Independent Travel Itinerary for Egypt

In September 2019, I spent 3 weeks traveling around in Egypt independently without a tour.

If you’ve done any research already on a trip to Egypt, you’ll find pricey tour 3–10 day tours, blog posts on how there are lots of scams targeting tourists, and that the country is not safe to do alone without a tour.

But tours are also very expensive, crowded, not flexible, and flat out not for well-versed backpackers.

Egypt is actually extremely cheap to travel on your own, with decent infrastructure built out for the major tourist spots. You just have to be careful and do your research beforehand on what prices to expect and look up reviews before booking anything.

Here’s the itinerary for an independent trip to Egypt without a tour.

Cairo

Most trips to Egypt start in Cairo and it’s completely worth it to spend a few days here. We ended up spending 6 days in Cairo.

Get a SIM card from Vodaphone or Orange. The WiFi anywhere in Egypt is not great so if you need internet, it’s best to hotspot yourself.

We stayed at an Airbnb near Zamalek (the nice, expat area with a lot of bars and international cuisine) for $18USD/night. We loved chatting up our host and locals we met in restaurants or cold messaged on Linkedin about what Egypt is like today and where it is heading.

We got around using Uber (so no need to haggle prices). From the airport to downtown Cairo was a 40min drive costing 132LE or $8USD. Around town, the cost is 20LE or $1.2USD.

Must-Sees:

Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx

Khan El Khalili Market — smoke some shisha and drink some coffee in the depths of the market we recommend El Fishawy
The Egyptian Museum
One of many beautiful mosques and the Citadel
Neighborhoods like Maadi and New Cairo to see the contrast between rich and poor

Cairo to Aswan

We decided to go all the way South and make our way back up to Luxor. There is only one train tourists can go on from Cairo down south and that is the overnight train. Tourists cannot go on day time trains.

We chose to go to Aswan first because it meant getting a full night’s sleep instead of getting off the train close to 6am at Luxor.

It is best to buy a ticket online at: https://www.wataniasleepingtrains.com/

For 2 people sharing an air-conditioned cabin, the cost is $80USD/person for a total of $160USD.

You get breakfast and dinner included in the price.

Our bunkbed cabin inside the night train from Cairo to Aswan

After getting off the train, we had pre-arranged a taxi through our accommodation for 30LE (taxi drivers at the station were asking for 150LE so you will have to haggle). Always get your hotel to pick you up as there are no Ubers outside of Cairo.

Abu Simbel

The main attraction for going to Aswan is Abu Simbel even though Abu Simbel is another 3.5 hours drive south of Aswan.

There is no public transportation from Abu Simbel. Tours from Aswan to Abu Simble range from $60 — $300/person if you look online or book from a hotel.

The trick here is to book a very budget accommodation hotel or hostel that run their own buses there. We found a budget hotel that ran one every morning for only $16USD/person round trip.

The shuttle buses leave at 3 AM and get back between noon and 1 PM. This will get make you in time for the 3 PM train to Luxor.

We decided to opt for a slightly more expensive tour company and deal with the tour company themselves instead of through a third party hostel. We called Egypt Knight Tours (+20 100 133 9220 < Whatsapp) and got the trip for less than what’s posted online for $25USD/person.

These tours do not include tickets (and neither do most of the more expensive tours) or tour guides. However, the ticket into Abu Simbel is only 200LE or $12USD. Tour guides are not allowed in the temples. Therefore it’s totally worth it to go via a budget tour group.

The site is not very big and 2 hours of exploring that these tour groups give is enough unless you are a true egyptologist.

Aswan

Other things to check out in Aswan is the nearby Nubian Villages (colorful houses), take a Felucca down the Nile (50LE per boat is the local price so you have to haggle again), and visit the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Hotel.

We ended up staying our second night in Aswan splurging on the five-star Sofitel Old Cataract Hotel (~$200USD/night) and it was absolutely worth it. The hotel counts Princess Diana, Winston Churchill, and Russian Czars among its previous guests. Highly recommend doing a meal or drinks there at sunset if you don’t stay there!

By the poolside facing the Nile at Old Cataract Hotel

Aswan to Luxor

Aswan to Luxor trains run many times a day and take around 3 hours. First-class tickets are 90LE or $5.5USD. Tourists are allowed on these day trains but you cannot take a day train from Aswan or Luxor all the way to Cairo.

Luxor

Luxor has most of the attractions people think about ancient Egypt. Again, tours are very expensive online. We came in thinking that we would just take a taxi everywhere (~30–40LE/trip in the East Bank and a bit higher to go to the West Bank) and hit up the tourist sites ourselves.

When we arrived in Luxor, a tour company owner got into our taxi as well and charmed us with great conversation. He also showed us his tour prices (which have got to be the cheapest in town).

The flyer Mr Nasser handed us after getting in the front seat of our taxi

120LE or $7USD for a half-day tour of the West Bank to Valley of Kings and Hatchepsut Temple? Yes, please!

