There is more within a day’s reach of Cairo than most visitors expect, and the useful thing about basing yourself here is that you never have to pack again. Each of these tours leaves in the morning and has you back in the same hotel by evening.
The Giza Pyramids & Egyptian Museum Day Tour covers the obvious pair: the plateau itself, then the collections that came out of it. Less obvious, and quieter, is the Overday Trip to Dahshur & Saqqara from Cairo. Saqqara holds the Step Pyramid, the first of its kind; Dahshur holds the Bent and Red pyramids, where the builders worked the geometry out. Seeing them in that order makes Giza read differently.
The Day Tour to Old Cairo spends its time in the historic quarters rather than at the monuments — narrow streets, ancient churches and centuries of layered building, in a part of the city most visitors drive past on the way somewhere else.
Two trips go well beyond the city. The Overday Trip to Alexandria from Cairo reaches the Mediterranean and the Greco-Roman remains along it. The Overday Trip to Luxor by Flight from Cairo is the ambitious one: a flight south, the temples and tombs of Upper Egypt, and back the same evening. It is a long day, and worth it when your schedule will not stretch to a cruise.
The three tours inside Cairo — Giza and the museum, Dahshur and Saqqara, and Old Cairo — are $100 per person. Alexandria is $150, and the flight day to Luxor is $350. Every one of them includes a French-speaking private guide and a private vehicle for the day’s transfers.
Not sure which to pick, or how to sequence a few of them across your stay? Tell us how many days you have in Cairo and we will suggest an order: ez_guide25@yahoo.com or +20 11 50014393.