Egypt at the end of January - Crowded or not?
 

Hi All,

We've just started background planning for a trip to Egypt and Jordan. Looking at 2 periods - either start of November 2011 or end of January 2012 (I know, it's a loooong way away!). I'm trying to get a sense of the crowds there at that time. We don't mind other tourists being there obviously, but if possible, we're trying to avoid wall to wall of buses at major tourist sites (and the crowds that go along with it!).

We would be using LE for a private tour, and have been informed (by someone else, not LE) that the hotel rates are much higher due to "bookings from Europe and Russia" in the Winter months.

Anyone having travelled at that periods please comment.

Thanks in anticipation.

We are going from January 22 thru Feb 5 2011. We are booked through LE and are on a private tour - Cairo, Alexandria, Nile Cruise, Petra, Wadi Rum, Dead Sea, Amman. I will write a trip report when we return, but meanwhile if there is anything you want to know regarding the planning stages, I would be happy to help if I can.

I think January is around the high season time frame for Egypt, since people in Europe and America want to get away from their cold climates.

One major way to avoid the wall to wall of tour buses at sites is to get to the site the first thing in the morning. For example sites in Luxor open at 6am so get there at around that time and you'll have time to enjoy the site until the tour buses start coming at about 8-9 am.

Also for some sites like Edfu and Kom Ombo, a good guide can timed your arrival so that you'll arrive after the cruise groups have already departed. That was what my guide in Answan did for me, and I had Edfu almost all to myself.

I was in Egypt in May and mid November of 2011. I got to most of the sites really early to avoid the crowd, but I will say that May seemed to have less people since the climate was already getting too hot by then. For Cairo in November I was also there at the same time as "The Feast", and the crowd and noise downtown during that time was just insance.

Thanks for your responses. Marvontherim - looking forward to your trip report, as your itinerary seems to mirror ours closely, although I'm tempted to cut out Wadi Rum and spend 2 nights at Petra instead.

So we'd be doing Cairo, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Nile cruise to Luxor, Cairo to Alexandria and Alamein overnight trip, then Cairo to Amman (will see if it's possible to get to Petra same day via Dead Sea). In total 14 days.

I'm dealing whth Emad Kamal from LE who's sent details, just working thru them at the moment, changing some hotels and trips.

I'd be interested to know how much you were quoted, if you don't mind, please send me a note to albert dot s at bigpond dot net dot au

Thanks

We did a private 14 day Egypt tour last January (2010) arriving in late January. Our guide was amazing at getting us to all the sites either ahead of the huge group tours, or later in the day when crowds had thinned somewhat. For the most part though, we tended to arrive before everyone else and would marvel at the crowds as we departed. The highlight was arriving at Karnak temple before dawn, there was no one else there except us, and it was truly magical! Well worth the 4AM get up! I thought the weather was delightful at that time of year - a light jacket in the early morning hours and by mid-day it was perfect short sleeves weather. As far as hotel rates go, I tend to concur that the winter months are probably higher than November but our attitude was "we're only going to do this trip once, so lets enjoy ourselves". I'm convinced that a private quide/tour is the way to enjoy Egypt.

I was in Egypt the first 18 days of November, 2009. The weather was great--not too hot. Being a tour of one, I was able to get started early each morning and did not have to ever deal with crowds....except for the Egyptian Museum which always seemed to be packed. It was truly the trip of a lifetime and it was all done with Lady Egypt.

I wonder what's happening to marvontherim. I hope they are out of danger from the demonstrations that have turned violent, and found a way out to safety. I hope and pray for the Egyptian people that life is returned to a better normal sooner rather than later.

Yes, I'm wondering as well. I exchanged some emails with her about 3 weeks ago, but since then I haven't heard. Will send her an email tonight and see if she responds. Hopefully she's made her way out to Jordan when the troubles started.

We are keeping our fingers crossed for Egypt and the planning is still going on in the background. If Egypt doesn't work out, we'll aim for Turkey instead.