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I am in Greece for 2 weeks doing some island hopping in May and towards the end of the month I will have 5 or 6 days open before returning to NY.

I wanted to jump somewhere unique from Athens and was thinking of Cairo. A few questions:

1. Is 5-days enough?
2. Any good accomodation recommendations?
3. Is it safe?
4. Should I opt for Istanbul, Prague or Budapest instead?

Thanks!

1. Is 5-days enough? For Cairo, yes. If you want to see other parts of Egypt, not so much. It's a big country, and travel there is very tiring, so you tend not to get a lot done in a day.

2. Any good accomodation recommendations? Define "good." If you're looking for something upscale, or equivalent to a western hotel, I can't help you. In Cairo, we stayed at the Canadian Hostel, which was decently clean, had some helpful staff, and is very central. Should I ever return to Cairo, I'd stay there again, not because it was exceptional, but because in Cairo, it's hard to know what you're getting into. Around the tourist industry in Egypt, for every one person who's willing to help you, there's probably three people who want to rip you off.

3. Is it safe? Of all the countries I've been to, I'd definitely rate Egypt as the least safe, and we were close enough to a bombing - being on a bus bound for Dahab at the same time that town was bombed - to have been shaken up a little. That said, millions of people visit each year without incident, and the odds of hitting both the wrong place and the wrong time are very small. Even if we'd been in Dahab a day earlier, it's unlikely we would have been killed - only 3 foreigners were. I wouldn't rate safety as an important factor in deciding.

4.Should I opt for Istanbul, Prague or Budapest instead? I would. On our last trip, we hit up Cairo, Istanbul, and Budapest as part of a long overland trip, and I visited Prague with my parents when I was 15. Cairo was my least favourite of those four, and pretty close to the bottom of my list, overall. Istanbul was my favourite, and is probably my favourite large city that I've visited, anywhere. If you're looking for somewhere really unique, I recommend Damascus.

Your experiences may, of course, vary.

I'm leaving the States in 3 weeks for Europe. Egypt was originally in the plan but I have a change of mind now. The temperature is rising quickly now. May is tolerable is Cairo, which will probably see low 90s Fahrenheit. Luxor and Aswan will probably be over 100*F. On top of that, the months April and May usually have strong sandstorms blowing across Egypt.

I agree with 2wanderers. 5 or 6 days is more than enough for Cairo. It has been one of my least favorite places I traveled. Although the Egyptian museum and the pyramids were great to see, Luxor and Aswan shouldn't be missed if you are going that way and 5 - 6 days isn't enough. You could do Cairo and Alexandria though.

If it were me I would go to Budapest or Istanbul instead. I can't weigh in on Prauge since I haven't been.

Hi Ian,
I've had a hard time finding any cheap airfares from the continent to Cairo.

When in Istanbul last year, I had some extra days and wanted to hop down to Cairo too, but there was absoluately nothing affordable.

Now I am researching a trip to Egypt and still finding it difficult to find any good fares within the country or from the continent.

This may affect your planning....

Istanbul is a fantastic city, one of my favorites.

My opinion of Cairo is not high. It is dusty, polluted,dirty, the people are money-sucking, more than anywhere else I've been, and its hard to get around. Crossing a street can be a major enterprise, and best done by a cab sometimes. Using the local buses was so daunting I never even tried.

The pyramids and National museum are spectacular, of course.

5 days? no. More like 3. One for the national gallery, one for the pyramids, and one to get out.

To go anywhere from there takes half a day, a day once you're settled in, so the logistics do not seem right for this particular time. This would mean you could see cairo, go to Luxor and the valley of the kings, and be done. Luxor

Istanbul, on the other hand, can be gotten to cheaply from Germany or Holland(about 120 each way), and will fill your time profitably with plenty of Muslim wonders.

I haven't heard too many good things about Cairo. I do know that you should have plenty of time to see everything in five days.

O.k. I guess Cairo wouldn't win a popularity contest (It IS dusty and noisy...). Yet I have to admit that I did enjoy myself there. Overall I must have been there for close to five days and I DIDN'T get bored...

Dreams and goals are very important to me. And I have to say that if you've ALWAYS wanted to see the pyramids, then go to Cairo. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. But if it's no big deal to you, then going elsewhere might be a better idea. As everyone said, it's not the prettiest place...

As for hostels, I stayed at Bostan, and Sara Inn (check the "Egypt Hostel Recs" thread from earlier this month).

Good luck!

I forgot to talk about the weather for DEZAFINADO. I was in Egypt in July. It was very hot in Cairo, VERY VERY hot in Luxor, and BURNING HOT in Aswan (close to 50 celcius..)

But there are tricks to make it better...
Make sure you have a room with AC and go back to it in the afternoon. Take a nap. In Aswan, the shops are closed in the afternoon anyways! Make your visits early in the morning and in the evening. In Luxor, I was at Karnak at 6am! Same the next day for the Valley of the King. I had the place practically to myself and the temperature was great!

My point is, don't skip Egypt just because it's hot...

Go to Cairo if its your dream.

Bew prepared for the following:

Ripoff artists at every corner

Massive traffic all over the city,
Massive pollution to match the traffic

Rude people that only want your money, very badly.

Heat in the summer, stifling heat.

Noise. The car drivers in Cairo seem to think that if a horn isn't used at all times, it dies of disuse, so often there is a cacophany of horns much like sheep baaing in a massive flock. If they're stopped, they lean on their horns. If they're not, they use them when they do something dangerous, or just for the heck of it. If some cars hit their horns for whatever reason, the rest follow in turn.


Five days is definitely enough.

Go to see the National museum. It was a two day adventure for me.

Take a cab to the pyramids. Buy a ticket at the gate. See the Pyramids. Take a cab back. It's cheap enough.

If you take any tour of the pyramids, make sure it has a good reputation. If you find a good package tour of Cairo, I might recommend it, because Cairo is so backpacker unfriendly. It depends on your budget, of course.

OK, I'm not a Cairo fan, but I wouldn't describe the city as backpacker unfriendly. There's tons of super cheap, not entirely indecent hostels, it's easy enough to get around, and the food options are also reasonably priced. Really the only unfriendly thing about it is the touts/scam artists, which affect all types of tourists, and the taxi drivers that are a pain to everybody. And really, the traffic, pollution and noise isn't entirely uncommon in developing countries, though of course, Cairo is bigger than most cities.

It's also pretty easy to get around. The one saving grace of the city is the metro, which is far from extensive, but is clean, efficient, and does serve the downtown area as well as Old Cairo (the christian part of the city). If you're trying to save money on a cab to the Pyramids, you can take the metro out to Giza and then take a taxi from there. Entering the metro system, you feel almost like you were instantly transported out of Egypt and into some European transit system.