(Looking for our Tik Tok Tour Guide? Years later, we are too- but here is the most comparable tour we could find. We had booked an 8-hour private tour through Viator for $218 with a guide named Sam! )
LINK TO FULL TRIP ON YOUTUBE:
When people think of “world” travel, they generally picture the seven wonders: the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, and of course the Pyramids. These places feel outlandish and extravagant. We read about them in history books from the time we are kids, but who GOES there?
From a young age, I loved dark history, particularly ancient Egypt. At one point, my 3rd grade teacher told me I could not do any more projects on mummies. It was my favorite topic. King Tut had even been on display at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum when I was younger and my mom paid the additional gallery fee to take me to see his collection. One of the doctor’s she called on was Egyptian and she took me to The Nile restaurant to have dinner with him.
As much as I loved the thought of Egypt, I never would have guessed I could go there one day. I was just a kid from Indiana. We had done some travel outside of the U.S. to Caribbean places when I was young, but nothing long haul or outside of resort-type spots. Our biggest trip when I was in high school was visiting our foreign exchange student in Costa Rica which even seemed wild. Driving a rental car across a poorly paved rainforest? Staying at a hot spring with an ant infestation in the room? This seemed so far out of our comfort zone, even though we had a vacation planner for most of it.
Studying abroad in college changed all of this for me. I’m almost surprised I even did that. I had been too scared to move further than 30 minutes away from home for school, let alone spend a semester over seas where I knew nobody. It was my first time telling myself “I just have to get on the plane” and I never stopped. It opened me up to saying yes to travel opportunities.
At the end of my junior year in 2017, I needed only 3 credits to graduate early. With scholarship money leftover, I requested Ball State to use it for a summer study abroad program in India- this is where my blog first started! It’s also where I met my best travel friend, Hannah Brindle.
Pretty immediately, I felt like Hannah was my little sister. I was the outrageous, confident, social butterfly, and she was the smart, well-rounded, loved-by-all girl who was on the cusp of coming out of her shell. After our India trip, I literally drove to Florida for grad school the next day and our communication over the years waned off.
Fast forward to 2021 when I had finished grad school, moved to Cincinnati for a job, and Hannah had had a recent breakup. She called me on the phone one day, confidently declaring she had a “glow up” and I would be so proud of her. Honestly, I was panicked. All of my favorite things about Hannah were how normal and humble she was. She is the most authentic human on Earth and cares 0% about frivolous things. She is a unicorn in today’s society.
She came to visit me in Cincinnati and I was relieved to find she was pretty much her same, genuine self, just 10x more outgoing and confident. I was so happy to reconnect with her and she was immediately back on my roster for travel.
In fact, the timing could not have been more perfect. Just two weeks later, I got a last minute call from my company that they wanted me to fill in for someone on an ambassador trip that was already paid for, and a plus one was included. Knowing that everyone loves Hannah and we got along so well out of the country previously, she was an obvious choice for me to call and I knew she would be so grateful to go. It was meant to be that we had recently reconnected and this trip to Costa Rica spawned many more travel opportunities for us, including Egypt.
Having Hannah to travel with opened up many more possibilities for me, too. There were quite a few places I was interested in traveling, that aren’t necessarily suitable for a single woman (maybe even two women, but we still fared better as a duo). One of these places is Egypt.
Egypt had circled my mind my whole life. Even in my adult travel life I thought about it often, but always opted for something else since I traveled alone so much. After Germany, Hannah and I were looking to plan something else. I wanted to take the opportunity of having a pal to go somewhere a little riskier. At first, there were some hesitations from both of us- and especially our moms- about the safety of Egypt.
It’s valid. After 10 days there, we both would confidently tell you it’s really not safe for women, or at the very least, comfortable. Our local guides would also, and did tell us, the same thing. Our guide in Cario, Sam, specifically advised us to not leave our hotel when he was dropping us off. When asked why, he said, “look around. You see those men? They are bad men. Dirty men.” So while we initially had fears of terrorism and the issues at the time in Israel seeping into Egypt, the everyday danger was men taking advantage of us, which we will get to.
