i’m thrilled we organized our trip through realegypt.net!
My husband and I visited Egypt during the first week of January 2012. I had never traveled on an organized tour before, but we thought it might be difficult to travel on our own in Egypt. We were also slightly worried about the security situation. However, we always felt very safe during our trip. A large part of the Egyptian economy depends on tourism, so everyone you meet does their best to make you feel welcome and safe.
So if it’s safe and people are friendly, why get an organized tour, and why organize with realegypt.net? For us, learning about Egypt from Samir was one of the highlights of the trip. We chose to visit Egypt because we were curious about the history (probably the same for most people). But Samir has well beyond a tour guide’s knowledge of the history of Egypt and also modern day Egyptian politics, including a deep and thoughtful knowledge of the Muslim religion (if you ask him about it). He was able to tie the past and present together. He told us when there was controversy or misconceptions about the meanings of things, and presented different points of view. It was an absolute pleasure to be able to discuss everything we saw and experienced with Samir.
Not only is Samir is a fantastic guide, but he organizes his tours in a way that was different from any other agency I contacted. He asks you to fill out a form with your interests. Based on how I answered the form, he organized a two-day desert safari just outside of Cairo for us. I never even thought to ask if such a trip was possible, and it was the highlight of our time for us. Most of what we saw was not even mentioned in guide books, so I didn’t even know to ask for it. We saw 40 million year old whale bones, a petrified forest, an archeological site that has almost been untouched in the last 2,000 years and so much more. It was just incredible. Samir takes the time to organize a trip that fits to who you are. I feel so lucky that we found realegypt.net.
I could go on and on – our trip was amazing! I can’t recommend realegypt.net highly enough.
Here are some general things we found while traveling that might be useful:
You have to pay for things in cash, including your tour. That was a bit strange to me as I’m so accustomed to credit cards, but credit cards are not nearly as common in Egypt as they are in the U.S.A. So be ready for using cash. Also, the initial payment for the tour is made by a wire transfer. That was new to us, but completely legit.
Almost everyone in Egypt expects a tip. Read-up on tipping before you go and be prepared. Sometimes we found it a bit overwhelming, but we tried to keep in mind how important tourism is for the economy of Egypt when we started to get tired of the tipping.
Date of experience: January 2012
