Twelve days, and the only journey we offer that leaves nothing essential out. Cairo and Giza, a day on the Mediterranean at Alexandria, five nights under sail on a dahabeya between Luxor and Aswan, and Abu Simbel at the far end. Private throughout, with the same licensed Egyptologist beside you from the first morning to the last.
What makes it work is the shape. Three nights in Cairo at the start, so the jet lag lands somewhere soft and you see Giza rested rather than staggering. A domestic flight south instead of a night train, so the transfer costs you a morning and not a day. Then five nights on a boat with a handful of cabins, which is the part most travellers remember longest — not because of the temples, but because of the hours between them.
Time at the two ends. Most Egypt itineraries treat Cairo as an airport with pyramids attached and skip Alexandria entirely. Here you get a full day in Islamic Cairo — the Citadel, the length of Al-Muizz street, the Khan el-Khalili when the shops reopen after prayers — and a day on the coast where the Ptolemies built a library and a lighthouse and the Romans cut catacombs four storeys into the rock.
And it buys you slowness on the river. A dahabeya sails when there is wind and is towed when there is not; either way it moors where a large ship cannot — at sandbanks, at villages, at Gebel el-Silsila where the sandstone for half of ancient Egypt was quarried. You go ashore at Edfu before the convoys arrive and you leave after they have gone.
Two mornings are early: the West Bank on day six, because the tombs are bearable only before the heat, and Abu Simbel on day ten, which means leaving Aswan around four. Neither is negotiable if you want to see those places properly, and we would rather tell you now than at six in the evening the day before.
The Alexandria day is long — around three hours of driving each way, and worth it, but it is a full day. And a dahabeya is a small boat: cabins are comfortable but compact, and there is no pool, no lift and no evening entertainment beyond the river and the people you are travelling with. For most guests that is the point. It is worth knowing in advance that it is the arrangement.
Travellers coming to Egypt once and wanting it whole. People who would rather have five nights on a boat with eight other guests than four nights on a ship with two hundred. Anyone who has read about this country for years and wants the version with a guide who can answer the follow-up question, not only the first one.
It suits families with older children well and families with toddlers badly. If you want a beach at the end, we add the Red Sea — that is a common request and an easy one.
Slower, or differently — always possible. Tell us how you like to travel and we will rebuild the day around it.
Twelve days covers a lot. Two guides that help you prepare: how long you need at the Grand Egyptian Museum and when to come. If the boat is the part you are unsure about, our dahabeya versus cruise ship comparison explains how different it feels.
We sail every Saturday from Luxor. Every date below was open when we last checked on 14 September 2026. Your cabin is confirmed in writing before you pay anything.
Saturdays continue weekly through October 2027 — ask for any date that is not listed. For a family or a group of friends we also charter the whole boat privately, on almost any date you like.
Met at Cairo airport, through the formalities, and driven to your hotel. Nothing is scheduled for the rest of the day beyond a short briefing with your guide over a mint tea: what the twelve days look like, what to wear where, how the money works and what you should not worry about. Most flights land late; there is no point pretending otherwise. Overnight in Cairo.
At Giza early, while the plateau is still cool and the light is low. The three pyramids, the Sphinx from the causeway rather than the car park, and time inside one of the pyramids if you want it. In the afternoon the Grand Egyptian Museum below the plateau, where the complete burial assemblage of Tutankhamun is shown together for the first time since Carter found it. Around four hours there, which sounds long until you are in it. Overnight in Cairo.
The Cairo most visitors never reach. Up to the Citadel of Saladin for the view over the city and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali, then down into the medieval quarter and the length of Al-Muizz street, a thousand years of Islamic architecture on one road. Lunch somewhere local, then the Khan el-Khalili once the shops have reopened after the midday prayers. An easy pace, and a day that changes what people think Cairo is. Overnight in Cairo.
Out early for the Mediterranean, around three hours on the desert road. In Alexandria: the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa, cut four storeys down and mixing Egyptian, Greek and Roman carving in the same tomb; Pompey’s Pillar on the ruins of the Serapeum; the modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina, built where the ancient library stood; and the Citadel of Qaitbay on the foundations of the Pharos lighthouse. Fish for lunch on the corniche, then the drive back. A long day, honestly. Overnight in Cairo.
A morning flight south — about an hour, against a full day on the road — and you are in Luxor before lunch. You board the dahabeya, take your cabin and eat on deck. In the afternoon, Karnak, where pharaohs kept building for two thousand years and the hypostyle hall still takes the scale out of people. Then Luxor Temple in the late light, which is when it is at its best. Overnight on board in Luxor.
Across to the West Bank at first light. The Valley of the Kings while the tombs are still cool: three of them, chosen by your guide from whichever are open that day. Then Hatshepsut’s terraces at Deir el-Bahari, and the Colossi of Memnon on the way back. Aboard by early afternoon, and the dahabeya casts off and sails south through Esna. The first afternoon of doing nothing but watching the bank go by. Overnight on board.
Edfu, and a horse carriage from the mooring up to the Temple of Horus — the most complete temple in Egypt, its roof intact, its pylon standing, the falcon god still on guard at the gate. You go in early, before the ships arrive. Back on board, the boat sails a few hours and ties up at a sandbank for the night: a swim if the water suits, dinner on deck, and a sky with nothing in the way of it. Overnight on board.
Kom Ombo stands directly at the water’s edge, so you walk from the boat to the temple. It is a double temple, one half for Horus the Elder and one for the crocodile god Sobek, everything mirrored down the middle — and beside it a room of mummified crocodiles. Then a gentle sail upstream towards Aswan, where the desert closes in on the river and the water turns clear over granite. Overnight on board.
Aswan is the calmest stretch of the Nile, and the day is built around that. A short boat crossing to the island Temple of Philae, moved stone by stone to higher ground when the dam was built, dedicated to Isis and the last place in Egypt where the old religion was still practised. In the afternoon a felucca under sail past Elephantine Island, the Aga Khan mausoleum and the botanical garden. Overnight on board in Aswan.
An early start for Abu Simbel, about three hours south towards the Sudanese border. Four seated colossi of Ramesses II, twenty metres high, carved into the mountainside — and the smaller temple beside it for Nefertari, one of the very few in Egypt built for a queen at near the same scale. The whole thing was cut into blocks and moved sixty metres up the hill in the 1960s before Lake Nasser rose. Back in Aswan by afternoon. Overnight in Aswan.
No alarm. A slow morning in Aswan — the souk, which is the best in the country for spices, or simply the terrace — before the afternoon flight back to Cairo. A last evening in the city, and time for whatever you decided on day three that you wanted to come back for. Overnight in Cairo.
Breakfast, then the transfer to Cairo airport with enough margin for the queues, which are real. Your guide comes with you as far as the terminal. End of services.
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