Unlike our whimsical, fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants, German adventure, we planned our Egypt trip down to every detail. When safety and timing is a huge factor, we can’t afford to “f around and find out” quite like we can in the comfort of Western Europe.
We spent a whole day on the floor of my living room in Cincy, planning our trip and calling the credit card companies to book as much as possible with points. At the time, I had wracked up a year’s worth of Marriott points and Titanium status that paid for all of the hotels on this trip and we combined both of our Chase Preffered points to pay for a 3-night Nile River cruise. Essentially, the only things we paid cash for were flights and food.
Shortly before planning, I had also heard of “stopover” programs, where particular airlines will literally pay for a hotel for 1-3 nights in their home city for you to explore on an optional extended layover. The intent is to bring more tourism into the country. In a normal situation if you wanted to have a 2-day layover in Abu Dhabi, you would have to book a series of one-way flights. If you opt for the stopover, not only do you avoid the expense of multiple bookings, but they will comp the hotel.
This was new to both of us and honestly the perfect time to try it, as both Qatar Airways offered one in Doha and Etihad had one on the way back in Abu Dhabi. While Qatar Airways did not offer the free hotel, they allowed up to 72 hours for the layover and I was able to book the Doha Ritz-Carlton for only 40k Marriott points since it was the extremely hot, low season.
Did I say extremely hot?
When we were leaving for this trip, my well-traveled neighbor at the time begged me not to go to Doha, claiming it was unsafe due to Hamas. I was very pleased to report to her upon my return home that Doha was incredibly safe, clean, and friendly, and her beloved Egypt was the problem child of the trip. She was shocked, and arguably now interested in visiting Doha.
If you have never traveled the Middle East, I highly recommend it. There are definitely some entry points that are more comforting than others (walking across the Israeli border to Jordan, not one of them). In the year we went, the Hamad International Airport in Doha had kicked the iconic Singapore Airport off the top spot on the list of best airports in the world. The money in some of these countries is next level and they reflect it at their airports and mosques.
We basically had 24 hours in Doha to run around, acclimate to the time change, and decide this was definitely a city to come spend more time in. If you can swing it with points, the Ritz-Carlton was one of the more glamorous feeling stays that I’ve had at a Marriott property (granted, I was Titanium at the time and we had a great upgrade due to low season). They put a tray of chocolates, a big bowl of fruit, and a hand-written thank you note in the room. In the afternoon they served trays of watermelon at the pools. Starting a trip like this on a luxurious note may have spoiled us for the next 6 ROUGH nights.
The next afternoon we had a horrible flight path ready to get to our destination. We had picked out a 3-night Nile River cruise, but in order to get there we needed to start in Luxor and end in Aswan. There’s no easy way to get to these places and we quickly went from the best airport in the world to the worst: Cairo International Airport.
CIA was a top 3 “I’m panicking” moment that I have ever had traveling, so it’s worth sharing for anyone else traveling here. When we exited security at 9 p.m., we knew we had to stop to pay for the Visa. This booth was easy to find and we were doing good until we started looking for the other terminal to board our Luxor flight at 12 p.m.. As soon as we left the baggage area, people started hustling us for rides. The first guy felt legit. He was in the airport, spoke good English, and asked if we needed help finding this terminal. He kept saying things like “$20 I will drive you there, I’ll drive you, just 10 minutes.” Somewhere I had read that this terminal should have been just a quick walk outside next door, but there was not evident signage to help guide us. This wasn’t adding up and he obviously wanted to get us in his car. (potential tip to get phone SIM card and money)
We pushed this guy off and 10 more flocked. Hannah and I were now on the sidewalk, clearly looking clueless trying to find a sign to the terminal, in the dark, with these men harassing us. Doors to other security checkpoints were shut, we couldn’t get in the building next door, and no airport patrons would help us. We even approached a police officer at one point who made it clear he would not be our tour guide of the airport. Eventually, a patron pointed up a ramp that seemed like an insane spot for anyone to go to get to a terminal entrance but we were at a loss and opted to try it.
