Egypt

We've just spent several weeks building a rather substantial spreadsheet comparing various tours to Egypt and Jordan. Most were US or Canada based. I think if you do a search for Egypt on this site, you'll find several threads on Egypt tours from the last 2-4 years. Some of the companies we looked at were Gate 1, Overseas Adventure Travel, Odysseys Unlimited, Collette, G Adventures, and Viking. I believe a few forum members have used Egyptian travel companies to build a more customized tour. For various reasons, we've decided to go with the Odysseys Unlimited tour, mostly because we dont need to pay extra for a lot of optional excursions, and because of their extention trip to Jordan. We will visit in Jan/Feb of next year.

I have been happy with Odysseys Unlimited for other trips, and I have good friends who have enjoyed G Adventures. Collette is a solid company. My mother loves them, but it's not my style -- too big, too structured, and too many add-ons.

I have no regrets about opting for private tour of Egypt. It's surprisingly affordable, and you can customize your itinerary as you wish. My friend and I chose Djed Egypt because we wanted a dahabiya (10 passenger) cruise instead of a big ship (200 passenger) cruise. Djed was amazing, and I would travel with them again without hesitation. My original trip report from March 2020 is here - https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/beyond-europe/experience-in-egypt. Unfortunately, the great Covid shutdown in 2020 cut the trip short. We returned in 2021 and completed the trip (and a little more) with Djed. They gave us full credit for everything we missed in 2020. (I don't think I ever did a trip report for the second trip.)

Djed, however, doesn't do tours outside of Egypt. If you are interested in a private tour that includes Jordan, you might want to look at Egypt and Beyond. I just did a private tour with them to Jordan and Israel, and they were excellent. It was expensive, though. I think, however, that the prices were high simply because Jordan and Israel are more expensive places than Egypt.

You might consider a river cruise. Gary whose Youtube channel is TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS just came back from one and has some useful info, whether or not you do it by boat

I'm happy to see that CJean chose Odysseys Unlimited after extensive research, because I reserved a seat on a late January tour with OU mostly because I had used them before.

I went to Egypt last year with "Adventures with Sarah" Sarah Murdoch. Loved every minute of it. Hoda, the local guide was a tremendous Egyptologist. Highly recommend.

We visited Egypt, Jordan, and Israel this past March for 24 days. We were 3 couples and used Mazada Tours. We used one of their itineraries and customized it for a private tour. They also just do Egypt but they are an Israeli based company. If just visiting Egypt you might want a more local company.
We decided to visit all 3 because we were going all the way there and figured it wasn’t an area we would revisit too soon. Our trip included a Nile river cruise too.
PS, Djed was our second choice.

We had a 14 day tour in January with Gate 1, it was fantastic. Price was great, we took all the optional tours and the cost was about $3500 pp that included top hotels, two cruises and airfare from JFK to Cairo and return. Odyssey is another excellent company, we have done them before.

We had a fabulous experience in Egypt and Jordan with Odysseys Unlimited and highly recommend them for their Egypt and Jordan tours.

Diane, currently there is an ongoing Egypt/Jordan trip report by poster 'progol' over on the Fodors forum. Plenty of discussion, driven by her photography. Would def inform your choices---including whichever tour companies she and her husbear chose.
Good luck.
I am done. the mummy

Hi @CJean, could you share your spreadsheet of research for Egypt trip? It's on our bucket list. Not sure if it can be posted or you can share with me privately of my username at gmail. thanks.

Sorry wennyharris. Once we had booked our trip we deleted the spreadsheet since it wasn't needed anymore.

Thank you all for your response re Egypt!

diane

Hello, Hoping someone can help point me in the right direction. My husband will be attending a conference in Cairo at the end of Sept. I am going to go along and consequently spend some time sightseeing on my own. I would like to have a guide/tour take care of all the logistics etc. I reached out to DJed but no answer from them. I looked into Odyessey as well , but they seem to have only set dates. I need a company that I can tailor the dates to already set travel. Thank you for your help!

https://www.viator.com/Egypt-tourism/d722-r3785131029-s43370544?mcid=33953&tsem=true&supci=1292389541&supag=3785131029&supsc=kwd-19618221451&supai=76897232024728&supdv=c&supnt=s&supkw=egypt%20local%20tours&supti=kwd-19618221451&suplp=74909&supli=187&m=33953&supag=3785131029&supsc=kwd-19618221451&supai=76897232024728&supdv=c&supnt=nt:s&suplp=74909&supli=187&supti=kwd-19618221451&tsem=true&supci=kwd-19618221451&supkw=egypt%20local%20tours&msclkid=f7834afc9bfa1f4379ab2e2f662027f0