Preamble regarding our trip to Egypt

Most people visit Egypt with a tour group but it’s not really the way we like to do our trips. Mind you we loved our 3 week trip to Morocco using a combination of our own planning and Intrepid Tours. For people who only have a limited amount of time to travel, it totally makes sense but since we are retired, and time is something we have plenty of, we plan to discover Egypt at our own pace.

The Egyptian visa that we got online is good for 1 month. Any more time requires a visit to the Embassy and we are okay with a month so that is what we have planned for.

When we are there, we plan on hiring local guides and drivers to visit the major sites. The language and culture are new to us. And there is just so much to learn regarding the history of Egypt! We feel that using local guides is the way to go. Maybe with guides we will be able to avoid the famous Egyptian touts/hustlers. Haha. We don’t plan on renting a car so we will hire people to navigate the crazy busy roads for us. For longer trips, we hope to be able to easily use the trains and buses. But will anything be easy in Egypt? We will see.

We feel that traveling independently is the way to go but as with any trip we have taken, we must do our research. Egypt does not sound like a country where you can just wing it if you want to have a good time. I have spent a lot of time researching and reading reviews about the hostels that we will be staying in. So what is important to us? Of course, the location, a quiet clean room with comfortable beds and a private bathroom, reasonable wifi, good communication, an included breakfast, all at a good price. A bonus would be that they offer reasonably priced tours. It sounds like we want it all. We do!

So far, in writing to the hostels I have booked and contacting travel bloggers, we have received excellent recommendations for how to plan our time in Egypt. Bloggers often recommend local drivers, guides, hotels, restaurants, etc. and are usually happy to share their experiences, whether they are good and bad.

So, after a fair bit of research and planning, we will embarking on what we hope to be an amazing trip to a place that we have only seen photos of in National Geographic magazines and in documentaries. It is going to make Egypt ‘real’ for us.Read more