Luckily, this patron was correct. We ended up at the world’s worst security, but we were at least away from the shady men. With sweat dripping down our bodies, the biggest joke of security begrudgingly let us put our bags through the scanner. If you had told me this scanner wasn’t even plugged in, I would believe you. It was the filthiest, low budget airport I have ever seen for an otherwise large city.
The terrible travel night was far from over. For safety reasons, and very unlikely my normal whimsical travel, I had arranged a driver to pick us up at the airport in Luxor as taxis are not recommended and we were two women arriving at 2 a.m. This airport was significantly smaller and did not have the confusion level of Cairo, but people were still hustling us outside and our driver was nowhere to be found.
We waited an hour in this lot, sticking to ourselves in the dark. The parking lot was clearing out as we started panicking that we didn’t want to be left alone in this dark parking lot as much as we didn’t want to take a ride with a stranger. By the grace of God, the man finally arrived. At that point, we were pretty much in tears, stressed, and totally exhausted.
If you are thinking this is dramatic, the sleaziness continued and you will read more reasons to second guess your safety when visiting Egypt. We had so many wonderful experiences with locals and our guides, but this is where I will be brutally honest about very real encounters we had.
Luxor has very limited hotel options and I found one of the few “5-star” places at just $100 a night. My biggest concern in a lesser-developed country is always bed bugs and this place felt very clean and they actually had a wonderful complimentary breakfast spread. The staff was so friendly and exceptionally welcoming in the morning that we almost eased up on our alert.
Almost.
After breakfast, our cruise was supposed to send a van to pick us up. We wanted to hit a nearby grocery store that was a 10-minute walk away to get some liters of water and candy to take on the boat with us. Remember, it was 110 and the water is not potable, so we figured it was a good idea to arrive prepared, even though we were honestly dreading walking outside because of the encounters we had the night before.
A few minutes into our walk, a man with a horse carriage was whistling at us, trying to get us to go for a ride. We said one polite “no thank you” and kept our heads down. He did not back off. We even dipped in to a pharmacy to knock this guy off us. As we sped up, his horse clomped faster. It was attracting negative attention as he kept hollering at us.
After about 6 minutes of this, he said “you are staying at the Sonesta St. George!”… and he was right. He had eyes on us from the second we walked out of the hotel door and stalked us the whole way to the grocery.
It shook us up and we were thankful to have a pretty beautiful grocery to kill time shopping around in while he hopefully got bored of us. Hannah picked out her usual favorite Oreos and a few local treats. Horse guy was still outside.
Here’s the thing: I am a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white girl. It’s hard to hide. Hannah and I stand out for sure. Even when we were in India, we were constantly asked for selfies and people were interested to meet us, solely because we “looked American.” It was the oddest experience, but ultimate kind of flattering. In Egypt, the outward intrigue was obviously there from the locals, but it was not positive, and it was only men.
This continued on the boat, as well.
I don’t want this to become the theme of our Egypt trip but at times it was the reality.
We b-lined the hotel and stayed inside until our transport arrived. Getting to the boat was a huge relief. We were finally in one spot for more than a night and could spread out.
As someone who loves cruising, I can tell you most of these Nile Cruises are far from luxury, and there’s no possibility I can even recommend a particular one. There’s hundreds of them. I don’t even know the name of ours. They hold maybe 300 passengers maximum and are so plentiful that when they dock, they pull in shoulder to shoulder so that you have to walk through the lobbies of numerous ships to get to land.
While I’m sure there are some more upscale options, whatever you choose, the Nile really is the best way to travel to most temple sights. Once on the boat, they kind of separated us by language and then assigned us a tour guide for the duration of the trip in small groups. Oddly enough, the most common language on our ship at the time was Spanish. Even the hawkers in Egypt shout things in Spanish to get your attention- definitely a hot spot for tourists from Spain.
