Egypt Travel Guide: What to Know Before You Go in 2026

Egypt is a desert country of 109 million people arranged along one river, and the four things to settle before you book are your visa, where the Foreign Office currently advises against travel, how much cash to carry, and when to go. The pyramids are not the hard part. The paperwork and the money are.

This guide covers the practical side of planning an Egypt trip: entry rules as they stand in September 2026, the security picture governorate by governorate, the Egyptian pound after its fall, transport, packing, food, tipping and the customs that actually matter. Egypt’s 27 governorates are in a single table so you can find where Luxor, Siwa and Hurghada sit before you plan a route.

Egypt at a glance

The quick facts below are the ones a first trip to Egypt turns on.

Plug types C and F are the two round-pin European standards, so a UK, US or Australian charger needs an adapter. A universal travel adapter covers Egypt and everywhere else in one plug. For the quirkier side of the country, we keep a separate list of fun facts about Egypt.

Entry requirements: visas, passports and the Sinai stamp

Most visitors to Egypt need a visa, and the cheapest way to get one is a 30 US dollar physical visa bought in cash at a kiosk before immigration. Your passport must have at least 6 months left from the day you arrive and at least one blank page, and you will be turned away without both.

Getting an Egyptian visa

The four routes into an Egyptian tourist visa are listed below, cheapest first.

1. Visa on arrival, 30 US dollars, cash only. Approved airports have kiosks in the arrivals hall before the immigration counters. It is valid for up to 30 days. This is the option most people use and it takes a couple of minutes.
2. Digital visa on arrival at Cairo Airport, 36 US dollars, card only. New from 1 August 2026, bought at self-service machines or through the Visa on Arrival portal. The extra 6 dollars is a digital service fee, and it buys you out of needing dollars in cash.
3. E-visa online, valid up to 3 months. Apply through the government portal at least 7 days before you fly and pay by card. This is the one to use if queueing after a long flight is not your idea of a start.
4. In person at an Egyptian consulate. Slowest, and only necessary if the online system will not take your passport type.

Do not buy a visa from an agent in the airport terminal. Agents charge more than 30 dollars for the same sticker, and the official kiosks are a few steps further on. If one will not leave you alone, the tourist police have a desk in the terminal.

The Sinai-only entry stamp

Flying into Sharm El-Sheikh for a resort holiday of under 15 days does not require a visa at all. You get a free entry permission stamp on arrival that covers Sharm El-Sheikh, Dahab, Nuweiba and Taba.

The stamp has hard edges. Travel outside those resort areas, or stay longer than 15 days, and you need a proper visa, which you can buy at Sharm El-Sheikh Airport or online. Anyone planning to pair a Red Sea week with Cairo or Luxor should buy the visa rather than the stamp.

Arriving overland or by sea

Crossing from Israel at Taba costs a 120 US dollar border tax on top of everything else, which catches people out. If you are staying inside Sinai you pay the border tax and get a 15-day entry stamp. If you are travelling beyond Sinai, including flying home from Cairo or Hurghada, you pay the border tax, buy a 30 dollar entry visa, and at Taba you also need a letter of guarantee from a travel agent costing around 20 dollars.

Ferries run from Aqaba in Jordan to Taba Heights and Nuweiba. A visa costs 35 dollars at Taba Heights and 30 at Nuweiba, bought at the port terminal. Bring US dollars in cash for all of these, because card payment is often not offered. The Rafah crossing with Gaza is closed.

Is Egypt safe to visit in 2026?

Egypt is safe to visit in the places almost everyone goes, and there are specific regions where governments advise against travel. Cairo, Giza, Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel, the Red Sea coast and Sharm El-Sheikh all sit outside the advised-against areas, and Egypt received nearly 19 million visitors in 2025.

Where the Foreign Office advises against travel

As of September 2026 the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises against travel to the areas listed below. Travelling into one can invalidate your insurance, which is the practical reason to read it rather than the political one.

1. North Sinai Governorate: all travel.
2. Within 20 km of the Egypt-Libya border: all travel, except the town of El Salloum, where the advice is against all but essential travel.
3. The northern part of South Sinai beyond the St Catherine to Nuweiba road: all but essential travel, and note the exception, which is that the coastal strips on both sides of the peninsula are not included. Sharm El-Sheikh, Dahab and Nuweiba are outside the warning.
4. Ismailia Governorate east of the Suez Canal: all but essential travel.
5. The Western Desert west of the Nile valley and delta: all but essential travel, with a long list of exceptions that covers most of what visitors actually want. Luxor, Qena, Aswan, Abu Simbel and the Valley of the Kings are excepted, so is Faiyum Governorate, so are the oasis towns of Siwa, Bahariya, Farafra, Dakhla and Kharga, the Marsa Matruh to Siwa road, the coast between the delta and Marsa Matruh, and the White and Black Deserts.
6. The Hala’ib Triangle and the Bir Tawil Trapezoid on the Sudanese border: all but essential travel.

