The Perfect 10 Day Egypt Itinerary with kids
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Egypt had been a place on the wish list for a few years but we finally made it there for a family trip. Adam had been before over twenty years ago but was just as keen as me to experience it with the children. Benjamin was super excited as it was his first trip outside of Europe and it was a massive cultural difference for all of them!
There are so many options of how to make an Egypt itinerary work. Ours was based on trying not to move around too much but was also what fitted in with our flights.
I would have loved to have done a Nile cruise but as a family of five this wasn’t within our budget for this trip. I’ve detailed more about our ten day Egypt itinerary which included stops in Luxor, Hurghada on the Red Sea and Cairo.
Getting around during your Egypt Itinerary
Distances are large between many of the major destinations in Egypt, so flights are a popular way to get around. There are trains and buses though if you don’t mind the travel time.
Train travel in Egypt
To get from Cairo to Luxor there is either an overnight train or a train involving a whole day of travel. I love an overnight train and our children had loved the Nightjet that we took last year from Amsterdam to Vienna.
However when we looked into the train option it actually worked out more expensive than flying. As a family of five the compartments also didn’t work for us as they are all just for 2 people meaning one of the children would have had to be on their own- not an option for us.
Since we didn’t end up travelling by train I can’t offer any personal insight but the Man in seat 61 is always a font of knowledge for anything to do with train travel.
Booking internal flights in Egypt
There are numerous internal flight options between Cairo and Luxor.
As with most flights we used skyscanner to get an initial idea of airlines and timings of these. Booking.com now also has a similar flight comparison tool and I believe you can book directly on the platform but I haven’t yet used this.
We ended up fying with Egypt air and there were no complaints from us.
Day 1- Arrival in Egypt
Our international flight, as most do landed in Cairo. Our initial plan was to stay in Cairo for a couple of nights to see the pyramids before moving on elsewhere. The timings of the flights for this didn’t suit us so we ended up landing in Cairo, changing terminals and flying straight to Luxor.
With hindsight, although this meant a fairly long first travel day I think Luxor is a better place to start a trip to Egypt than Cairo. Although nowhere in Egypt can be described as calm Luxor felt calmer in comparison to Cairo and being smaller was an easier place to find our way around when new to the country.
Days 2-4 Luxor
We spent 5 nights, 4 full days in Luxor. This was plenty of time to enjoy all the main sights of this incredible city although if you have less time 3 days would definitely be enough to cover all of the top attractions.
Where to stay in Luxor
In Luxor we stayed on the West Bank in a small apart-hotel called Villa Belzoni. We really enjoyed our stay there and loved the quieter West Bank of the Nile. We’ve got a separate post with suggestions of where to stay in Luxor including things to consider when choosing either the East or West Bank for your hotel.
Whichever side of the Nile you choose to stay, there are sights on each bank so you will need to cross the river during your stay. We’ve got a post with more details about how to get around in Luxor.
What to do in Luxor
We’ve rounded up all our favouite activities in Luxor, planned into suggested daily itineraries. Sightseeing in Egypt can be hot and exhausting, especially if you’re travelling with kids so I suggest planning in some downtime by the pool or relaxing in between sightseeing.
Our separate post about things to do in Luxor has more details about all of the activities.
Day 2 – Luxor
We spent our first day visiting Karnak Temple on the East Bank followed by an incredible Egyptian lunch at Sofra (see our tips on where to eat in Luxor). Karnak temple is a large temple complex that takes at least 2 hours up to half a day to fully explore.
We spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool in the hotel.
Day 3 – Luxor
On our second day we arranged a driver for the day to take us around the sights of the West bank. As a family this was a great option because it meant we could choose exactly where we wanted to go and how long we spent at each location.
The most famous of the West Bank sights is Valley of the Kings, which really should not be missed in any Egypt itinerary. We combined this we also seeing Hatshesput temple, the Colossi of Memnon and Habu temple.
Day 4 – Luxor
We were up early for a hot air balloon ride, which was the highlight of the whole trip for all of us. I can’t recommend this enough. We chose to fly with Sindbad balloons, who were great and I wrote a full review of our hot air balloon experience.
Following our hot air balloon ride we were back at our hotel for breakfast and after the early start had a more leisurely morning at the hotel.
We then crossed to the East bank later in the day to visit Luxor temple and the avenue of the sphinxes. We rounded off the day with a sunset felucca ride on the Nile
Optional extras in Luxor
We ended up spending an additional day in Luxor, which made our whole itinerary a day longer. This meant that we were able to have a relaxed day catching up on a few extra activities.
