Egypt trip question
 

Hi everyone,

I plan on going to Egypt for the first time in May 2010 and doing it independently. I want to be able to roam around locations at my own pace. How hard would it be to hire a taxi for a day to drive me to my destinations? I understand that the majority of taxi drivers don't speack English, so can hotels easily arrange a taxi for me for the day?

Some guide books paint Cairo as a picture of confusion, while others make it seem like it's a semi walkable city, ie you can easily walk from downtown to the Islamic part of the city. I'm trying to debate if I should try to arrange a guide before I arrive or not. How would I find a guide once I arrive?

About booking internal flights to Luxor and Abu Simbel. Should I try to do it before leaving home? Should I contact an agency like Casual Cairo Detours and have them book them for me?

Thanks,
Alex

I would for sure contact Debbie at Casual Cairo.

I do not think that Cairo is an easy walkable place.

With temperatures probably in the 90's in May ,I think you better have a guide take you from place to place.

You may pay more this way BUT you also see more.

I remember on another post someone said people travelling independantly had a lot of trouble at the smaller airports where nobody spoke English and they were left to "fend for themselves" as all the groups were looked after.

My guide & driver hired through Lady Egypt has not cost much. I am going in September 10.

Just a question....are you Alexander or Alexandria? It will probably make a big difference in choosing to go it alone.

Cairo is not a walkable city....at least not in the way we think of European cities. Traffic is a nightmare, the majority of the street signs are in Arabic (some major ones in English), crossing streets is only for the brave, the sites are rather spread out - and it's going to be HOT!!!!

One of the main reasons for getting a guide is that hope that the vehicle you will be riding in has air-conditioning!

We had one free day in Cairo to explore the city on our own.
Walking is a nightmare-orn up sidewalks, six lanes of traffic with no stoplights, few crosswalks etc. i would not do it again. On the other hand, the subway was fairly easy to use.
Get a guide and driver is my advice. The days that we spent with a guide and driver were far more pleasant than the one we spent alone.

Pat

Thanks for everyone's reply.

MissGreen,
I'm a guy so I think at least in that one aspect I should be somewhat ok travelling solo :)

I've read a few different guidebooks on Egypt so far and this forum, of course. The current guide I'm reading is the Footprint Egypt Handbook. I just got the impression from reading it that it's not that bad to get from places to places, but maybe the people that wrote the book are very familiar with Egypt already. I'll definitely try to contact one or two agencies beforehand to see what I can work out with having a guide for at least some of the my days in Egypt.

Question about the pyramids at Giza: Are you allow to freely roam around the desert area around the pyramids, or are you restricted to some sort of designated pedestrian paths? Thanks.

You can pretty much go anywhere, but there will be the oddball that will blow their whistle and tell you NO NO NO. You have to push it sometimes to see if they mean it and have the authority to really say no. If he is dressed like a policeman, maybe you should pay attention. There will be some that are just trying to "capture" you into their web so they can direct your movement - eventually onto a horse/camel or into their cousins perfume shop.
I'm not spamming here, but just saying it is best to have a decent guide with you, if you want to know what you can and can't get away with.

ah...yes.....I still have the perfume I got from that cousin's shop!!!

Well, does it at least smell good? (FWIW, I still have the rugs I got in Morocco in 1980 from the same cousin -- at least I really like them!)

Actually.....it's a knock off of something that was popular back in about 2000. :( DH picked it out and I'm not crazy about it. I"m a Chanel gal (either Coco or Chanel #5) - so it's just sitting there.....lonely!

i have been to egypt twice. we travel a lot and really like to see places up close and personal. for cairo, you could try to find lonely planet cairo, which might be out of print, but out there on used market or available in cairo. they have very good walking tours. we love walking around cairo and just join a local when you need to cross the street since a red liight is jjust a suggestion.

you would have no problem getting taxis in any of the areas. I got an idea of the tourist price and the local price and negotiated. Most of my drivers had pretty decent English and you could hire them for trip around town, to giza or to Saqaurra. bring a guidebook and read as much as you want. IMO I would defintely go to Saqaurra for a day if you have the time, liked it better than giza. of course you should go to giza and there don't miss solar boat museum.
when you go to egyptian museum, leave camera at hotel- they are not allowed and go around 10 since before that bus tours generate long lines. go directly upstairs to tut and don't miss the mummy room.

for a sense of the nile, i recommend the day trip from luxor that goes north and you might be the only tour boat going that way. take the convoy from luxor to aswan (there is a bus and they will stop at temples where the cruise ships stop or offer express as you wish. and definitely try to stay overnight in abu simbel (walk around the town) and there we enjoyed the light show and went back at dawn for sunrise and few visitors. there is a very nice nubian man who has a small b&b (if his internet is working :)) otherwise stay at the 5 star .
ln luxor, don't miss the nobles and workers tombs area and I like the luxor temple at night (keep day ticket for readmission) and luxor museum is good as is the one in aswan (nubian culture).

you will have fun!

