Egypt

Ras Mohammed is the snorkel site that Red Sea diving legends talk about. A protected national park at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula where two gulfs converge, the reef wall drops straight down 800 meters from a 3-meter…

Karnak is the largest religious building humans have ever built. 250 acres, 2,000 years of continuous construction and reuse, 30+ pharaohs contributing to its expansion. You can spend a day here and still miss sections. Luxor Temple, 3km south of…

The Valley of the Kings isn’t one tomb — it’s sixty-three. Built over 500 years starting around 1550 BC, the valley holds the resting places of Tutankhamun, Ramses II, Thutmose III, and Queen Hatshepsut. You’ll see three on a standard…

The Aswan-to-Luxor Nile cruise is the trip that turned Egypt from a place I liked to a place I love. Four days of floating between temples, eating every meal with the river outside the window, and waking up somewhere new…

Sharm El Sheikh is Egypt’s best base for a beach-and-reef trip. It has better coral than Hurghada, cleaner water than Marsa Alam, and an hour’s drive gets you to genuinely dramatic desert scenery at the Colored Canyon and Blue Hole.…

The Hurghada desert is not the pretty desert. It’s rocky, stubborn, and surprisingly mountainous — the Red Sea coastal range rises almost directly from the water and turns into black basalt ridges within 15 minutes of leaving your hotel. It’s…

The Cairo Nile dinner cruise is polarizing. Some travelers love it — you eat well, you drift past lit-up Cairo for two hours, and you see a tanoura spin and a belly dance show without leaving your seat. Others think…

There are two kinds of Egypt trips — the ones where you wake up at 3:45am and the ones where you don’t. If you’re reading this, you’re thinking about the first kind. The sunrise balloon over Luxor’s West Bank is…

I’ll be honest — I almost skipped Orange Bay. After three long days of temples and tombs, the last thing I wanted was another crowded tour boat. But my hotel receptionist in Hurghada insisted, and she was right. The water…

The van picks you up at 4am. Four hours later, after crossing the eastern desert in the pre-dawn light, you’re standing in the Valley of the Kings looking at a hole in the rock that goes down to Ramses VI’s…

The Great Pyramid of Khufu has been the tallest structure built by humans for 3,800 years — from roughly 2,560 BC until the Lincoln Cathedral in 1311 AD took the title. At 139 metres today (originally 146.5m before the polished…