Check the advice again close to your departure date. Regional tensions have moved it more than once in the past two years, and a change to the Taba crossing or the Sinai roads can alter an itinerary at short notice.

Everyday safety and scams

The risks on an ordinary Egyptian holiday are commercial rather than criminal. Expect persistent selling at bazaars, temples and the pyramids: a smile and a firm “la shukran” ends most of it, and walking on ends the rest.

Change money at a bank or take it from an ATM rather than accepting an obliging stranger’s rate. Egyptian traffic is chaotic and pedestrian crossings are advisory rather than binding, so cross with locals. A heavy police presence at checkpoints and tourist sites is normal in Egypt and is not a sign that something has happened.

How to get to Egypt

Flying is the only realistic way into Egypt for most travellers, because there are no direct trains from any neighbouring country and no bus routes in from Israel, Sudan or Libya.

Cairo International is the main gateway and by a distance the busiest. Hurghada International is second, serving the Red Sea resorts, and Sharm El-Sheikh serves South Sinai. Borg El Arab International serves Alexandria and the western delta, and Marsa Alam covers the southern Red Sea. Charter traffic into Hurghada, Sharm and Marsa Alam is heavy in winter, which is often where the cheap seats are. Compare flight options and prices across carriers before you fix your dates, because the gap between a scheduled fare into Cairo and a charter into Hurghada can be large.

By sea there is a car ferry between Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian Red Sea ports, and the Aqaba ferries into Taba Heights and Nuweiba. There are no passenger routes from mainland Europe.

How to travel around Egypt

Egyptian long-distance travel works well; Egyptian short-distance travel is the fiddly part. The rail network is useful along the Nile and between Cairo, Alexandria and the Canal cities, and the sleeper train between Cairo and Luxor or Aswan saves a night’s accommodation. It does not reach the Red Sea coast or Sinai.

Long-distance coaches fill the gaps the railway leaves, including the runs to Hurghada, Sharm El-Sheikh and Dahab, and the main operators run air-conditioned vehicles on the busy routes. Inside cities, taxis and ride-hailing apps are cheap and quick, and agreeing the fare before you get in avoids the only argument you are likely to have.

Driving in Egypt is not relaxing. Cairo traffic runs on horn and nerve rather than lane discipline, and the intercity roads have checkpoints and unlit hazards after dark. Where a car does make sense is the Red Sea coast and the desert roads out to the oases, where distances are long and buses are infrequent. If you want one, compare rental car rates for your pick-up point rather than booking at the counter, and take the full insurance.

Nile cruises between Luxor and Aswan are a transport option as much as a holiday, typically 3 or 4 nights in one direction, and they stop at the temples along the way.

The best time to visit Egypt

October to April is the season for sightseeing in Egypt, when Luxor, Aswan and Giza are walkable in the middle of the day. It is also peak season, which means crowds at the pyramids and higher hotel prices.

May to September is the cheap half of the year and the hard one inland. Upper Egypt in July is brutal, and a full day at Karnak in that heat is not a holiday. The Red Sea is the exception: the sea breeze at Hurghada, Sharm El-Sheikh and Marsa Alam keeps summer manageable, water temperatures are at their warmest, and June to September is a genuinely good window for diving and snorkelling.

Two dates move each year and both are worth checking. Ramadan changes opening hours, restaurant service and the rhythm of the day across the country, and the Eid holidays that follow it fill domestic flights and coastal hotels with Egyptian families.

Egypt’s 27 governorates

Egypt is divided into 27 governorates, each run by a governor appointed by the president. The table below gives each one’s capital and what it is known for, which is the quickest way to work out where a place you have read about actually sits.

The Red Sea Governorate is where most Egypt beach holidays happen, and it is where I learned to dive, on an initiation in El Gouna in water clear enough to see the bottom from the boat. It is also where I went quad biking in the desert outside Hurghada, which is the other thing everyone on that coast ends up doing.

What to pack for Egypt

Pack for heat, sun and modesty, in that order, and pack lighter than you think. Egypt’s climate is arid, with warm to hot days and cool nights, and a mild winter from November to April followed by a hot summer from May to October. Temperatures swing hard between day and night in the desert, and most of the country sees well under 100 mm of rain a year.

