Most travel guides give you an itinerary that fits a magazine spread but does not fit a real day in Cairo or Luxor. They underestimate the transfer time, ignore lunch, assume the museums are empty, and pretend that the energy you had at 09:00 is still there at 16:30. QPass itineraries are the opposite. They assume the traffic, they assume the heat, they assume one rest stop, and they assume that you will eat lunch like a normal person rather than a marching one. Each plan below is built around the editor's actual walked route on a specific date, with the meal stops, taxi costs, shade considerations and rest windows recorded as part of the record.
The twelve plans are organised by city and by trip length — five Cairo day-plans, two Luxor day-plans (east bank and west bank, deliberately separate), one Aswan plan with the Abu Simbel convoy, one Alexandria day-trip plan, two specialty plans (photography and family), and one master week-long plan. Each plan ends with a fallback section — what to drop if you start late, what to swap if a site is unexpectedly closed, what to add if you finish faster than expected. The fallback rules are the part Editor's-Pass subscribers most often quote back to the desk.
Cairo exhausts itineraries fastest because the geography is bad — the major sites are spread across thirty kilometres of traffic and the metro covers only part of the route. The plans below assume taxis or Uber/Careem and they include realistic transfer times. The lunch stops are named restaurants editors have eaten at within the last six months.
Plan 0106:45 taxi to Giza (EGP 200 from Zamalek). 07:00–10:30 pyramids and Sphinx. 11:00 Felfela on Pyramids Road (EGP 350 pp). 13:00 taxi to GEM. 13:30–17:00 GEM focused on Tutankhamun gallery. 17:30 taxi to Zamalek. Total day cost EGP 2,100 pp including tickets.
Plan 0209:00 metro to Mar Girgis. 09:30–11:00 Hanging Church + Ben Ezra. 11:30–13:00 Coptic Museum. 13:30 Sufi café in Fustat (EGP 250 pp). 15:00 taxi to NMEC. 15:30–18:00 NMEC + Royal Mummies Hall. 18:30 taxi back. Total day cost EGP 1,200 pp.
Plan 0309:30 taxi to the Citadel. 10:00–12:30 Citadel + Alabaster Mosque. 13:00 Naguib Mahfouz Café in the Khan (EGP 400 pp, atmospheric). 14:30–16:30 Museum of Islamic Art. 17:00 walk Al-Muizz Street back into the Khan. 19:00–22:00 Khan el-Khalili after dark, dinner. Total day cost EGP 1,400 pp.
Plan 0408:00 taxi from Cairo (EGP 700 round-trip negotiated). 09:00–11:30 Saqqara + Serapeum + Mereruka. 12:00 drive to Dahshur. 12:30–14:00 Red Pyramid interior + Bent Pyramid exterior. 14:30 lunch in Saqqara village (EGP 250 pp). 16:00 back in Cairo. Total day cost EGP 1,800 pp.
Plan 0509:00–11:30 Egyptian Museum Tahrir (post-GEM version, focused on jewellery rooms 4 + 21). 12:00 taxi to Garden City. 12:30 lunch at Abou El Sid (EGP 450 pp). 14:30 taxi to GEM. 15:00–18:30 GEM, Tutankhamun wing only. 19:00 dinner at GEM café. Total day cost EGP 2,300 pp.
The single biggest planning mistake the desk sees is trying to combine east bank and west bank in one day. The west bank has a different rhythm — early morning before the heat, then back to the hotel by 14:00, then nothing. The east bank can absorb a late morning and a sunset visit at Luxor Temple. The two are different animals and they need different days.
Plan 0606:30 taxi to Karnak. 06:45–10:00 Karnak before the buses. 10:30 back to hotel for breakfast. 11:30 Luxor Museum opening session. 14:30 lunch at Sofra in the old town (EGP 350 pp). 16:00 rest. 18:30–20:00 Luxor Temple after dark. Total day cost EGP 1,500 pp.
Plan 0705:30 public ferry (EGP 5). 06:00 Valley of the Kings opening — Seti I + Ramses VI + one general tomb. 08:30 Hatshepsut. 10:30 Medinet Habu. 12:00 Colossi of Memnon photo stop. 12:30 lunch at Africa Restaurant (EGP 250 pp). 14:00 back to hotel. 18:00 felucca at sunset. Total day cost EGP 2,800 pp.
Plan 08Day 1: 09:00 Unfinished Obelisk, 10:30 boat to Elephantine Island, 13:00 lunch at 1902 inside Old Cataract (EGP 800 pp), 16:30 boat to Philae for late-afternoon light, 19:00 Nubian Museum evening session. Day 2: 04:00 convoy to Abu Simbel, 07:00–09:00 the temples, 14:00 back in Aswan. Total two-day cost EGP 3,500 pp.
Plan 0908:00 first-class train (EGP 300 pp, 3 h). 10:30 arrive Sidi Gaber. 11:00–13:00 Greco-Roman Museum. 13:30 lunch at Mohamed Ahmed (EGP 200 pp, fuul). 15:00–17:30 Bibliotheca. 18:00 corniche walk to Fort Qaitbey at sunset. 20:00 dinner in Bahari (EGP 600 pp). 22:30 train back. Total EGP 1,800 pp.
Plan 1005:30 arrive at the plateau gate (opens 07:00 — pre-opening light from the back-road overlook is the photograph). 07:00 enter, work the Sphinx amphitheatre. 09:00 work the Khufu approach. 10:30 retreat for the heat. 16:00 return for golden-hour at the Sphinx (south-east corner). 18:00 blue-hour shoot. Tripod permit EGP 100 separate.
Plan 1109:00 GEM children's wing (2 h with kids). 11:30 lunch at the GEM café (the only museum café in Cairo worth eating in). 13:30 nap or pool at hotel — non-negotiable in summer. 16:00 camel ride at the plateau (EGP 200 per child negotiated, 20 min is enough). 17:30 Sphinx amphitheatre. 19:00 early dinner. Total EGP 1,800 pp adult, EGP 600 child.
If you have a working week with two travel days bookending the actual trip, the pattern below is what the desk recommends from the planning-letter exchanges of the past year. It is not luxurious and not stretched; it is the version we would do with a friend visiting from abroad.
The pattern is dense but not punishing because most of the heavy walking happens before 10:00. Sleep is the real constraint, not site fatigue. Pair this plan with the On-the-Ground Sites file for the specific site cards, with Flagship Collections for the museum component, and with Window of the Year to confirm the dates are sensible for this pace.
Plans break. The taxi is late, the museum has an unexpected closure, the kids melt down in the heat. The fallback rules below are the part of the planning-letter exchange that Editor's-Pass subscribers most often say they wish they had read before the trip.
Editor's-Pass subscribers can book the half-year planning-exchange with an editor on their specific trip. Cap of thirty per quarter to keep the standard high.
Upgrade to Editor's Pass