Cairo from Sharm: by plane or by road?

The two options, side by side

Both trips cover the same ground: the Grand Egyptian Museum, the Giza Plateau with the pyramids of Cheops, Chefren and Mykerinos, the Great Sphinx, and lunch. Both include hotel pickup and drop-off, entrance tickets and a guide. Both require your passport.

What changes is the travel. The flight is roughly 50 minutes each way, giving a full day of about twelve hours door to door. The minivan is six to seven hours of road in each direction, which makes it a day of about eighteen hours with a start in the small hours of the morning. That is the whole trade-off: the €150 difference per person buys back about six hours of your life and most of your energy.

• By plane: €270 per adult, 50-minute flight, around 12 hours in total, buffet lunch near the pyramids
• By minivan: €120 per adult, about 18 hours, air-conditioned 20-seat minivan, lunch with a direct pyramid view
• Both: Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza Plateau, the Sphinx, guide, entrances and hotel transfers
• Both: passport mandatory, and a Cairo visa is required for most nationalities

What the flight day actually feels like

You are collected from your hotel early, flown to Cairo in under an hour, and met by a certified Egyptologist guide at the Grand Egyptian Museum. The museum alone deserves a couple of hours: the Tutankhamun galleries and the Solar Boat are the headline, but the building itself, facing the plateau, is worth standing still for.

After a buffet lunch near the pyramids you move to the Giza Plateau, then the Sphinx, then back to the airport for the evening flight. You will be tired when you reach your hotel, but you will have slept in a bed the night before and you will be fit for the beach the following morning.

One practical note on the flight version: because tickets must be issued in your name, cancellation terms are agreed at booking rather than the usual free cancellation up to 48 hours. We explain the exact conditions before you confirm anything.

What the road day actually feels like

The minivan leaves Sharm in the middle of the night, follows the Gulf of Suez, passes under the canal and reaches Giza in the morning. The vehicle is air-conditioned and limited to twenty seats, there is a rest stop, and the coast road at dawn is genuinely beautiful for the first hour. After that it is a long road.

You then do a full day of sightseeing on no proper sleep, with lunch at a restaurant that looks straight at the pyramids, a bazaar stop with the papyrus institute and perfume workshop if the schedule allows, and the same six to seven hours back. Most guests sleep on the return leg and write off the next morning.

We are not trying to talk you out of it. Guests who choose it are usually glad they went, and the saving is real. But we will not pretend it is a comfortable day, because the people who regret it are always the ones who were told it was easy.

Who should take which

Take the flight if you are travelling with children, if you are older or have back or circulation problems, if your holiday is short enough that losing the following day hurts, or if you want to enjoy the museum rather than endure it. Take the flight too if you are only in Sharm for three or four nights.

Take the minivan if budget is the deciding factor, if you travel well on long journeys, and if you have a full week so that one written-off morning costs you nothing. For three or four people the saving adds up quickly.

Do not take the minivan the day before you fly home, and do not take it the day after you arrive. We would not put small children on it either, for reasons we go into in our guide to Sharm El Sheikh with kids.

Visas, passports and paperwork

This is the part people get caught by. Many visitors arrive in Sharm on the free Sinai entry stamp, which is valid only for the South Sinai region. It does not cover Cairo. To travel to Cairo you need a full Egyptian entry visa, which starts from US$30 and which we can arrange on the excursion day for €35 per person.

Your passport is mandatory on both versions of the trip, and a photocopy is not enough. Send us a photo of the passport page when you book and we will tell you exactly what applies to your nationality rather than guessing. The same rule about the Sinai stamp applies to Luxor by flight, and a separate set of rules applies to the Petra day trip, which crosses into Jordan by ferry.

If a long Cairo day is not for you

There is no obligation to see the pyramids on this holiday. Plenty of guests who come to Sharm for the sea skip Cairo entirely and spend the day on the water instead, which at €50 for a full day to Ras Mohammed and White Island costs a fraction as much and none of the strain.

If it is ancient Egypt you want rather than Cairo specifically, Luxor by flight at €260 is arguably the better archaeology day: Karnak, the Valley of the Kings with entry inside the royal tombs, and Hatshepsut's terraced temple, with far less time in traffic. And if you want culture without leaving town, the Sharm El Sheikh city tour at €15 covers the Al-Sahaba Mosque, the Coptic cathedral and the Old Market in half a day. Our pillar guide to things to do in Sharm sets out the full choice.

How we decide for our own guests

When somebody messages us on WhatsApp and asks which to book, we ask three questions: how many nights are you here, how old is the youngest person coming, and is the following day flexible. If the answer is a short stay, a child, or an inflexible next day, we recommend the flight even though it is the more expensive sale.

The one thing we will not do is sell the minivan to somebody who has told us they want a relaxing day. It is a wonderful destination reached by a hard road, and knowing that in advance is the difference between a highlight and a complaint.

Good to know

Keep reading

The best things to do in Sharm El Sheikh, ranked by a local operator

Sharm El Sheikh with kids: which trips actually work

Sharm El Sheikh airport transfers and getting around