Three things belong in the bag whatever month you go.

1. Modest clothing that covers shoulders and knees. This matters most for women and most of all at mosques, churches and in ordinary neighbourhoods away from the resorts.
2. A refillable water bottle. Tap water is not for drinking, and a reusable bottle with a filter or purification tablets saves buying a dozen plastic ones a day.
3. A large light scarf. A pashmina-style shawl is the single most useful item a woman can carry in Egypt: it covers hair for a mosque, shoulders for a temple, or legs on a bus, and it weighs nothing.

For summer add sunglasses, high-factor sun cream, a brimmed hat, loose lightweight trousers, swimwear, closed walking shoes for temple floors and a pair of walking sandals for everything else. A light sweater is still worth packing for air-conditioned interiors and desert evenings.

For winter add layers rather than bulk: a fleece or light down layer, long sleeves, a light rain shell for the Mediterranean coast, and warm socks. Nights in the desert and in Upper Egypt in January are genuinely cold.

What to eat in Egypt

Egyptian food is bean-heavy, bread-heavy and cheap, and the national dishes are almost all vegetarian by default. The ten to look for are listed below.

1. Koshary: rice, macaroni, lentils and chickpeas under garlicky tomato sauce and fried onions. The national dish, sold from dedicated shops.
2. Ful medames: slow-cooked fava beans with oil, lemon and cumin. The national breakfast.
3. Ta’meya: Egyptian falafel, made from fava beans rather than chickpeas, green inside.
4. Molokhia: a stew of finely chopped jute leaves in chicken, beef or seafood broth with garlic and coriander.
5. Mahshi: vegetables such as aubergine, courgette, peppers or vine leaves stuffed with spiced rice.
6. Hawawshi: spiced minced beef or lamb baked inside aish baladi flatbread in a wood oven.
7. Fattah: crisp bread, rice, meat and tomato sauce, eaten at Eid and at celebrations.
8. Shawarma: marinated chicken or beef carved from a vertical spit, in bread with tahini.
9. Sayadeya: white fish marinated in lemon and spices, fried and laid on yellow rice with tomato sauce. A coastal dish.
10. Roz bel laban: rice pudding with pistachios, served cold.

Drink the tea, which arrives strong and very sweet unless you say otherwise, and the hibiscus infusion called karkadeh, served hot in winter and iced in summer.

Money in Egypt: cash, cards and the pound

Carry cash. Big hotels and larger city restaurants take Visa and Mastercard, but most places in Egypt do not, and a day of taxis, tips, entry tickets and street food is entirely a cash day.

The Egyptian pound has fallen a long way. On 11 September 2026 one US dollar bought about 51.3 Egyptian pounds and one euro about 60, so 1,000 EGP was worth roughly $19, €17 or £14. Any price you read in a guide written before 2023 is wrong by a factor of three, so ignore old numbers entirely and price things fresh.

ATMs are everywhere in cities and large towns, thin on the ground in smaller ones and effectively absent in rural areas and the deep desert, so draw cash before you leave a city. You can carry up to 5,000 EGP in or out of the country, and you must declare foreign currency worth more than 10,000 US dollars on arrival. Keep small notes: a 200 EGP note is a problem at a kiosk, and small change is what tipping runs on.

One customs rule catches travellers with gear. Declare high-value electronics and recording equipment when you arrive, because satellite phones and radio communication equipment are likely to be confiscated without prior clearance from the Ministry of Telecommunications.

Tipping in Egypt

Tipping in Egypt is not optional and it is not a bonus. Wages across the tourism and service economy assume it, the word for it is baksheesh, and you will be asked for it directly more often than you are used to.

The awkward part is knowing how much, because the answer differs for a hotel porter, a taxi driver, a guide, a mosque attendant and the man who appears to point at something you had already seen. We have a full breakdown of who to tip what in Egypt. The short version is small notes, often, and a clear no when a service was not one you asked for.

Phones, data and calling home

An eSIM is the simplest way to have data in Egypt without paying roaming. Egyptian mobile coverage is good in cities, along the Nile and on the Red Sea coast, and it thins out in the Western Desert and parts of Sinai.

I use an eSIM with day passes for the length of a trip rather than a monthly plan, which suits a two-week holiday better than a contract does. It installs on the phone before you fly and switches on when you land, so there is no shop to find at the airport. Buy an Airalo eSIM and use the code HARRY5578 for €3 off your first one. An eSIM covers one phone; if several of you need a shared connection, a pocket hotspot is still the better tool.

