Egypt Travel Guide

Egypt's economy depends a great deal on tourism; therefore, most people can enter the country without a visa. Unlike neighbouring Libya and Sudan, Egypt allows Israeli citizens to visit Egypt. As a major tourist destination whose economy is dependent upon tourist money, Egypt is relatively easy to enter and obtain visas for. There are three types of Egyptian visa:

The local currency is the Egyptian pound (ISO code: EGP), which is divided into 100 piastres. The currency is often written as LE (short for French livre égyptienne, or by using the pound sign £ with or without additional letters: E£ and £E. In Arabic, the pound is called genē [màSri] / geni [màSri] (جنيه [مصرى]), in turn derived from English "guinea", and piastres (pt) are known as ersh (قرش). Wikivoyage uses the "LE" notation for consistency, but expect to see a variety of notations in shops and other businesses.

By plane

Overland journeys between cities in Egypt are often long, hot, bumpy, dusty, and not altogether safe. There is a good domestic air network, and advance fares are not expensive, so flying internally is often a good option.

The national spoken and dominant language is Egyptian Arabic – go for this if you want to be understood and perceived as a respectful visitor. The official language of Egypt is Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). There are multiple versions of Arabic, often referred to as "dialects", but effectively different languages, mostly mutually unintelligible. MSA is taught in schools and used in most written and official forms such as TV, newspapers, government speeches, teaching and education, and so is unde…

Egypt is often labelled as an unsafe country by many foreign governments — a reputation that's not entirely unwarranted — but the average traveller should not be too overly concerned or cautious of their surroundings.

Healthcare

Some of the hospitals in Egypt's major cities and tourist areas are of international standard. Private hospitals are expensive by Western standards, but it is advisable to use private hospitals. Hospitals will not treat patients if travel insurance does not cover the costs or if a large sum of money has not been deposited with the hospital. For this reason, travellers to Egypt are advised to take out comprehensive travel insurance.

Egypt has a reasonably modern telephone service including four GSM mobile service providers. The mobile phone providers are Vodafone, Etisalat, We and Orange. According to OpenSignal all of them are similarly good. Actual 4G download speeds are around 15 MBit/s. Vodafone has the most consistent network quality. If you plan to visit rather remote areas, also Vodafone has the widest 4G coverage. (updated September 2022)

Egyptians, in general, are friendly and welcoming. As is the case in many Muslim-majority countries, Egyptians consider it shameful to not give a guest a warm welcome. Egyptians, North Africans, and Arabs in the Gulf share a common culture and form the Arab world; therefore, much of what is considered good manners in Arab world is very much applicable to Egypt.

Banks, shops and businesses close for the following Egyptian national holidays (civil and religious), and public transport may run only limited services: Since Islamic holidays are based on the lunar calendar, their exact dates vary between years