We absolutely adored our guide, Mohammed. He was the saving grace for most of our Egypt adventure. Our little group consisted of the two Americans, a family of four Germans, and Luka from China. We were a tight group by the end of this wild adventure after many of the crazy experiences we had.
Mohommed walked us through all of the temples, explaining the history of each place. The itinerary started in Luxor with the Temple of Karnak and Luxor Temple. Day 2 we hit West Luxor for the Valley of the Kings and the Temple of Hatshepsut before going down on day 3 to Edfu. To sum it all up, it’s honestly a bunch of places created around dead people. There’s tombs EVERYWHERE. There’s hundreds of these cruise itineraries and they’re mostly all the same- you can’t go wrong! Just find the dates that work for you.
The Valley of the Kings is home of the most famous exhumation sites in history. With over 60 tombs in the valley, the most famous ones to tour at this site are Ramesses II, Ramesses III, Ramesses VI, and course, King Tut. Now, King Tut and I had met previously when he was touring on exhibit to some museums in the USA, including our Indianapolis Children’s Museum. But now that I was standing in the midst of my beloved history lessons, I was elated to hear that he was back in his tomb. We happened to go at the perfect time to see him resting back where he belongs.
These tombs involve a decent amount of steep climbing to get to and are an incredible sight the entire way. There’s scarabs and hieroglyphics of many colors all along the walls and ceilings. The detail is overwhelming and so is the heat. This was a tough time of year to go but we sweated it out and ran to every tomb, careful to not miss a single one.
Of all the tombs, King Tut’s was the least glamorous. The climb down was shorter and the cavern was tighter. It wasn’t as extravagant as the others but it’s arguably the most iconic burial sight in the world. And there he was: King Tut. He was laying in a glass box, shorter than I remembered, but I felt my 3rd grade self bubble up with pride that I was living this spooky dream. I had climbed into King Tut’s tomb, visited his body, and (hopefully) didn’t catch a curse in the act.
There was an added excursion to do a hot air balloon ride for sunrise one morning. This is the one spot where Hannah and I part ways on adventure. I am not a heights person and am petrified of incinerating in a balloon fire ball. She, however, wanted nothing more the whole trip than to ride this balloon into the sky. So, ride the balloon into the sky we did. And you know what? It was a gorgeous view. 10/10 way to see the entirety of the Valley of the Kings to the Valley of the Queens.
Here was the one weird part of the cruise: the whole time we were aboard, we got weird vibes from the staff. It felt a little ridiculous to say they were keeping tabs on us, but were never quite comfortable. We left the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and generally thought it was best to not permit them in our room if we were not in need. On night three, Hannah needed to run down to the desk to request a towel. I did not go with her.
When she came back up she looked a little frazzled. Apparently when the desk worker had asked for our room number, he looked up at her and said “ah yes, the most famous room on the ship. The two pretty American girls.” This just about confirmed our underlying fear since arriving that the crew was hyper-aware of our presence on the boat. While this cruise had been an amazing adventure, at this point we were (literally) ready to jump ship.
On our final day, Mohammed asked if we had an interest in booking an excursion before going to the Aswan airport for the chance to see a Nubian village where we could swim in the Nile. The village felt like a bit of a tourist grab but the prospect of SWIMMING IN THE NILE sold me. I have swam in some dark bodies of water: the piranha-filled waters of the Amazon River and a frigid polar plunge in Loch Ness. So sure, let’s tack on another crazy one!
And here’s what we mean by crazy: nobody should really swim in this water. Crocodiles live south of the damn so this wasn’t the problem you might assume. It’s the pollution and cruise ships. They are known for dumping their waste straight in the ocean. Our German group members watched someone go out on the balcony of another ship and throw their trash straight into the water.