Festivals and events in Egypt

Egypt’s festival calendar runs from date harvests in the desert to film premieres on the Red Sea. The ten below are the fixed points of the year.

1. Egyptian Marathon, Luxor, January: starts at Deir el-Bahari on the west bank, with shorter walk-and-run distances alongside the full race.
2. D-CAF, Cairo, March: a contemporary arts festival across downtown venues, with music, dance, film and performance.
3. 3alganoob, Red Sea coast, April: the country’s main independent music festival, from alternative rock to electronica.
4. Moulid of Abu El Haggag, Luxor: a five-day carnival around the mosque built inside Luxor Temple, honouring a 13th-century Sufi saint. It follows the Islamic calendar, so it moves through the year; check the date before you count on it.
5. Sham El Nessim, spring: the Monday after Coptic Easter, kept by Egyptians of every religion with salted fish, spring onions and coloured eggs.
6. Citadel Music Festival, Cairo, August: classical Arab music in the Saladin Citadel.
7. Cairo Jazz Festival, September: three days of local and international acts.
8. El Gouna Film Festival, September: founded in 2017 and now the glossiest event on the Red Sea coast.
9. Siyaha Festival, Siwa Oasis, October: three days around the October full moon marking the date harvest, with Siwan music and wrestling.
10. Cairo International Film Festival, November: the oldest continuously running film festival in the Arab world and Africa.

Public holidays in Egypt

Egyptian public holidays come in two kinds, and the difference matters when you are booking. Fixed-date holidays fall on the same day every year; the religious ones move, because the Islamic ones follow the lunar calendar and the Coptic ones follow the Coptic one.

Ramadan itself is not a holiday but it changes everything about the day: shorter business hours, restaurants closed until sunset outside hotels, quiet mornings and very busy evenings. Check where it falls before you book.

Local customs to know

Egypt is a conservative country with a relaxed tourist sector, and the gap between the two is where visitors go wrong. Inside a resort nobody minds what you wear. Outside one, dress that covers shoulders and knees avoids attention you do not want, and a scarf for your hair is needed at mosques.

The customs worth knowing before you land are listed below.

1. Keep public affection to a minimum. Kissing and cuddling in public is not done and can cause real offence.
2. Eat and hand things over with your right hand. The left is considered unclean.
3. Remove your shoes before entering a mosque, and dress for it: covered arms, covered legs, and covered hair for women.
4. Drink alcohol only in licensed bars, restaurants and hotels. Drinking in public is illegal.
5. Ask before photographing people, and do not photograph military installations, bridges, checkpoints or airports at all.
6. Accept the tea. Refusing an offer of tea in a shop is the one piece of rudeness a visitor commits without noticing.

Where to stay in Egypt

Egypt splits neatly into three kinds of stay: Cairo city hotels, Red Sea resorts, and Nile cruise boats. Cairo hotels near Tahrir, Zamalek or the Giza plateau all work, and which you choose decides whether you wake up to a city or to a pyramid.

Hotels and guesthouses across the country are easiest to compare in one place, with filters for wifi, location and breakfast. Compare places to stay in Egypt if you want the full range rather than the resort chains. For an apartment rather than a hotel room, which suits longer stays in Cairo and Alexandria, Vrbo has the better selection.

Travel insurance for Egypt

Travel insurance for Egypt needs to cover two things a standard policy often excludes: medical repatriation, and adventure activities. Diving, quad biking, camel trekking and hot-air ballooning over Luxor are all on the list of things that a basic policy will not pay out on, and all four are things people do on an ordinary Egyptian holiday.

Read the activity schedule before you buy, not after. SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance can be bought after a trip has already started, which is the practical difference from most policies if you only think about cover once you are standing on the boat. One more reason to hold cover: travelling into an area your government advises against can invalidate a policy entirely, which is the real cost of ignoring the Sinai and Western Desert advice above.

Basic Egyptian Arabic phrases

A dozen words of Egyptian Arabic changes how you are treated in Egypt, and the pronunciation matters less than the attempt. The phrases below are in Egyptian Arabic rather than Modern Standard, because Egyptian Arabic is what people actually speak.

A short history of Egypt

Egypt’s recorded history runs about 5,000 years and it has been ruled from somewhere else for a good deal of it. The outline below is what the monuments you will visit sit inside.

Settlement along the Nile goes back to at least 7000 BC, and the valley and delta were unified into a single kingdom around 3100 BC. The pharaonic period runs from there through the pyramid builders of the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom of Karnak, Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.

