Most of my guests come to Egypt for a week. The ones who come for two weeks leave changed. Fourteen days is the threshold where Egypt stops being a holiday and becomes a journey — long enough to see Alexandria as well as Cairo, long enough for a full week on the Nile rather than a four-day taster, long enough to sleep in the White Desert under stars so close they feel pinned to your tent, and still long enough at the end to do nothing on the Red Sea for three days. I have guided this itinerary, in one form or another, for almost thirty years. It remains the route I would design for my closest friend visiting Egypt for the first time.
We start on the Mediterranean — Alexandria, the city of Cleopatra, the lost lighthouse, the great library. Then Cairo, properly, over three days rather than two: pyramids, Grand Egyptian Museum, Saqqara, Memphis, and an evening in old Islamic Cairo. A flight south to Luxor and a full seven nights on a deluxe Nile cruiser — slow enough to read on the sun deck, deep enough to visit Dendera and Abydos, two temples most cruises miss. We continue overland to Abu Simbel and Aswan, then fly to the Western Desert for two nights in Bahariya and a single magical night sleeping among the chalk formations of the White Desert. We finish on the Red Sea, where after thirteen extraordinary days you have nothing left to do but float.
This is the itinerary for travellers who refuse to rush Egypt. Couples on a long honeymoon. Photographers. Cultural travellers in early retirement. Anyone who has read about this country for years and finally has the time to see it properly. We pace it for energy, not endurance — every long day is followed by a slower one, every flight is short, every transfer is private, and every night you sleep somewhere genuinely worth the journey.