On my tour, it was only me and one other woman with a female tour guide and a driver! We even got lunch after and I learned a lot about life in Egypt outside of Cairo while chatting with my Christian Egyptian tour guide.

Luxor to Marsa Alam

If you decide to end your trip here, then take a night train or a flight back to Cairo. But if you want to continue on and see where even Egyptians who want to escape the big city life go, then you have to go to the coast.

Our next stop was Marsa Alam, a place famous for spotting marine life.

To get there is quite a trek because the fastest road from Luxor or Aswan to Marsa Alam is closed to tourists. There is also no public transportation.

We paid Mr Nasser, the tour company owner that we used in Luxor, for a private driver for 1550LE or $95USD.

Cheaper ways to get there would be straight from Cairo on a bus that probably costs less than $10 but will take 12–14 hours. It would also cost us way more to go back to Cairo then to Marsa Alam.

Marsa Alam

We stayed in the resort Marsa Shagra Village which is one of the three accommodations associated with Red Sea Diving Safari.

For $110USD/night we got a 2 person tent right on the beach and 3 meals a day. We rented snorkeling gear for 3 euros/day and got to go and snorkel (or dive) the house reefs right on the property for free. Additional trips cost anywhere from 10–40 euros where you go off to a dive spot by boat.

These boats out to dive sites have a 6 person min. Sometimes, the tour that we wanted to go to didn’t hit that limit so we weren’t able to go. I recommend going with a bigger group of people or planning to stay longer so that you have more opportunities to see certain dive sites.

It was such a beautiful property and we absolutely loved it.

Right at the house reef we swam with 2 dolphins and 2 sea turtles and saw a crazy amount of fish and corals. Some people at the resort saw a Whale Shark one morning!

Marsa Alam to Dahab

This was the most expensive leg of our journey across Egypt.

We hired a car for 45 euros/person from the hotel to get us to Hurghada Airport, 3.5 hours north of Marsa Alam.
We flew from Hurghada to Sharm El Shiekh Airport for $75/person. The flight was 30min.
From Sharm El Shiekh Aiport we got to Dahab by a car arranged by our hotel in Dahab for $35USD. Sharm to Dahab is a 1 hour ride.

A MUCH cheaper way to do this is to take the bus from Marsa Alam to Cairo and then from Cairo to Dahab. However, this would take 2 days.

Another way is to take a flight from Marsa Alam to Sharm El Sheikh, this completely depends on flight prices and how in advance you book. This would have been much more convenient and around the same price as the route we took.

There is also a ferry from Hurghada to Sharm which is 3 hours and would cost $40USD/person

Dahab

Dahab is on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and along the Gulf of Aqaba. People come from all over the world to Sharm, Dahab or Nuweiba to dive.

We ended up getting our PADI with the cheapest (and fantastically reviewed) dive center, Red Sea Relax. It took 3 days to get our PADI Open Water for 220 euros and another 2 days to get our PADI Advanced Open Water for 170 euros.

The dive center is amazing and I cannot recommend our instructor Kareem enough. We met a lot of divers who got certified here and came back to Dahab months or years later and were welcomed back like family.

Dahab is a hip dive town with lots of cute cafes, cheap seafood, warm water beaches, and definitely some of the best diving spots in the world. We were only supposed to stay 2 nights and ended up staying 7.

We stayed at Tarbouche House Dahab for $27/night the whole week and it was very convenient to the beach and dive center!

Dahab to Tel Aviv

At the end of our trip around Egypt, we wanted to go to Tel Aviv. Flights from Sharm or Cairo to Tel Aviv are between $250–$300USD. We opted for a bus from Dahab to Taba, the Egyptian town at the Israeli border for 85LE/person or $5USD and then a bus from Eilat to Tel Aviv for 70NIS or $20USD.

The only bus from Dahab to Taba is with the East Delta Travel Company. You buy the ticket at the East Delta bus station (there are other bus stations with other companies) on the morning of. There is only one bus a day that is supposed to come at 10:30 am (but came at ~11:15 for us).

You will get to Taba sometime in the early afternoon. From the bus station, you can walk to the border in ~15min.

Crossing the border can take a long time depending on the day. Since the last bus from Eilat (the border town on the Israel side) to Tel Aviv is at 5 pm, it is best to arrange a night of accommodation in Eilat or Taba.

We crossed the border first and got a taxi (supposed to cost around 30 NIS or 10USD) to our hotel in Eilat.

From Eilat, there are buses almost every hour to Tel Aviv.

Hope you’ll visit Egypt!

Egypt is so so so safe, safer than many big cities in Europe and Asia. No one even bats an eye in Cairo when spotting a tourist.

In terms of people hustling and haggling, it’s not any worse than places in South East Asia.

Egypt is the most populated country in the Middle East, the heart of Arab culture through Egyptian Cinema, and one of the most popping places in tech for all of Africa. It is really worth a visit to learn about one of the greatest ancient civilizations but also to see how modern history has shaped this society.