Family culture & adventure holiday to Egypt

country:	Egypt
departures:	2008: 8 Dec, 20 Dec, 27 Dec 2009: 11 Jan, 7 Feb, 14 Feb, 28 Mar, 4 Apr, 11 Apr, 16 Apr, 1 May, 23 May, 11 Jul, 25 Jul, 8 Aug, 22 Aug, 1 Oct, 10 Oct, 17 Oct, 24 Oct, 19 Dec, 26 Dec
price:	From £655 - £895 (13 days) per adult and from £410 - £770 per child (12-13 years) and £480 - £650 (under 12) excluding flights. Price depends on season. Private group departures also available from £725 - £925 per adult and £480 - £800 per child

Egypt holidays here

Small group family holidays here

the amazing things you'll be doing

This tour has been specially designed for families to combine visits to some of Egypt's most important ancient sites with some more adventurous activities for the children. With a camel trek, felucca sailboat cruise, fabulous sightseeing, and snorkelling in the Red Sea, this is a tour the whole family will remember.

We start in Cairo with the pyramids, sphinx and famous Egyptian Museum with its mummy room and Tutankhamun exhibition. We also see the Pharaonic Village, an outdoor museum that brings ancient Egypt to life. The overnight sleeper train brings us to Aswan, on the edge of the Nubian Desert and probably the most beautiful stretch of the Nile. A short camel trek takes us to St. Simeon's monastery, before we visit a local school and enjoy a traditional meal in a nearby Nubian village (an option to visit the temples at Abu Simbel is available).

After visiting the beautiful Philae island temple by boat, we leave Aswan for one night on board a traditional felucca sailboat. Sailing on the Nile on a felucca is a beautifully relaxing way to travel through the country and watch typical Egyptian life on the banks as you drift past. We spend the evening round a campfire with our Nubian crew who prepare all our meals, and we may sing songs and tell stories before drifting to sleep on board the boat. In Luxor we see the Pharaohs’ tombs in the Valleys of the Kings, Queen Hatchepsut's temple, and the colourful Medinat Habu temple on the West Bank, while on the East Bank we travel by horse carriage to the huge temple complex at Karnak.

Our sightseeing finished, we drive to the Red Sea and Hurghada, where we relax in a 4-star beach resort with its own swimming pools & leisure facilities, private beach, and scuba-diving centre. We include a boat trip to some of the nearby islands where you can swim, do some snorkelling, try a scuba-dive, or just relax on the boat.

The tour finishes in Cairo where we visit the Citadel for the Mohamed Al Mosque and great views over Cairo, and explore the bustling Khan-el-Khalili bazaar before enjoying a final taste of Egypt on a Nile dinner cruise with a sufi & belly dancing display. A 9 or 10 day version of this tour is also available without the Red Sea section which is ideal for half-term holidays.

day-by-day itinerary

Day 1:	Arrive in Cairo. Transfer to 4 star hotel with pool.
Day 2:	Cairo - Pyramids & Sphinx tour (B).
Day 3:	Cairo - Pharaonic living museum and Egyptian Museum. Sleeper train to Aswan (B,L,D).
Day 4:	Aswan. Camel trek, school visit & Nubian meal (B,L).
Day 5:	Aswan. Philae Temple, Abu Simbel option. Felucca sailboat cruise (B,L,D).
Day 6:	Felucca sailboat cruise. Drive to Luxor (B,L).
Day 7:	Luxor. Hot air balloon option. West Bank tour (Valleys of the Kings, Queen Hatchepsut temple, Medinat Habu temple) (B).
Day 8:	Luxor. Tour Karnak temple by horse carriage. Drive to the Red Sea (B,D).
Day 9:	Hurghada. Boat trip for snorkelling and swimming (B,L,D).
Day 10:	Hurghada. Free day (B,D).
Day 11:	Hurghada. Free day (B,D).
Day 12:	Morning flight to Cairo. Afternoon explore the Citadel and Khan-el-Khalili bazaar. Evening Nile dinner cruise & show (B,D).
Day 13:	Cairo. Free time. Transfer to airport for flight home (B).

small group family holiday

This is a 'small group family adventure' - typically you will join several other families and travel in a group of approx. 16 people. The trips are great value and a great way for you and your children to meet new people! While itineraries are pre-planned there is some flexibility and you'll have plenty of time to yourselves. Most adventure kids tend to be aged between 7 and 15, but some are younger (minimum age is usually 5) and some older (perhaps travelling as part of a larger family group). Please check with the operator to confirm the minimum age for this trip

how this holiday makes a difference

This family holiday in Egypt introduces both children and adults alike to the most important Pharaonic sites and Egyptian history, as well as to the people, culture and country of Egypt without cocooning them from it. This is helped by keeping our group sizes small (max 16, normally 3 or 4 families) and also running the tour privately if required.

We take responsible travel very seriously, and have given some details below of how this is implemented on this tour.

Local people:

We started our operations in Egypt jointly with a new local supplier and have been working and growing with them ever since, creating many new jobs in the process.
We use fully-trained local Egyptians as our Egyptologist guides, reps and tour leaders, rather than flying in Western leaders whose knowledge and love of the country will never be as full or passionate.
We use locally owned and operated hotels wherever possible, and one of the highlights of the tour is finding and enjoying a wide range of small local restaurants and snack shops.
We visit a small school and Nubian village near Aswan, which allows our travellers to interact with and support local communities.
The camel ride we feature in Aswan provides a vital source of income for families in the nearby villages.
The felucca sailing boats that we use on this tour are owned and crewed by local Nubian people, not large companies, and their use is an essential support to this community, as well as reducing pollution and energy use.
We give information and advice to our travellers on how to respect local customs and religious practices, giving them a greater understanding of the local people and culture.

Environment:

The long journey between Cairo and Aswan is done on the overnight sleeper train, which is an adventurous but comfortable experience that reduces the extra pollution and energy caused by flying. Speed limiters are fitted to the vehicles we use for safety and reduced fuel consumption.
Using felucca sailboats instead of Nile cruise boats also reduces pollution and energy use and damage to the river banks. While on board, we explain the importance of keeping the river environment clean to all our travellers and ensure any waste produced while we are on the river is either buried (if suitable) or taken away with us.
Explanations are given in Hurghada of how to protect the fragile coral reef environment while snorkelling or scuba-diving.
We have a recycling policy in our UK and local offices and re-use or recycle the information booklets we provide to every client on arrival wherever possible.
We do not produce a glossy brochure, concentrating on a comprehensive website, and providing as much information to our travellers as possible electronically, reducing the use of paper and inks.

Local projects & charity support:

We donate £2 for every person travelling on this tour towards local projects – one supporting a small orphanage in Cairo, and another in which we arrange desert clean up trips and promote responsible use of fragile desert environments, particularly in Wadi Rayan and the Valley of the Whales, an important protected area and World Heritage site.
Our travellers are welcome to visit either of these projects and support them personally if they wish.
The company also supports further projects and charities internationally.

Responsible tourism: We send all our travellers a copy of our responsible tourism policy before their holiday, and encourage them to read it and join us in following the ideas and suggestions contained within it.

Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people.

We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel.

'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left).

We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays.

We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism.

This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards.