Things You Need to Know Before Traveling to Egypt
12 Things to Know Before Traveling to Arab republic of egypt in 2018
At the close of terminal year, I arrived at Cairo International (CAI) for the second fourth dimension in my life. Into the dusty sunshine I walked, a six-foot American male on his 3rd passport, to feel again the gentle tug of history toward the primary stage. Again I constitute great treasures of humanity sparkling blank across the Sahara'southward shoulders, stretching for the starry heavens—and on a few occasions, in corners I'd non previously known to look for them.
To those that feared for my safety in December, I advise giving Egypt a second wait. There are flights leaving tomorrow. Here, in the form of twelve items to note before you go, is a place to start:
ane. Yous need a visa, and you tin buy it upon inflow
An Egyptian visa is $25 in American dollars, which are requested in cash over fragile Egyptian pounds. If y'all don't have cash, your respite volition exist the ATM. Yous buy your visa from your choice among the bank windows cutting into the walls of the airport, around the lines building behind clearing agents. Brand certain y'all stick it (i side is adhesive) in your passport before you get to the front of the line (to avoid reprimand and a boot to the back of the line). And to make things easy on yourself, have at least $25 per person in cash with you when you bear upon downward.
More on that:
- The U.Southward. Country Department'southward page for Egypt.
2. The dollar goes far in Egypt
The Egyptian pound is what you'll trade in Egypt. As of April 2018, the U.S. dollar trades at most 18 Egyptian pounds. Hither'due south the upwardly-to-date charge per unit via XE.com.
$1 USD = 17.sixty Egyptian pounds (as of April 13, 2018)
Egypt is objectively a tremendous value for Americans, Europeans and most westerners correct now. A subway ride (pre-hike; see below) will run you near xi U.South. cents. A room at the Nile Ritz-Carlton, an institution, tin be secured for $186/nighttime. Near the Pyramids, I got luncheon at a Giza falafel store called Felfela, where a very good falafel sandwich cost me three Egyptian pounds (17 U.S. cents). That may literally be the cheapest meal I've e'er paid for.
Egyptians, of grade, are on the other side of this substitution rate. The bottoming out of the tourism industry is by some coefficient related to their economic woes. On this same coefficient hangs the hope that the render of visitors in numbers to Egypt will accelerate the economy's return.
3. The traffic in Cairo/Giza is outrageous, simply taxis (and Ubers) are cheap
Outside of Southeast Asia, Cairo'due south roads are the wildest I've come across. Transportation effectually the sprawling capital letter (population: 28 million) is typically past car for visitors and locals alike, and traffic can pile up in a bustle and stick your tires to the hot asphalt. A 30-minute trip could take two hours without warning. But as jarring are the streets when cars are moving, which to my visiting eye recalled the functional lawlessness of boats in a pocket-sized harbor: near-misses, unexpected reversing, no discernible regard for lanes… Traffic lights were added to the mix just a few years ago. Car horns, when you consider how thoroughly they are laid on, may besides be generating electricity.
The city has a metro that is set to expand over the coming year or and so, a single ride on which costs just two Egyptian pounds (that'southward set to rising this year), just Americans do not use it in numbers. Arrange transfers (the nicer hotels, earlier and during a stay, are adept sources of transfer organisation) and leave time to get around—and fly between, for example, Cairo and Alexandria. Amend yet (sort of): Uber is available in Cairo and Alexandria.
More than on that:
- Here's how to get picked upward at CAI with Uber.
- Astra Travel can arrange drome transfers and, if you similar, expedited bank check-in and security on your journey habitation.
- The Egyptian Museum is on celebrated Tahrir Foursquare (famed now as well every bit the epicenter of the 2011 revolution). The iconic Nile Ritz-Carlton (from just $186/nighttime) is walking distance from both.
iv. You should non skip the Pyramids and Sphinx
Nearly 8 years ago to the day, I arrived in Egypt for the first time. I sprinted barefoot over Saharan sand dunes hundreds of feet high. I washed down craven charred over fire with whiskey beneath surrealist limestone monoliths, and I slept beneath more stars than I accept ever seen (still). On the same trip, I came face to face for the first time with the Pyramids of Giza, the giants of artifact, heroes of my youth and of stage and screen.
That I was seeing them in front of me was a full-body realization, a swelling of focus, retentivity and adrenaline. Again on my last trip, they floored me. There are more than two one thousand thousand rock blocks of 2-plus tons in only the Keen Pyramid of Giza (the largest of the group), and that is somehow no more bizarre than its interruption of a modernistic landscape (Giza city's overpopulation-driven inroad on the plateau has temporarily been curbed; still, there is a KFC-Pizza Hut from which yous can marvel at the whole complex). KFC-Pizza Hut or not, the scene commands awe. The Pyramids of Giza practise not disappoint.
More than on that:
- Giza, dwelling house of the Pyramids, is a brusk bulldoze from downtown Cairo.
- Entrance to the area is 120 Egyptian pounds. A ticket inside the belly of the Cracking Pyramid of Giza (cramped, hot; remember twice) is some other 300.
- The Giza Plateau complex includes one sphinx and half dozen pyramids: the Swell Pyramid of Giza (pharaoh Khufu) at 455 anxiety, the pyramid of Khufu'south son Khafre (448 anxiety), the pyramid of Khafre's son Menkaure (213 feet), and iii smaller pyramids built for Khufu's queens. All are included in the Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur UNESCO Earth Heritage Site.
- Fri, a 24-hour interval to go to mosque in the Islamic faith, is a good day to visit. Traffic will be ameliorate than usual (see above).
- The Mena House Hotel (operated past Marriott) offers some of the best views of the Pyramids anywhere. Stop in for a lunch of mezze and fire-roasted craven.
- You lot tin meet the Pyramids calorie-free up at dark at a Sound & Light show.
- There is still then such unknown nigh the Pyramids, including what's inside this hidden 100-foot chamber!
five. The Pyramids and Sphinx are just the beginning of the ancient treasures
It was said to me that 1 tertiary of the world'due south treasures prevarication in Luxor—a 1-hour Egyptair flight south from Cairo—lonely. That 3rd does non include the Pyramids, Sphinx, the contents of King Tut's tomb (displayed in the Egyptian Museum and soon the 1000 Egyptian Museum; see below), and more. Hither are a few of the non-Pyramid wonders that will milk shake you (listed north to south):
- Pyramid of Djoser, Saqarah (greater Cairo) — The offset successful pyramid in the Erstwhile Kingdom's world-famous run, completed 4,700 years ago. Information technology is a step pyramid, and beloved by Egyptians. Here it is on a map.
- Temple of Ramses Two & Temple of Temple of Hathor/Nefertari, Abu Simbel — Congenital into adjacent slabs of Nile-side red stone near the Sudanese border, about an hour's flying (it can exist a day trip) from Aswan. The three-story carvings standing sentinel out front blur the line between real and imagined. The (well-nigh) nightly Sound & Calorie-free show throws things further into the ethereal. Both temples are part of the Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here they are on a map.
- Luxor, Luxor — All of information technology. The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Medinet Habu, Ramesseum, Karnak complex… The long and growing listing of things to see in Luxor is rolled into the higher up UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hither is Luxor on a map.
- Philae Temple , Aswan — It is on an island, which means y'all must arrive by boat. On arroyo, rock mountains bubble out of the murky Nile, which surely hides crocodiles, until the temple peaks out from behind palm fronds on a dry patch of earth. This, however—as is often the case in Egypt today (the Nile's watery worlds are unstable)—is not the temple's original ground. Some years ago a UNESCO-led squad Jenga'd Philae Temple into forty,000+ individual pieces and rebuilt it in its Isis-honoring beauty at the electric current site. At that place is likewise a Sound & Lite show here on some nights, and it is also part of the above UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here information technology is on a map.
