BootsnAll Travel Community

Hello all! Okay, so there are excessive threads on both of these topics but so many of them say different things so I figured I'd be straightforward about it all.

Okay, question 1:

Where can you NOT go with an Israel passport? Can you go from Egypt, to Israel, then to Jordan, Turkey, and onward into Europe? I know you cannot go to Syria but what of the others? Very confused.

Question 2:

Are any of the above mentioned places not safe for a lone female traveler?

Oh, and I guess I have a third question:

In so many of the threads I have read about Egypt, people seem to really dislike it! I have always wanted to go, for I love the history. Does anyone know of a really good way to see Egypt in say, two weeks that will give a positive and yet really thorough experience of the country?

Thanks!

erin

quote:

Where can you NOT go with an Israel passport? Can you go from Egypt, to Israel, then to Jordan, Turkey, and onward into Europe?

All the countries you list don't care if you've been to Israel. You will have to fly over Syria, though, if that's your plan, as there's no way to get from Jordan to Turkey overland with an Israeli stamp.

quote:

Are any of the above mentioned places not safe for a lone female traveler?

I don't think you'd be unsafe in any of them, though I'd be most concerned about Egypt. Expect a very high hassle factor there. Also, from your avatar it looks like you're blond, so you probably will get some unwanted attention throughout the region. But safety isn't a huge issue.

quote:

Does anyone know of a really good way to see Egypt in say, two weeks that will give a positive and yet really thorough experience of the country?

"Going to Egypt" and having a positive experience tend to be mutually exclusive things. The problem is that everyone who goes to Egypt wants to see the historical sites, which are mobbed by touts (and Egypt has some of the most aggressive touts in the world). The positive memories from Egypt all seem to be from away from the tourist track...people we met on the road loved Siwa (one couple we travelled with for a while spent 6 weeks there), our best memories are also from the desert (we went to Bahariya). Another post on this board reports enjoying just hanging around Cairo, and not really doing much of the touristy stuff. This makes sense, as when I had the fortune to meet Egyptians who did not make their living in tourism, they were very friendly.

So your options really are:
1 - do the standard Egypt trip, see the sights, and put up with the touts. You can do this independantly, or try the semi-independant backpacker tours that everyone in Cairo sells.
2 - book a package tour which will somewhat insulate you, but it means that your only interaction with local people will likely be negative encounters with touts.
3 - avoid the tourist attractions, and see a different side of Egypt.

I have a lot of thoughts on Egypt, many of them quite negative. I don't like the idea of starting a trip there because our experience was that after being forced into "no" mode there, (where your automatic reaction to anyone talking to you is to say 'no' or 'la') it was difficult to let our guard down and enjoy the hospitality that is easier to find in less visited countries.

I also feel like...everyone has this preconcieved notion of Egyptian history, heavily influenced by hollywood. But Egypt's history is no older and no more fascinating than other parts of the Middle East. On one level, I appreciate that all the package tourists congregate there, so other countries are less spoilt, but sometimes it feels like the focus on Egypt is being unfair to all these other great ancient civilizations.

Lastly, if you go to Aswan, check out Elephantine Island. It was one historic site that we found more fascinating than the massive monuments that most people visit. There's not much there, mostly just the remains of houses that would have been lived in by average people thousands of years ago, but I found that little bit of average was enough to trigger my imagination more than anywhere else in the country.

I second almost everything 2Wanderers said about Egypt, and would add a final caveat: Egypt can be challenging even off the beaten path! I met some good people, but so many simple interactions turn into a battle that it is hard, like he said, to get out of "no mode."

Things that I would recommend for solo budget travel in Egypt:

- Splurge a bit on accommodations in Cairo. You'll want a nice place to come back to, a place to unwind after fighting traffic and noise. Budget accommodations won't cut it. My favorite neighborhood was around Coptic Cairo; if they have hotels there that might be a great place to stay.

- Find a tour guide for the Egyptian Museum. It's layout, frankly, is disgraceful. There is almost no information given, it's just rooms full of dusty display cases filled with mysterious treasures.

- Base yourself in the West Bank of Luxor for a good chunk of time. The villages are quiet at night, the places to stay have nice gardens, and you meet an interesting cross-section of eccentric Europeans, archaeologists, and local artists. From there you can join day and overnight tours to Aswan and Abu Simbel. You can also explore the monuments of the West Bank at your leisure, which is rare for Egypt.

- DO an oasis, if you are there for the right season. I was there in winter, and reports were that the nights were miserable for people who went out. I spent two nights in the Sinai interior (and our night camping was a nightmare - cold wind, no shelter, one blanker per person), and yet I wish I had spent more days out there. The Sinai is Bedouin, though, and a very different culture from the Nile "Egyptians."

O.K. so I know that Egypt has a really bad rep, it deserves it many ways...
However, I want to tell you that I absolutely LOVED Egypt! And perhaps I had a guardian angel looking after me, but I met so many nice people...


e.g. I have MS and two years ago I could still walk but I had to travel with a cane and a little foldable camping seat on which I had to sit every 2-5 minutes in order to rest my legs (or else I would collapse!). In Luxor,Abdul the owner of a little hostel I was staying at asked me HOW I would manage to visit the Valley of the Kings (lots of walking). I answered that I would walk, then sit, then walk, then sit, etc. It was unacceptable to him. He said that I needed a wheelchair in order to enjoy the sites, and he was going to get me one. I learned then, that there are no stores renting wheelchairs in Egypt. You have to get it from someone who owns one. And so here's what happened the next day. The owner had a friend named Ahmed who was a taxi driver. Ahmed knew an old lady who had a chair but only used it when going out. The old lady had to move. Abdul asked his staff to go help the lady move. And in exchange, she let me use her chair for a few days... free of charge...

Ahmed the taxi driver would take us to the sites. And then, he would insist on pushing me so my friend could also enjoy herself...

In my chair, every time I went up to a booth to buy a ticket for a site, the ticket agent would charge me a student fare. "I'm not a student", I would say. "I want to help", they would reply...

Seriously, I had amazing exepriences everywhere I went. Yes, touts can get on our nerves. Very much so! But try to meet the other Egyptians because truely, many are just amazing...

I don't disagree with the two guys above. But I thought I should give you some positive input on Egypt before you changed your mind about going there...

Have a nice trip!

I also had a wonderful experience in Egypt. We stayed there for nearly a month so it wasn't rushed.

It's true that there are tons of people trying to make money off of you and that gets on your nerves some times. What we did was alternate between more budget lodgings and fancier places. And when we stayed in budget lodgings, we'd still go hang out in fancy hotel's lobbies to have a drink now and then or write letters home.

My recommendations:
1) Women should wear dresses if possible. I was often pinched when wearing pants, never when wearing a dress.
2) Carry lots of small change. Everyone wants baksheesh/tips. For annoying people, tip them the very smallest coin possible. If people do something nice, by all means tip them nicely. I tipped a guy who did my laundry in one of the hotels, then he brought me flowers. Tipped him more, got more and more flowers. Then got offered a look at a former king's suite. Use the tips to your advantage.
3) Some touts are really regular people after you get to know them. We met a man in Luxor who owned a felucca. He kept coming up ideas for stuff for us to do to make him money but that's ok because we felt we could say yes or no. In Egypt, there's not the boundary between business, social and family like in the US. We ended up meeting his wife, his neighbors, visiting his home and farmland, hanging out with him.
4) When you tire of the endless approaches, take a break and hide away somewhere. We went to a resort in the red sea for a few days and didn't see a single tout anywhere.
Hope you enjoy your trip.