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The "Tour"

Now, if you've read any of the Planning section of this website, you'll realize that one of my worst nightmares is a "tour" -- the thought of being on a bus with a dozen or more people being whisked in air-conditioned comfort from site to site was a horror. But, I at least looked through the sites in an attempt to build our own itinerary. I came across quite a few that looked interesting, and ended up talking to Ancient Adventures. Yes, a tour company, but with a twist.

We had originally thought to hire our own driver and guide, but we were apprehensive about the language barrier, a bit nervous with the president deciding to declare war in the Middle East...so a tour company to take care of us was sounding like a better and better idea.Then I talked to Ancient Adventures They went to the places that we wanted, and they assured us that they would be more than happy to set up a personal tour, just the two of us. I was very clear on that point -- just us, no other people.

The itinerary for Egypt in Depth II was pretty close to what we wanted, although I did add an extra day in Cairo and two days in Alexandria to the trip by mixing and matching bits of the other itineraries. With just the two of us, we were very flexible, and on a few days we totally abandoned the plan and did something completely different -- usually involving me seeing something in the distance and asking to go see "that"! You can check out the itinerary we tried to follow, if you like.

The cost of the tour package, including airfare, hotels, transportation, some meals, admission to all sites, and a private guide for 26 days: $9350 per person.

Note that I've broken out the hotel costs, the airfare costs, and entrance fees for the sites into separate pages. We didn't pay them separately, but I went through and figured out what it would have cost if we put this all together ourselves -- at least the basics. The tour was pretty inclusive. We did pay for meals in a lot of places, but a good meal can be had for $10. We also doled out tips on a regular basis, even if the tour stated that they were taken care of. One of our guides, as soon as he realized that we were willing to hand out one or two pounds to the caretakers and such at the tombs, let us do it. We believe that he was supposed to, but probably pocketed the rest. It wasn't that big of a deal: the whole month in tips probably cost us less than a hundred bucks.