- Unfinished obelisk, Aswan — The biggest intact obelisk in globe history, at 42m (138ft) and 1,060 tons. Cracks and foreseen instability left it abandoned in a quarry near Aswan, where visitors can now mourn and marvel at the genius of stoneworkers in ancient Egypt. Hither information technology is on a map.
vi. Islamic Cairo is amazing
Cairo isn't simply old. Its nearly ancient footpaths map "one of the very few places in the world, really, where yous take had constant, nonstop activities, 24 hours a day, for the past thousand years." These are the words of a technical managing director at the American Research Centre in Arab republic of egypt who in 1998 helped restore the 900-year-quondam stone gate known as Bab Zuweila. In 2018, stepping through Bab Zuweila is like stepping into a fourth dimension machine.
Information technology is a labyrinthine mile between Bab Zuweila and the manner out of Cairo'south fortified middle—known every bit Islamic or Fatimid Cairo—via Bab al-Futuh gate. In between is a world of sharp corners and compact commerce, where at night on Muizz Street (the main artery), beneath the glow of dazzling minarets and terraces of colored glass, you might hear the laughter of young people reverberating off the walls. It is not a place for alcohol, really, simply as a living, open up-air museum the surface area has been reflecting life in Egypt without interruption since the 10th century. Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature, spent long days riding the area'due south tides into writing inspiration until his decease. Somewhere within, in that location is a coffee store that has been in functioning 24 hours a day, every mean solar day, for 300 years.
More than on that:
- The whole surface area has been canonized every bit a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- nineteen incredible photos of Islamic Cairo that will make you desire to become back in time.
seven. The Grand Egyptian Museum volition open this year
The Egyptian Museum opened in 1901 on Tahrir Square with a push button from the French. As the archaeological riches of the Egyptian country have mounted over a century-plus of digs and discovery, the belly of the building has been stretched to a capacity non imagined in those early years. Behind the museum'southward iconic amaranth face sit 120,000 treasures nearly hurriedly arranged, every bit if the curators were urgently needed back at some dig site spewing 3,000-year-former treasures like an oil well. Another 300,000 pharaonic statues and gilt-lined sarcophagi lie safely and unseen in storage. The combined significance of what's inside is almost unfathomable. The loftier ceilings, the echo-ready corridors—the feeling that the earth'south greatest treasures take spilled out of the earth into this temporary shelter—are part of what makes the museum such a place of pilgrimage.
In December of 2018, that will alter. The Grand Egyptian Museum—a billion-dollar project at least eighteen years in the making (the 2011 revolution set up things back)—will open up its glassy doors on a sandy ridge overlooking the Giza Plateau. Under the direction of director-full general Dr. Tarek Tawfik, "phase one" volition debut 23,000 square meters of interior (double the size of the Tahrir Foursquare museum) and five,000 pieces, some relocated from the current Egyptian Museum (like a giant statue of Ramses II) and some new to the public sphere. A second phase (target is 2020) volition meet 27,000 more sparkling square meters unveiled. The terminate goal is 50,000 pieces on brandish and 50,000 in storage—plus a huge courtyard ("a new green lung" for the city), an adjacent shopping center and cinema, and, if all goes well, a new face of Egyptian tourism. The icon on Tahrir Square will remain open merely with less to display. That is okay. As Dr. Tawfik put it, it "will at final beginning to exhale again."
More on that:
- Heneghan Peng Architects provided the design for the K Egyptian Museum. Here is a detailed vision of the finished project ahead.
- At the current Egyptian Museum, there is a 50 Egyptian pound fee for bringing a camera in (which doesn't employ to phones). It is 150 more than to come across the mummy exhibit.
- History on Howard Carter'south expedition into King Tut'due south tomb.
8. Aswan should not be missed
For a number of good reasons, Cairo/Giza is the foundation upon which most Egyptian itineraries are built. But follow the water lines and you'll come upon a handful of Egyptian cities incubating historical warmth, bustling spice markets and disorienting snapshots of life in modern Egypt. Alexandria, Egypt'southward glitzy 2d city, is all about proximity to its thousand esplanade. Port Said, a node on the global ocean network for more than a century, plumes in that Standard arabic manner of pluming with energy, spice and dry world. And so in that location is Aswan.
Aswan (~300,000 people) knots around a particularly wearisome bend in the Nile, which is wider down s than it is in Cairo. It is a waterside retreat for the soul, a place of escape and vacation for today's Egyptians and in earlier years Winston Churchill—again and again—and Agatha Christie, who wrote "Death on the Nile" nether its spell. The promised wearisome-down makes sense given the city's smaller size and proximity to the water, only cultural forces are also at piece of work: Aswan is Nubian Arab republic of egypt, manifestation of the geographical and cultural transition between Egypt and Sudan. Life here is characterized by bigger smiles, darker skin and indeed gentler encounters with modernity.
From a sixth-flooring balcony at the Victorian (and newly renovated) Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan—arguably the premier luxury hotel in Arab republic of egypt—the Nilescape below is so yet every bit to appear painted.
More than on that:
- Aswan is a short bulldoze from the Unfinished Obelisk, the jetty from which to sail to Philae Temple, and several inviting Nubian villages, as well as a crude hour from Abu Simbel, home to the unmissable Temple of Ramses Ii & Temple of Temple of Hathor/Nefertari (and allegedly not much else, but that is okay).
ix. The Sahara is more than than sand
The sunday-drenched Sahara blankets more than xc% of Egyptian jurisdiction. Nineteen out of xx Egyptians live in the gardens sprung upwardly effectually the Nile's banks and along the Mediterranean and Red Seas (a full tertiary lives in and just outside Cairo). The rest is vast, unkempt, extreme.
The Sahara is among the earth's true wilds, but it is too not simply sand dunes to the horizon. The Egyptian Sahara is broken into iv major quarters—plus two farther informal divisions—and each attacks the brain's senses of life and calibration in its own way. Broken down, the Sahara is: the Western Desert (and inside it, the White and Blackness Deserts), the Eastern Desert, the Keen Sand Body of water, and the Sinai Desert.
In the White Desert, which I visited in 2009 with White Desert Tours, the mural is defined by three-story chunks of chalk-white limestone that bend and tease the imagination. The pulverization-soft sand in this conflicting world practically begs you to walk around barefoot. It is amongst the nigh incredible places I've ever been.
More on that:
- Equally noted beneath any step into the Sahara should be a mindful one, peculiarly far from the Nile. If yous'd like to veer into information technology, probably go with a guide like those employed by White Desert Tours.
10. Bread (aish) is life…
In diverse close-ups, Egyptian cuisine looks a lot like neighboring cuisines—like Lebanese, Syrian, Turkish, fifty-fifty Italian at times (kushari has macaroni as a base). Merely as a whole it is all its own, and bread—aish in Egyptian Arabic, which translates in English to "life"—is its beating center. It is then essential to a functioning Egyptian state that the federal government subsidizes its production, and when subsidies were momentarily cutting in 1977, the people rioted. As The New York Times writes, "Egyptians are generally not known as explosive people, but tell them you are raising the price of bread – of life – and beware."
Made right, aish baladi (or simply baladi, round "peasant staff of life" with a pita-similar pocket) is about as expert as bread gets. Its natural context is a mezze spread, with which many sit-down Egyptian meals brainstorm. A banquet at Andrea Mariouteya, for case, begins with discs of oven-hot baladi, blackened flour kicking off them, alongside palm-sized bowls of hummus, baba ghanoush, tahini with lemon, stuffed olives, figs, tomatoes, and whatever else the proprietor has deemed freshest that day. Eat all y'all can, simply save room.
More on that:
- For some of the best breadstuff and fire-roasted chicken in Cairo/Giza, make your way upwards to the hilltop New Giza location of Andrea Mariouteya.
