Egypt on a Shoestring

A full sit-down dinner at a local restaurant, grilled chicken, rice, salad, bread, runs $4 to $6. A tourist-facing restaurant on the Luxor corniche will charge you $12 to $18 for the same food with a view of the Nile.

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Egypt on a Shoestring

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The night bus from Cairo to Luxor costs $12 and takes about ten hours. It leaves from a lot behind the Ramses railway station around 10pm, and you will not sleep well, and you will arrive at 6am into a city where nothing opens until eight. That is the trade. Twelve dollars, one bad night, and you have skipped a hotel night and a domestic flight in one move.

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I have no research file to hand you here. Just the numbers that came back from people who did it cheap.

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What Things Cost Now

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Let me start with the exchange rate, because it changes everything. The Egyptian pound has slid hard. A dollar gets you roughly 48 to 50 pounds depending on where you change it. That is the single most important fact for your budget, and it is why Egypt looks expensive in old guidebooks and cheap in your bank account.

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Here is the spread that matters. A dorm bed in a Dahab hostel runs $6 to $9. A private room with a fan and a shared bathroom in Cairo, in a building off Talat Harb, runs $14 to $18. A decent mid-range hotel room with air conditioning and a private bath in Luxor’s East Bank runs $25 to $40 in low season, and $60 to $80 during the winter peak from December into February.

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Food is where your money goes furthest. Koshari from a street counter costs $1.50 to $2.50. A falafel sandwich is 30 cents. A full sit-down dinner at a local restaurant, grilled chicken, rice, salad, bread, runs $4 to $6. A tourist-facing restaurant on the Luxor corniche will charge you $12 to $18 for the same food with a view of the Nile. Both are fine. One costs three times as much.

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Water: a 1.5-litre bottle is 25 cents from a kiosk, 75 cents from a hotel minibar. Buy the kiosk bottle.

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Getting Around

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Trains between Cairo and Alexandria are cheap and comfortable. Second class, about $4, takes two and a half hours. First class is $7 and buys you a wider seat and a bit more quiet.

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The Cairo metro is 20 cents a ride regardless of distance. It runs until around midnight. The catch is that the metro does not reach the pyramids, the airport, or much of Islamic Cairo, so you will mix it with taxis.

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Taxis are where you need to be firm. A metered short hop in Cairo should run $1 to $2. If the driver quotes you a flat price of $8, that is not the price. Ride-hailing apps exist and give you a fixed number up front. That is the honest answer to the taxi problem.

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The night train to Aswan, the one with the sleeper cabins, runs about $80 for a single berth. That is not budget by Egyptian standards but it saves a hotel night and gets you 900 kilometres south while you sleep. A second-class seat on the day train from Cairo to Aswan costs $15 to $20 and takes around 13 hours. Bring food.

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Buses between Luxor and Aswan, and along the Red Sea coast to Dahab, run $8 to $12 for the long legs.

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The Sites and What They Charge

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The pyramids at Giza cost 540 pounds at the gate. That is about $11. Add another 100 pounds, roughly $2, if you want to go inside the Great Pyramid, and 100 pounds for the solar boat museum. The site opens at 8am and the light is best in the first two hours.

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The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square is 450 pounds, about $9. The Grand Egyptian Museum, when it is fully open, is priced higher and the ticket structure has shifted more than once. Check the number at the window rather than trusting anything printed earlier.

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Karnak Temple in Luxor is 450 pounds, around $9. The Valley of the Kings is 600 pounds, about $12, and that includes three tombs of your choice. The tomb of Tutankhamun costs extra, 500 pounds, another $10, and it is a small room with a small mask-adjacent experience. Many people skip it. The tomb of Seti I, when it is open, is a separate and much steeper ticket.

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Abu Simbel is the expensive one. A shared minibus from Aswan leaves at 4am, takes three hours, waits two hours, and returns. The seat is $15 to $25. The site entry is 600 pounds, about $12. So the day costs you roughly $30 before food. It is the best thing in Egypt and it is still worth it.

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Aswan’s Philae Temple is 450 pounds, about $9, plus a boat to reach the island that will run you $5 to $10 depending on how many people split it.

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A Nile felucca ride in Aswan, two hours at sunset, is $10 to $15 for the boat, not per person. Get a group.

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Where to Sleep Cheap

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Dahab is the cheapest place to sit still. A room with a fan and a sea view runs $8 to $12. A dorm is $5 to $7. Food is $3 a meal. The snorkelling off the lighthouse is free and there is coral forty metres from shore. People go for three nights and stay three weeks, which is a known hazard of the place.

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Cairo’s downtown has the best cheap beds. Look between Tahrir and Orabi metro stations. Air conditioning is the thing to check, not the price.

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Luxor’s West Bank is quieter and cheaper than the East Bank. A basic room with a fan is $10 to $15. The ferry across the Nile is 5 pounds, about 10 cents, and runs all night.

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Aswan has the Nubian guesthouses on the West Bank, $12 to $20 for a room with a rooftop and a view of the Nile.

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What Adds Up

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Visa on arrival for most Western passports is $25, paid in dollars, exact change preferred. Some nationalities now need an online approval before flying. Check yours before you go.

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A local SIM with 20 to 30 gigabytes of data costs $5 to $8 and lasts a month. Buy it at the airport or a carrier shop.

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A SIM-free phone plus a SIM is the whole communications budget. Roaming will cost you twenty times that.

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Tipping is constant. Bathroom attendants, guards who open a gate for you, the man who points at a parking spot. Have 10 and 20 pound notes, which is 20 and 40 cents. Budget $3 to $5 a day for this and you will not feel bad about it.

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Travel insurance for a month in Egypt runs $40 to $70 depending on what you cover.

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A realistic daily budget, moving slowly and eating local: $30 to $40 a day in Cairo, Luxor and Aswan. $20 to $25 a day if you park yourself in Dahab and stop moving. That includes a bed, three meals, water, transport and one paid site every couple of days. It does not include the flight in.

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Flights from the US East Coast to Cairo run $600 to $900 return if you book two to three months out and avoid the December holidays. From Europe, $150 to $300 return on the budget carriers.

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So a month, all in, flying from New York, moving between four cities, seeing the big sites and eating well: $1,400 to $1,900. That is the whole number. Egypt is one of the last places where that math still works.

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