Concerns about our trip to Egypt
 

Can not cancel as we would loose big money but my husband is so concerned about our trip in two weeks to Egypt.
Anyone have advice

Have a browse thru this thread in the BA forum where folks discuss their travel to Egypt. The thread gets meatier a few posts on so please read to the end.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...ddle-east.html

Thanks read through all

You don't mention where you are going, so I will assume Cairo or somewhere along the Red Sea. You should remember that the parts of Egypt you are likely to visit have 200+km of Sinai between them and Gaza. Sinai has been on travel no-go lists for years with all sorts of problems, but has not impacted tourism to the rest of Egypt. Personally I would not be worried about a visit to the main tourist parts of Egypt. I have been both as a tourist with my family and for work and never a problem.

The BA discussion is indeed a good place to start. I am also booked for 2 weeks in Egypt in December before an ex CAI flight on Royal Jordanian to the far east. At the moment I am fully planning to go ahead and will only reconsider if there is a very significant development directly affect the parts of Egypt I plan to visit. Even then I would not be really concerned about my safety but more about travel disruption.

We fly into Cairo stay 3 days going to Giza as well then fly to Luxor for 4 day cruise down to Aswan. Stay overnight then fly to Abu Simba and back to Cario.

I'd be more worried about being flocked by hucksters trying to sell you stuff (harmless but very annoying), and the usual scammers/con artists (again harmless, amounts are relatively small but nonetheless annoying).

As things stand you have nothing to worry about. I would certainly be happy to do that with my family.

I agree. My itinerary is similar.

3 nights Hurghada
Bus or taxi to Luxor
7 nights Nile cruise to Aswan and back to Luxor
Fly to Cairo
3 nights Cairo

I have to be honest - I am not looking forward to this. I find this extremely irritating and I have heard Egypt is worse than most places for it.

It's the worst I've experienced... but well worth the price to see what Egypt has to offer.

After being suckered by a good opening line and led around from shop to shop, I saw a gentleman handle this situation perfectly. He simply smiled without making eye contact, calmly said "no thank you" and walked off.

Just keep in mind they're just trying to make a living. It's pretty much hard scrabble there for the masses.

I realise people need to make a living, but it is very irritating to be followed down the street after you have said no 5 times.

The problem is that there are so many naive tourists who are either stupid enough to fall for all their scams or simply feel sorry for them thru their feelings of collective guilt -- that it actually becomes far more lucrative for the scammers to earn a dishonest living scamming tourists than to get a real job earning an honest living or to stay in school and get an education. Then it becomes a terrible cycle that's impossible to break and ruins a society. Egypt is one of the worst places where this happens, but it's far from the only place. It's really sad.

Well intentioned tourists who think they're doing good by transferring their Western riches directly to scammers really do a disservice to the country. The best way to help the local people is to put money back into the local economy by rewarding those who provide useful services and by giving money/supplies to legitimate charities. If your guide, taxi driver, waiter, hotel bellman, etc. is honest and hard working -- reward him with a nice tip. If he tries to scam you, hold your ground and don't give in. It boggles my mind how many tourists incentivize bad behavior from scammers.

Not so much the scammer but the vendors (FYI, usually selling second/third quality). Did buy some cotton towels, t-shirts and shirts, which although of 2nd quality (mainly snags/stitching/cut issues), have actually lasted 16 years of regular use with lots of apparent wear left. We bargained hard and thought we paid what were fair prices.