Bonnie
which is very nice western style resort hotel and beautiful.

Each time you are in a hotel they offer the service of having a guide and a limousine. Please note that a limo is actually in fact a reasonable car and not a run down one without doors or headlights. These can all be found at reasonable rates.

hello all here

donot worry about any thing

i could help any of you although my english not very good

donot worry about single trips

i think single trips are cheaper

for any questions about the weather or may be we met if you are here in fridays

Thanks for everyone's suggestions and ideas. I better book my flight soon if I'm going to make it to Egypt by May :).

I have a question about visiting Abu Simbel. I'd like to overnight there. Fodors said "making this arrangment is out of the norm, so it's best to use a travel agent to book your ticket." Cadogan guides book said "Many [air] seats are booked up to six to twelve months in advance by tour companies...". So do I need to make my arrangement for Abu Simbel now before I leave the States? Will it be too late if I wait until I get to Egypt and then go to a travel agency?

My plan currently is to either hit the Cairo-Abu Simbel-Answan-Luxor route or the Cairo-Luxor-Abu Simbel-Answan route. I guess with the second option I can save some money by taking the overnight train from Cairo to Luxor whereareas with the first option, I would be flying from Cairo to Answan/Abu Simbel and then backtrack to Answan and Luxor.

egyptair has flights from aswan to abusimbel at 12N -- you could look around, settle into nubian house or seti hotel and admire the stars and then return to sight at dawn for best photo light. i think you can book the seti at hotelclub.net or call or email the nubian house - they are hard to reach, but super nice people and walk around the town before catching your onward flight.you might need to reconfirm egypt air flights, but i bet your hotel could help you do this or go to egypt air office.
bonnie

My flight back to the U.S. leaves Cairo on a Monday at 4:30AM. Assuming that I need to be standing in line for the check in process at least by 2:30AM can I just spend the night at the Cairo airport? It doesn't seem to make sense to try and book a hotel room for Sunday night since I would then have to get into a taxi at around 1 AM anyway. Thanks.

The problem - and Debbie can chime in if I am mistaken - is that you may not be able to get past the securty screening (before the check in desk) until it's checkin time (2 hrs before). And therefore - you really can't get into the airport.

This is what happened to us on our last trip. I had 22 students with me and we had to "hang out" before the security area for about 90 minutes. Wasn't fun.

I'm still not sure about how to plan my trip. I already have plane tickets so I'm off to Egypt in May wether I'm ready or not, LOL. I really don't want to be part of a tour group. My interest is photography, and I've always arranged trip independently in the past to accommodate that. I hope to do the same for Egypt. I have ideas of what I want to see and when I want to see it. I just need to have reliable transportation and driver to get me there and back so that I don't waste hours trying to figure out direction. Will hiring a car and driver through my hotel allow me to accomplish this? Will they know to have an English speaking driver? Are there agencies out there that will allow me to do this? How about if I try to contact guides that are recommended on fodors? I wrote an email to Lady Egypt but haven't heard back from them. Thanks for any advice.

Once in Cairo you can arrange to hire a car and a guide for any tours you may wish to take. You can also contact our friend and guide by email prior to your trip. The guides at Cairo are a little "hit and miss" so I would recommend Aladin. Email [email protected]

I highly recommend Ahmed Seddik for your tours. We hired him last year. It was terrific. He has a splendid command of English. He even has a Facebook fan page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cairo-...st/50971729618

John

Our family has always traveled independently overseas as I work for the airlines and go overseas everyweek for work. However, I found when trying to put together a trip to Egypt and Jordan last year that it was almost impossible to obtain plane and train tickets within Egypt without an Egyptian travel agent. Most of the tickets(air) from Aswan to Abu Simbel seem to be prebooked through travel agents months before so our family could not book them online or by ourselves.
If you don't want to do the full tour thing I would highly recommend using Debbie from Casual Cairo tours who is on this board and originally from the US. She was most helpful in providing help on various things. She suggested using the Hotel Longchamps in Cairo and it was one of our favorite hotels that we have ever stayed at-inexpensive and providing a great oasis in the chaos of Cairo.Debbie also has various daytrips to Alexandria,Coptic Cairo,regular Cairo,etc. that you can work out with her.
As much as everyone wants to be independent in Egypt, there are times it is good to have something prebooked before leaving .Good luck!

While it has been a few years since I have been to Egypt, 4 to be precise I am currently planning a return trip this summer.

