We were in Egypt for the first time in Sept-Oct this year. My husband (who works for the police in Canada) was a bit nervous about Egypt and did quite a bit of research before travelling, which probably fuelled his concerns. With all the said, the actual experience was completely different. We felt completely safe. We actually even drove from Luxor to El Ghouna (4-5 hours) making multiple stops and felt safe. There are tourist armed centres all over the cities specially those with tourists attractions. Also noticed that they have a large number of Asian and European tourist that don’t seem to display the same fear as North Americans. They commonly make return trips. In short, it is safe. We took extra precautions such as private drivers, using tour companies and not wondering too much on our own but at the end we were probably hyper-vigilant. Trust me, you will LOVE the trip and won’t regret it.

Day trips in Cairo are easily organised. Your hotel can do that. Trips to Luxor are a bit more complicated. There are really only two options - train or airplane. The train goes overnight so it would mean one night to get there then another to get back to Cairo. You can do the airplane option there and back in a single day...but it does cost a bit more. To be honest it's not that much more to fly than to take the train. If your budget is very tight you may have to forget about Luxor. There's plenty to see in Cairo and around during a 4 day stay. If you do fly to Luxor you need to pre book a tour guide with a driver, as it's a long way from the Karnak/Luxor side over to the Valley of the Kings. There are no public transport options.