dinner | Overnight: Cairo
Breakfast at the hotel, then your Egyptologist collects you for the Giza Plateau. You will see the Great Pyramids of Giza — Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure — the panoramic point where all three align, and the Sphinx with its Valley Temple, where the granite casing and the causeway survive.
Your guide will take you through how they were actually built: the quarry marks, the workers’ village, the ramps, and why the alien theories fall apart the moment you look at the evidence on the ground.
Lunch at a deluxe local restaurant, then the Grand Egyptian Museum — the largest archaeological museum in the world, and now home to the complete Tutankhamun collection. Allow three to four hours; your guide will route you through the highlights rather than all twelve galleries.
Return to your hotel. Dinner at the hotel.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner | Overnight: Cairo
An early transfer to Cairo airport for the morning flight to Luxor, where your Luxor Egyptologist meets you at arrivals.
You start on the west bank at the Valley of the Kings, the New Kingdom royal necropolis. Your standard ticket admits you to three tombs, chosen on the day from whichever are open — the rotation changes for conservation. Then the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, terraced into the cliff, built for the queen who ruled as senior co-ruler alongside Thutmose III. On the way back you stop at the Colossi of Memnon, the two seated giants that once fronted the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III — the temple itself is gone; the gatekeepers remain.
Lunch at a local restaurant, then across to the east bank for Karnak. Roughly 100 hectares, built and rebuilt over some two thousand years by successive pharaohs, and the Hypostyle Hall alone runs to 134 columns. Finally Luxor Temple, connected to Karnak by the avenue of sphinxes and best seen as the light drops.
Evening flight back to Cairo and a private transfer to your hotel for your final night. Dinner at the hotel.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner | Overnight: Cairo
Breakfast, then the Citadel of Saladin, begun in 1176 on the Muqattam spur to defend Cairo, and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali inside it — the alabaster mosque, Ottoman in plan, with the best view over the city on a clear morning.
Down into Coptic Cairo. The Hanging Church, suspended over a Roman gate tower and famous for its wooden ceiling and icons. Then Abu Serga, the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, built over a crypt where tradition holds the Holy Family sheltered. And finally the Ben Ezra Synagogue, where the Cairo Geniza was found — a storeroom of nearly 400,000 discarded manuscripts that rewrote what we know about mediaeval Mediterranean life.
Lunch at a local restaurant, then Khan El Khalili, the great mediaeval bazaar — cotton, spice, silver, and coffee at El Fishawy. Your guide will tell you what things should cost before you start.
Private transfer to Cairo International Airport for your departure flight.
Meals: Breakfast & Lunch
| Travel dates | Triple | Twin | Single |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 May – 30 September | $1,300 | $1,360 | $2,310 |
| 1 October – 21 December | $1,360 | $1,435 | $2,440 |
| 22 December – 10 January (Festive) | $1,700 | $1,795 | $3,050 |
| 11 January – 25 March | $1,360 | $1,435 | $2,440 |
| 26 March – 10 April (Easter) | $1,550 | $1,650 | $2,805 |
| 11 April – 30 April | $1,360 | $1,435 | $2,440 |
Cairo Hotels: Sofitel Nile Down Town. Sofitel El-Gezirah. Triumph Luxury. Intercontinental Citystars. Sheraton Cairo. Intercontinental Semiramis. Kempinski Nile and more of the similar category.
| Travel dates | Triple | Twin | Single |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 May – 30 September | $1,700 | $1,775 | $3,020 |
| 1 October – 21 December | $1,775 | $1,865 | $3,170 |
| 22 December – 10 January (Festive) | $2,220 | $2,330 | $3,960 |
| 11 January – 25 March | $1,775 | $1,865 | $3,170 |
| 26 March – 10 April (Easter) | $2,000 | $2,130 | $3,620 |
| 11 April – 30 April | $1,775 | $1,865 | $3,170 |
Cairo Hotels: Fairmont Nile City. St, Regis. Ritz Carlton. Four Seasons First Residence. Four Seasons Nile Plaza and more of the similar category.