We visited the mummification museum, which is small but interesting. We were inside for way less than an hour so this could easily be combined with luxor temple since it’s nearby.
We also went horse riding with Luxor stables followed by sunset drinks at the Winter Palace hotel. I would highly recommend both of these activities too!
It would be easy enough to fit these activities into the above days as well if you don’t have the extra day to play with.
Day 5 – travel to the Red Sea coast
For our onward travel we used the same driver that we had for our West Bank tour (arranged via our hotel) to drive us to near Hurghada on the Red Sea coast.
The drive across the desert, in particular the last part had some spectacular scenery and took around 3 hours. We took the highway which apparently is relatively new but not used often.
Our driver told us that the police will often say that the road is closed and redirect people to the old road which takes 2 hours longer.
Luckily for us he knew how to bribe the police officers and got us through onto the empty highway!
It meant we arrived at our beachfront hotel in Makadi bay by early afternoon.
Days 6- 8 Red Sea
We had our first ever all inclusive hotel experience here (very much pushed by our middle daughter, Martha). After lots of research on the resorts around Hurghada we opted for the hotel Jaz Makadina in Makadi Bay, mostly due to the fact that there is snorkelling directly from the beach there.
It turned out to be a great choice and we loved snorkelling everyday from the beach.
I would definitely recommend where we stayed and I wrote a full review of our experiences at Jaz Makadina.
Days 9-10 Cairo
On our 9th day we got up early for a flight back up to Cairo. In the end we were pleased to have planned our itinerary this way around as it meant that we were accustomed to Egypt and how things work before making it to Cairo, which was by far the most hectic destination.
Day 9- Cairo
It was hoooot when we landed in Cairo. We grabbed an Uber from the aiport to the Hilton Cairo Nile Maadi, where we were staying.
How to get around in Cairo
Getting around Cairo was mostly done by Uber. We found it much easier (and cheaper) than haggling over prices with traditional taxi drivers.
Cairo traffic is ridiculous and you have to kind of not look too closely at what is going on so you don’t have a heart attack. Having said that, there is clearly a system that works and even if it is slow, the traffic keeps moving, much more so than it would in any city in the UK.
Khan El-Khalil and Cairo Old town
After hiding from the heat in the hotel for a while and having a swim we jumped in another Uber to take us to Cairo Old Town.
This wasn’t the favourite part of the trip for our children – they found it a bit too overwhelming I think. We really enjoyed the Al Hakim mosque- a refuge of relative calm.
I enjoyed wandering in the area and I would definitely recommend as an experience for a couple of hours.
We had some early dinner here too before jumping in another Uber back to the hotel.
Day 10- Giza
The final day of our Egypt itinerary was reserved for it’s most famous landmark, the pyramids of Giza.
The Pyramids
This was something the children had been really excited about and I was hoping it was going to live up to their expectations. I had no need to worry as we were all blown away and enjoyed a good few hours exploring here.
We arrived by Uber and after paying entry there is a shuttle bus that wizzes you between each pyramid and the sphinx. I was prepared for being hassled constantly having read about this online.
In the end I was pleasantly surprised. The hawkers are obviously only allowed up to certain waypoints so once inside the complex it is fairly calm.
We spent a good few hours exploring all the pyramids and even went inside one of them. After that it was another Uber to the new GEM (Great Egyptian Museum) down the road.
Great Egyptian Museum (GEM)
Having not eaten, our first stop was to get some lunch. Within the museum is a mall area with numerous food outlets so we sat to eat before going inside the museum properly to explore.
I would totally recommend this museum to everyone visiting the Pyramids. There is soooo much to look at and the whole building is awesome.
The busiest part is the famous mask of King Tutankhamun where there was a short queue but this moved quickly so didn’t take long at all.
The only downside for us was that everyone was quite tired when we arrived having spent a long morning trudging around the pyramids. This meant that the children got bored quickly and didn’t feel like spending lots of time looking at museum exhibits.
If we had an extra day we would have had some pool time on this afternoon and then visited the museum fresh the next morning but we didn’t, so saw the highlights and features that kept our children’s interest.
Overall we were really please with our overall Egypt itinerary. With more time we would have also gone to Aswan and maybe tried to fit in a trip to Abu Simbel from there. However Adam and i have already decided we will do this followed by a Nile cruise when the children have left the nest.
If you want help with planning your trip check out our travel resources page with all our favourite travel booking tools. We also have a post highlighting all our favourite travel essentials which includes the snorkelling gear we used in the red sea.
Please get in touch if you have any questions about our itinerary or any comments or suggestions to add!