My husband and I spent 3 weeks traveling in the country on our own. The only place we did not like was Alexandria, which we went to on our own for 2 nights by the local train.

We did have some confusion over getting train tickets on our own for the overnight to Luxor with a sleeping compartment for our Nile cruise. The hotel even sent someone to get the tickets and then the young man came back with no luck. They sent us ourselves and advised us that we should be prepared to pay a tip to get our compartment, which we were. When the booth opened up the agent sold us the tickets at cost and away we went, No Problem.

We hired a cab driver to take us to Giza for the day and he was great and very helpful. We traveled all over Cairo using public transportation, the subway system is great, and people were very helpful and polite. We were there during part of Ramadan and the Feast of Eid.

We did book our Nile cruise before leaving the US even though everyone said you could book when you got there,and that in fact is true. There are hundreds of boats along the Nile in Luxor and very few are full. It is a great experience and one not to miss.

So we used the subways, trains, planes and cabs without incident. While Cairo is a big city if you use the subway you can easily get around and walking around the city is half the fun.

When you have your bank do a wire tranfer of money to a bank in Egypt, shouldn't the Egyptian bank receive the money almost instantly? My bank did this for me on 4/19 for a private Egyptian tour payment. Today is 4/23 and the tour said that they haven't receive confirmation yet about the money. Should I be concern or just give it a few more days? Thanks.

Alex... to do an international bank transfer can take a couple of days.... this is what I was advised by my bank and actually happened when I sent my money to Lady Egypt from Australia.

Ok, thanks MissGreen. I was a little bit concern since I'm supposed to be in Egypt in about 2 weeks.

If you want to do the Islamic parts of Cairo on your own, here are a couple of walks that were put together by an English lady who was living in Cairo.

http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Travel-g29...o.Walk.1..html

http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Travel-g29...o.Walk.2..html

Axel2DP and those who have solo toured Egypt-- cannot wait to join you!

Tentatively, I plan to visit the following UNESCO sites: (A) Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae; (B) Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur; (C) Historic Cairo.

I want to see as many different sites as possible. If you have further recommendations, please let me know.

If you have traveled to those places by yourself (minus Cairo), please let me know how you got there if one uses Cairo as the main departure site.

Axel2DP: which tour did you eventually join? Be sure to share your experience when you return!

Hi Hobbit,

I will be doing it with Lady Egypt. There's a schedule but it should be very flexible since I'm not doing a group tour, so I'm very happy with that. I'm flying there in about two weeks. When are you heading off?



Anyone has advice on how to have enough small bills ready for that all important bahkeesh? I can stop at the ATM upon my airport arrival, but I doubt it will spit out small bills for me. Can I get changes at the airport? How do you maintain enough small bills for the entire duration of the trip? Are ATMs handy in Luxor and Answan? Thanks.

Are you doing the "Pharaohs Footsteps Tour?" I might do that tour if I decide to do a tour group, which ideally I would like to avoid.

My trip will take place next summer. I plan to go to Jordan (Petra), Egypt, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Morocco. Though I wonder if I should stop by Greece since I would have experienced most ancient columns by that time.

As for your questions, why don't you email Lady Egypt those questions? Maybe your Egyptian hotels can answer them too.

Enjoy Egypt as a solo traveler. Hope all goes well for you.

Forgot to add: I plan to stop by Turkey next summer too.

Has anyone visited Abydos on a day trip from Luxor? I wasn't initially planning on doing it, but since I'll have almost two whole free days in Luxor I think I might try to squeeze in Abydos. My only concern is that the trip there and back will take up the entire day, from 8:00am until 5-6 pm before I get back to Luxor. Does that seems like how long the trip to Abydos will take? I think I'd like to have my evening free in case I want to visit Karnak or Luxor temple in the early evening.


Regarding having enough small bills ready for my trip duration, should I (a) have a bunch of U.S. $1.00 bill before I arrive in Cairo so that I can use them just in case I don't have any LE available ? (b) Will I be able to get small LE bills at the airport exchange and/or at the hotel bank if there is one? I just don't want to not have any bahksheesh readily available, especially for the drivers and guides that I'll be using. Thanks.

If you are going to need to spend the whole day out on a day trip, do Abydos and Dendara on the same day. They are in the same direction and doable in one day.

Not a bad idea to have clean, new $1 USD bills with you incase you don't have any EGP on you, but as soon as you can get EGP, get it and use it. 1LE coins are now available from the banks in rolls. They seem to be more available than the notes ever were. Tip with those when you have them.

Coins in the roll should be available at one of the banks - airport or hotel, but if not, keep looking for them. They are around now.

Drivers and guides should get more like $5 minimum and they will gladly accept USD...but it should not have any writing on it or be torn. Try to keep those bills in the USA if you can.