Our Egypt holidays

Wide choice of authentic Egypt travel experiences. Discover the real Egypt with leading responsible operators. Better for you, better for Egypt's heritage.

Don't miss our special section on Nile Cruises & Sinai holidays Information to help you prepare for your holiday or vacation to Egypt courtesy of Our Expert Team. With a wealth of practical and background information, this travel guide is the essential companion for your holiday.

Reading up on the places you visit will help you get a little more out of vacations and help you understand local sensitivities better.

Egypt is the oldest tourist holiday destination on earth. Ancient Greeks and Romans started the trend, traveling to goggle at the cyclopean scale of the Pyramids and the Colossi of Thebes. At the onset of colonial times, Napoleon and the British in turn looted Egypt's treasures to fill their national museums, sparking off a trickle of Grand Tourists that, by the 1860s, had grown into a flood of travelers, packaged for vacations filled with Nile cruises, tours of the pyramids and Egypt logical lectures by the enterprising Min Travel.

Travel on holiday to Egypt today, and the attractions are little different. The focus of most holidays and vacations remain the great monuments of the Nile Valley and Pyramids, combined with a few days spent exploring the souks, mosques and madras’s of Islamic Cairo. However, possibilities for Egyptian travel also encompass snorkeling and diving along the Red Sea coasts, remote oases and camel trips into the mountains of Sinai, or visits to the Coptic monasteries of the Eastern Desert.

The land itself is a freak of nature, whose lifeblood is the River Nile. From the Sudanese border to the shores of the Mediterranean, the Nile Valley and its Delta are flanked by arid wastes, the latter as empty as the former are teeming with people. This stark duality between fertility and desolation is fundamental to Egypt's character and has shaped its development since prehistoric times, imparting continuity to diverse cultures and peoples over five millennia. It is a sense of permanence and timelessness that is buttressed by religion, which pervades every aspect of life. Although the pagan cults of ancient Egypt are as moribund as its legacy of mummies and temples, their ancient fertility rites and processions of boats still hold their place in the celebrations of Islam and Christianity.

The result is a multi-layered Egyptian culture, which seems to accord equal respect to ancient and modern. The peasants (fellaheen) of the Nile and Bedouin tribes of the desert live much as their ancestors did a thousand years ago. Other communities include the Nubians of the far south, and the Coptic Christians, who trace their ancestry back to Pharaonic times. What unites them is a love of their homeland, extended family ties, dignity, warmth and hospitality towards strangers. Though most visitors are drawn to Egypt by the Nile, Pyramids, camels and rich history, the enduring memory is likely to be of its people and their way of life