5-Day Egypt Tour: Cairo & Luxor Tour Package by Air

Your Egyptologist picks you up early, so you reach the Giza Plateau before the sun heat & the crowds. 

📍Giza Pyramids Complex

Discover the legendary Giza Pyramids Complex, home to the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the Pyramid of Khafre, the Pyramid of Menkaure, three small Queens’ pyramids, and the Great Sphinx. Built around 2560 BC, the Great Pyramid originally stood approximately 146.6 metres (481 feet) tall, making it the tallest human-made structure in the world for nearly 3,800 years.

📌Local Tip: Head to the Giza Plateau Panorama viewpoint first, around 8 AM, before the crowds build up. So, you can capture all six pyramids in one photograph, with the vast desert landscape stretching behind them. It's one of the best photo opportunities at the Pyramids of Giza!

💡Need to know: Going inside the Great Pyramid needs a separate ticket. The passage is steep, hot, and about 1 metre high in places, so skip it if you dislike tight spaces.

📍Great Sphinx:

Stand before the Great Sphinx of Giza, a colossal limestone monument measuring approximately 73 metres (240 feet) long and 20 metres (66 feet) high. Carved from a single natural outcrop of the Giza Plateau, this human-headed lion is associated with Pharaoh Khafre, who ruled during Egypt's Fourth Dynasty around 2500 BC.

💡Did You Know? Between the Sphinx's paws stands the Dream Stele of Pharaoh Thutmose IV. According to its inscription, the young prince fell asleep beneath the Sphinx, which promised him the throne if he cleared away the sand burying its body. He later became king and restored the monument.

📍Valley Temple:

Continue through the Valley Temple of Khafre, an extraordinary Old Kingdom monument built with massive limestone blocks and polished red granite transported from Aswan, approximately 850 km south of Giza. Here, ancient priests performed the king's mummification rituals. 

In 1860, French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette discovered a remarkable diorite statue of Khafre hidden in a pit inside the temple, now displayed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

🔻Authentic Lunch Experience

Stop for a lunch break at a local restaurant near the plateau, with a pyramid view, before spending the afternoon at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

📍Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM)

Explore the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), the world's largest archaeological museum dedicated to a single civilisation, located approximately 2 km from the Giza Pyramids. Fully opened on 1 November 2025, housing more than 100,000 artefacts spanning 7,000 years of ancient Egyptian history.

Meet the colossal statue of Pharaoh Ramses II in the Grand Hall, 11.3 metres tall and weighing 83 tonnes. Then ascend the six-storey Grand Staircase, lined with monumental ancient Egyptian artefacts, and enjoy a spectacular panoramic view of the Giza Pyramids through the vast window at the top; a perfect photo opportunity!

For the first time, more than 5,000 treasures from the tomb of King Tutankhamun’s complete collection, discovered by Howard Carter in 1922, are displayed together in dedicated galleries. Admire his golden funerary mask, royal jewellery, ceremonial chariots, and extraordinary burial objects.

💡Good to Know: GEM requires advance online booking with a selected entry time. We arrange your admission ticket and preferred available time slot; the entrance fee is included in your tour price.
 

After an early breakfast, we drive you to Cairo Airport for the one-hour flight to Luxor. Your Luxor Egyptologist meets you on arrival and takes you straight to Karnak Temple on the East Bank. 

📍Karnak Temple Complex

Karnak is the largest temple complex of the ancient world. Pharaohs added to it for about 2,000 years, each one trying to outbuild the last. Look up at the tops of the columns in the Hypostyle Hall. Recent cleaning has brought back the original blues, reds, and yellows that are more than 3,000 years old. Then find the giant stone scarab by the Sacred Lake: Luxor families walk around it seven times for luck!

The ancient Egyptians called Karnak temple, Ipet-Isut, "the most selected of places". The 12 central columns of the Hypostyle Hall are about 21 metres high, and the open-papyrus capital on top of each one is wide enough for dozens of people to stand on.

🔻Walk through the Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor, the ancient processional road connecting Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple. Stretching approximately 2.7 km, it is lined with hundreds of sphinx statues, including the ram-headed sphinxes associated with the god Amun.

📍Luxor Temple

Luxor Temple was built mainly by Amenhotep III and Ramesses II. A 2.7-km Avenue of Sphinxes, reopened in 2021, once again links it to Karnak. We time your visit for sunset. The sandstone turns gold, then the floodlights come on, and the temple looks completely different. 

💡Did You Know? The entrance once had two obelisks. The missing twin was given to France and has stood in the Place de la Concorde in Paris since 1836.

📌 Local Tip: Look for the door of the Abu al-Haggag Mosque, high up in the temple wall. It shows how much sand and debris once buried the temple before it was dug out in the 1880s.

We cross the Nile to the West Bank, the land of the dead for the people of ancient Thebes. 

Early risers can start the day with an optional sunrise hot-air balloon flight over the West Bank.

📍Valley of the Kings

More than 60 tombs are cut into the desert hills of the Valley of the Kings, the royal burial ground of Egypt's New Kingdom pharaohs (c.1539-1075 BC). Hidden beneath the Theban mountains, these richly decorated chambers reveal the ancient Egyptians' beliefs about death, the afterlife, and the journey to eternity.

Your Valley of the Kings admission ticket covers the standard tombs, but you need to purchase extra tickets to enter certain additional tombs: KV9, the Tomb of Ramesses V and Ramesses VI, and King Tutankhamun's Tomb (KV62), discovered by Howard Carter in November 1922. Its extraordinary collection of treasures made it one of the most famous archaeological discoveries in history. 

💡Good to Know: Egyptologist guides are not permitted to explain the tombs inside. Your guide will introduce the history, decoration, and symbolism at the entrance, so listen carefully before exploring the chambers on your own.

📍Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari

The mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut rises in three terraces against a sheer limestone cliff at Deir el-Bahari. Its ancient name, Djeser-Djeseru, means "Holy of Holies". Hatshepsut ruled for about 20 years as a full pharaoh, often shown with the royal false beard.

On the middle terrace, find the reliefs of her trade expedition to the Land of Punt. The fish carved under the ships are drawn so precisely that marine biologists can name the Red Sea species.

📍Colossi of Memnon

Stand before the two colossal seated statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, Colossi of Memnon, each rising approximately 18 metres (60 feet) above the Theban plain. They once guarded the entrance to his vast mortuary temple, which was among the largest and most magnificent temple complexes on Luxor's West Bank.

Look closely at the legs of the northern statue, and you'll spot ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions left by Roman-era visitors. Some include poems carved by travellers who came to hear the famous statue's mysterious morning song.

💡Good to Know: The Colossi stand beside the main road and take around 15-20 minutes to visit. Don't miss the archaeological work behind the statues, where excavations have uncovered and reassembled enormous fallen statues and other remains of Amenhotep III's mortuary temple.

🔻After lunch, we take you to Luxor Airport for your evening flight to Cairo, where our team meets you and drives you to your hotel

Enjoy your breakfast in Cairo. Depending on your flight time, there may be a free morning for shopping at Khan el-Khalili or a quiet coffee by the Nile. 

Our driver then takes you to Cairo International Airport for your flight home, or on to your next destination, if you choose to extend your Egypt short break tours or travel to Morocco, Jordan, or Dubai!

🔻Want more time? Extend with a Red Sea beach stay, a Nile cruise to Aswan, or Petra in Jordan. Ask us for a tailor-made trip.