So my thought was, still go swimming but don’t stick our heads under and we should be fine! Our boat at least took us to a spot where it was tucked around a bit of an estuary that looked a little fresher than pretty much anywhere else we had seen on this river. Camels were lining the sandy hill behind us. It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of dip.
Our time on the Nile was coming to an end but we still had two nights to spend in Cairo. Because of our poor experiences so far in Egypt with hotels and travel, we made some changes to the end of our trip. Aside from once again scheduling a private ride from the Cairo airport to our hotel, we also changed the hotel. Originally we were going to be in a more affordable spot in Cairo, but I knew there was an incredible Marriott at the base of the Pyramids of Giza. Thankfully our original booking had a free 24-hour cancellation and I spent all of my Bonvoy points for us to move to the Marriott Mena House. This was probably one of the best decisions of the trip and we highly recommend this hotel. On property, the restaurants are affordable, the breakfast is amazing, the pyramid views can’t be beat, and it’s SAFE.
The two nights we were there, there were four enormous weddings on the property, each one hosting hundreds of guests. We ate dinner on the patio at a property restaurant, overlooking one of these weddings. For 2+ hours we sat there listening to the music and watching the beautiful outfits stroll around, all with a view of the Pyramid behind them. Our prior 5 days had been fun but stressful, so this was the most relaxing night we had had since Doha.
The next morning, our private guide picked us up for a full day tour of the Pyramids, Sakkara, Memphis, and a photo- opp ride on a camel. We found him through Viator at only $215 for the day. While we loved Mohammed and were sad to part ways with him, Sam drove a hard bargain for memorable guides! He is what the youth would compliment as an “Instagram boyfriend.” Not only did he get us into the pyramids before the crowd, but he took loads of pictures and videos of us all day. He was incredible. The pyramid climb was not.
If you have any bit of claustrophobia, the Pyramid of Giza is actually hell on earth. You have to duck and climb a 26 degree angle to essentially see nothing, and then shimmy down the same shaft as people are continuing to come up. I was on the cusp of a full-blown panic attack. When we finally exited, I think Sam was concerned he had already lost one of his people before 9am. I was not looking well. Hannah summarized as :Hot, cramped, and I would never do it again”
Once I was out of the crevice, I bounced back pretty fast. Sam had an itinerary to keep us on. He ran a tight ship and we were thankful for it! Even his driver, who spoke no English, was a blast. There are AMAZING people here, they just get overshadowed quickly by a few bad experiences.
Going back to our hotel, we asked Sam in the car if there was a good spot for us to walk to grab a few snacks before our flight the next day. We might as well have asked him to cut off all of our fingers and toes. He whipped around from the front seat and said “you do not leave your hotel. If you need something, you call me. I will find someone for you.”
Eyes wide, we finally had a local addressing what we had been experiencing, but I wanted him to say it. I said “Why, Sam? What’s going to happen?”
His response was “do you see these men?” referencing men milling about the sidewalks with the sun setting. “These are dirty men. Gross men. You do not leave that gate.”
So, we took Sam up on his offer of getting us some additional help in the form of a driver to the airport with a stop at the Egyptian Museum the following morning. We wanted the driver to wait on us so he could keep our luggage during the visit since it was significantly closer to the airport than our hotel. Which actually worked out great. Don’t hesitate to ask for what you need on things like this- there’s always someone happy to take on this task for the right price (and honestly it was pretty cheap in Egypt).
It was a good thing we wedged in the museum on our last morning, as it was in it’s final weeks of existence and we got to see them packing items in crates to go to the new Egyptian Museum. It felt like a true Indiana Jones library moment. Videos of the new one look totally incredible and I wish we could have seen it. Hopefully the excitement of the largest museum in the world will bring in some more business to support updates to the world’s worst airport.
That left us with one final activity: our stopover program in Abu Dhabi.
Oddly enough, I rarely see Hannah in the U.S.A. Now that I live a whole flight from her, we might as well fly somewhere else together!
Indiana Jane 