Chicken roasting at Andrea Mariouteya
eleven. …but there is plenty more than to eat
Heartier portions in Egypt draw often from the vegetables/fruits (tomatoes, onions, garlic, lemon), legumes (lentils, beans) and spices (cumin, coriander, mint, thyme, pepper, so many…) grown in the region. Meat (chicken, lamb) and fish were historically more than expensive, which explains the impressive quality of the vegetarian dishes. The nutrient scene today, however, particularly in Cairo, is able to transcend these historical limitations (see The Lemon Tree & Co. below). Staple Egyptian foods to look out for include:
- Aish baladi — Peasant bread, oft served with mezze
- Ful medames — Fava beans with vegetable oil, cumin, chopped parsley, garlic, onion, lemon juice, chili pepper, and other spices
- Kushari — Rice, macaroni and lentils topped with a spiced tomato sauce and garlic vinegar and garnished with chickpeas and crispy fried onions
- Kabab wa kofta — Meats (usually lamb or beef) grilled over charcoal in a beautiful spice blend (parsley, garlic, ginger, cumin, mint)
- Hawawshi — Spiced meat pie with onion packed inside oven-roasted breadstuff
- Baklava — Y'all probably know information technology
More on that:
- Here is a nice write-upwardly on food and dining customs in Egypt.
- The Lemon Tree & Co. in Cairo is an uncommonly fresh and inspired meal.
- Sandy, barren Egypt now produces its own wines. Gianaclis Wineries, which grows grapes some amount of traffic from Alexandria, counts some impressive and French minds among its braintrust.
- Here is a write-upwardly on dukkah, a delicious and oft-appearing Egyptian spice blend (that Trader Joe'southward has tried to market).
12. It is safer than you lot call back
Like well-nigh places, right? In Arab republic of egypt in 2018 you will find a rewiring of traffic police force and social norms, as you should expect to in North Africa. You should keep your wits about you, every bit anywhere, and yous should not devious into northern Sinai, west toward Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya or whatever further beyond the cities than you demand to. Women volition want more need to cover up and may, based on one account, find hassle and headache on solo wanders. But permit at that place be no dubiety: Arab republic of egypt in 2018 is again warmly welcoming and rewarding travelers. And for the first time in the years since the 2011 revolution, tourism is trickling back—and American travelers are helping drive the improvement. Europeans have traditionally visited in larger numbers than Americans, but in 2017—in which international visitation doubled 2016'southward numbers—U.Southward. travelers returned at a rate greater than whatsoever other group's.
Terrorism—the great enemy of the west—bears down every bit a deject over north Sinai only over no place mentioned in this post. I empathize that the qualifying tallies and motivations that define terrorism vary from brain to brain, but Cairo (which has seen two major attacks since 2013), Alexandria (i), Luxor (1), and Aswan (zero) are objectively not besieged past terrorist activity. In addition, very few visitors, under reelected president Sisi's regime and even prior, have had their visits muddied by crime. As Solitary Planet puts it, "The incidence of crime, tearing or otherwise, in Egypt is negligible compared with many Western countries, and you're generally prophylactic walking around day or dark." The visuals of armed military or police officers, tourism police and objects behind which to shoot bad guys tempt doubt, only information technology must be remembered that this is a tourist destination tragically familiar with the damage negative media attending—from a mugging of a tourist, for example—tin leave in its wake. With visitation down, a priority has been placed on visitor rubber.
Furthermore, and because information technology is common in Egypt, traveling with a tour grouping or an experienced operator adds an additional ring of security. Go out it at that, if you must. The smallest injection of construction in 2018 opens roads in Egypt for all to the bucket-listing-worthy adventures the country has fabricated its calling. You can flout the tourist beat and build a trip on the fly similar The New York Times's Lucas Peterson just did, but you lot don't need to. In Arab republic of egypt, the tourist beat of pyramids and temples should non be skipped anyway.
Through its share of political troubles, Egypt and its all-time treasures remain a buoy for all who crawling to know the world. Every bit quoted inThe Telegraph, an award-wining Egypt guide views it like this: "[Egypt] never comes off your to-exercise list…When circumstances are not great, people may delay it – but they never take information technology off their list. It'south because of the history. It's similar nowhere else in the globe."
2018 might just be the yr to knock it off…
For more on travel to Egypt, visit egypt.travel.
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