Egypt

Cairo is one of the world's great, overwhelming cities, a place where five thousand years of history pile up on top of each other and some twenty million people get on with life at full volume. On its western edge, in the suburb of Giza, the Pyramids and Sphinx still stand where the desert meets the sprawl, and beside them the colossal new Grand Egyptian Museum has, since late 2025, given the ancient treasures a home worthy of them. But the city is far more than the pyramids: a medieval Islamic quarter of a thousand minarets, a Coptic Christian enclave inside a Roman fortress, the labyrinth of Khan el-Khalili, and a chaotic, charismatic downtown. Give it at least two to three full days, more if you can, and accept that the traffic, noise and crowds are part of the experience. It suits history lovers, first-time visitors and families alike, and it is where almost every Egypt trip begins before heading south to the Nile Valley or out to the Red Sea.

Built over the ancient city of Thebes, capital of Egypt at the height of its imperial power, Luxor is often called the world's greatest open-air museum, and for once the cliche is earned. The Nile splits it in two: on the East Bank, the living town and the vast temples of Karnak and Luxor; on the West Bank, the desert realm of the dead, where pharaohs cut their tombs into the Valley of the Kings and raised mortuary temples against the cliffs. You could fill three or four days here and still not see it all, though two focused days cover the essentials. It is the southern gateway of most Nile cruises and an easy hour's flight or a night train from Cairo. The heat is the one caveat, brutal in summer, so aim for winter and start early. For anyone drawn to ancient Egypt, this is the heart of it.

Aswan is Egypt's southernmost city and its most relaxed, a sun-warmed frontier town where the Nile is at its most beautiful, threading between granite boulders, palm-fringed islands and tawny desert dunes. This was ancient Egypt's gateway to Nubia and Africa, and Nubian culture is still very much alive here, in the brightly painted villages, the music, the food and the famously easy-going pace. There is less to rush around than in Luxor: a graceful island temple at Philae, the giant Unfinished Obelisk in the old quarries, the High Dam, and above all the simple pleasure of sailing on a felucca at sunset. It is also the launch point for the long day trip to Abu Simbel, deeper south. Two nights is usually enough, and many people arrive on a Nile cruise from Luxor. Come to slow down, drink hibiscus by the river, and watch the white sails drift past.

Alexandria is Egypt's Mediterranean face, a long thin city that turns its back on the desert and looks out to sea, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC and once home to the ancient Library and the Pharos Lighthouse, two of the ancient world's greatest institutions. Today it is a working port of faded Belle Epoque facades, Greco-Roman ruins wedged between apartment blocks, and a seafront corniche stretching more than fifteen kilometres where the whole city comes out to walk in the evening. The mood is completely different from Cairo, cooler and breezier and slower, built around seafood and sea views. Most of the headline sights (the modern library, the Roman catacombs, Pompey's Pillar, the Qaitbay fort) sit within a compact arc you can cover in one full day or a relaxed two. It suits travellers who want history without the intensity of Upper Egypt, families escaping the summer heat, and anyone who loves a promenade and a good fish lunch.

Hurghada is the Red Sea's workhorse resort, a long ribbon of beachfront that grew from a small fishing settlement in the 1980s into Egypt's biggest coastal holiday town, with its own international airport pulling in direct flights from across Europe and the Gulf. Almost nobody comes for the town itself, which is functional and sprawling. They come for what lies in the water. The reefs and islands just offshore are the real destination, offering some of the warmest, clearest, best-value diving and snorkelling anywhere, reliable on nearly every day of the year. On land the offer is all-inclusive resorts, a modern marina for evenings, open desert behind the coast for safaris, and the polished lagoon town of El Gouna up the road for something more upscale. It suits families wanting guaranteed sun and calm shallow beaches, divers and snorkellers of every level, and anyone after a straightforward, good-value sea-and-sun break. Two to four nights is plenty unless you are diving seriously.

Sharm El-Sheikh sits near the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, where desert mountains fall straight into the sea and the Red Sea narrows into the Gulf of Aqaba, giving it what many divers rate as the finest reef diving in the world. It is a more deliberately designed and more contained resort than Hurghada, built around a handful of bays, with Naama Bay as its long-established tourist heart and the older Sharm El Maya and newer districts spread around it. The pull is the underwater world, Ras Muhammad, the Straits of Tiran, and dozens of walls and drop-offs where the coral falls away into deep blue, but the Sinai setting adds desert safaris and the ancient pilgrimage route up Mount Sinai to St Catherine's Monastery inland. It is calm, sunny, and holiday-oriented almost year-round, with warm water even in winter. It suits divers and snorkellers above all, families wanting a safe, self-contained sunny resort, and travellers who want to pair reefs with a taste of Sinai's desert and history. Three to five nights is a natural stay.