Alexander the Great took Egypt in 332 BC and founded Alexandria. His general Ptolemy started a Greek dynasty that ruled until 30 BC, when Rome annexed the country after Cleopatra VII’s death. Christianity arrived in the first century AD and the Coptic Church has been there ever since. Arab armies took Egypt in 641, and Cairo was founded as a capital in 969.

The Ottomans absorbed Egypt in 1517. Napoleon’s expedition occupied it between 1798 and 1801, which is when the Rosetta Stone was found. Muhammad Ali took power in 1805 and began the modernisation that led, eventually, to the Suez Canal opening in 1869 and to the debts that let Britain occupy the country in 1882.

Egypt became nominally independent in 1922, and British influence lasted until the 1950s. The Free Officers deposed the monarchy in 1952, a republic was declared in 1953, and the last British troops left after the 1954 evacuation treaty. Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, triggering an invasion by Britain, France and Israel that collapsed under American pressure. Sadat succeeded Nasser in 1970 and was assassinated in 1981; Mubarak ruled for the next thirty years until the protests of 2011 forced him out. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been president since 2014.

Tourism has recovered strongly from the long slump that followed 2011. Egypt received nearly 19 million visitors in 2025, a record and a 21% rise on the year before, and the government has set a target of 30 million a year by 2028.

Egypt travel FAQ

Do you need a visa for Egypt?

Most visitors need a visa for Egypt, and the standard tourist visa costs 30 US dollars in cash at a kiosk on arrival or can be bought online in advance as an e-visa. The exception is a stay of under 15 days at the Sharm El-Sheikh, Dahab, Nuweiba or Taba resorts, which gets a free entry stamp instead.

How much money should you take to Egypt?

Take enough cash for daily spending, because most Egyptian businesses do not accept cards. On 11 September 2026 one US dollar bought about 51.3 Egyptian pounds, and you can bring up to 5,000 EGP into the country, so most people draw pounds from an ATM on arrival and top up as they go.

Is it safe to travel to Egypt right now?

The parts of Egypt that visitors go to are outside the areas governments advise against. North Sinai, the Libyan border strip, the Hala’ib Triangle, Ismailia east of the canal and most of the Western Desert carry warnings; Cairo, Giza, Luxor, Aswan, the Red Sea coast and Sharm El-Sheikh do not. Check your own government’s current advice before you fly, because travelling against it can void your insurance.

Can you drink the tap water in Egypt?

Tap water in Egypt is not recommended for drinking, even in Cairo hotels. Use bottled water or a filter bottle, and be careful with ice and with salads washed in tap water outside established restaurants.

What should women wear in Egypt?

Women should cover shoulders and knees away from resorts, and cover their hair inside a mosque. Loose lightweight trousers or a long skirt with a long-sleeved top is comfortable in the heat and attracts no attention, and a large scarf handles the rest.

How many days do you need in Egypt?

Ten days covers Cairo, Giza, Luxor and Aswan at a reasonable pace, with a Nile cruise linking the last two. A week is enough for Cairo and one southern city. Add three or four days for the Red Sea if you want to dive, and add two for Abu Simbel or the Western Desert oases.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 4 tips below come from checking Egypt’s entry rules, exchange rate and travel advice in September 2026, and each one changes a decision you make before you book.

1. Take US dollars in cash for the visa, or use Cairo’s new card option. The visa on arrival is 30 dollars and cash only at most airports. From 1 August 2026 Cairo Airport also sells a digital visa by card at self-service machines for 36 dollars, the extra 6 being a service fee, which is worth paying if you would otherwise have to find an exchange desk.
2. Do not price anything in Egypt from an old guide. The pound went from about 18 to the dollar to about 51.3 between 2022 and September 2026. Entry fees, taxi fares and tipping guidance written before 2023 are not slightly stale, they are wrong by a factor of three.
3. Read the Sinai advice properly before writing off a Red Sea trip. The warning covers the northern interior of South Sinai beyond the St Catherine to Nuweiba road. The coastal strips are explicitly excepted, which means Sharm El-Sheikh, Dahab and Nuweiba sit outside it.
4. Declare your camera gear and leave the satellite phone at home. Egyptian customs expect high-value electronics and recording equipment to be declared on arrival, and satellite phones or radio equipment are likely to be confiscated without written clearance from the Ministry of Telecommunications.

For everything else on the country, all our Egypt articles go into more detail on individual cities, sites and excursions.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes on the Red Sea coast, the El Gouna dive initiation and the desert quad safari come from her own trip to Egypt. The team covers Egypt for independent travellers, including the hotels, Nile cruises, tours, car hire, packing gear and travel insurance worth booking, and updates this page when visa rules, travel advice and exchange rates change.