Tour Overview
This 5-day trip from Hurghada is a full Luxor to Aswan Nile cruise with no flights. A private car takes you across the desert to Luxor, where you visit Karnak and board a 5-star cruise. Four nights on the river follow, with Luxor Temple after dark, the West Bank, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Aswan, each visit led by a private Egyptologist guide. On the last morning a train carries you north to Qena, and a car drives you back to the coast.
Tour Highlights
- Travel the whole way by land: a private air-conditioned car to Luxor, four nights on the river, and the train from Aswan to Qena for a shorter drive home.
- See Karnak on arrival day, then come back after dark for Luxor Temple, lit up at the end of the long Avenue of Sphinxes.
- Give the West Bank a full morning: royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut's terraced temple and the two seated Colossi of Memnon.
- Stop at Edfu, the best-preserved temple of Horus in Egypt, and at Kom Ombo, the double temple of Sobek and Haroeris above a bend in the river.
- End in Aswan with the High Dam, the Unfinished Obelisk lying in its granite quarry, and Philae, the island temple of Isis.
Tour Route
Can you take a Nile cruise from Hurghada without flying?
Yes, and this package is built that way. A private car drives you from Hurghada to Luxor, you sail four nights south to Aswan, and a train brings you back north to Qena. From Qena the road to the Red Sea is short, so you avoid a second long drive across the desert.
Going by land also means no airport check-in, no luggage limits and no flight times to plan around. The trade-off is time: Cairo is not on this trip, and the first and last days include a fair amount of travel.
Why does this cruise sail from Luxor to Aswan?
Luxor is the closest Nile city to Hurghada by road, so the cruise starts there and sails south, against the current, over four nights. That extra night gives you a full morning on the West Bank and an evening at Luxor Temple before the boat leaves, which shorter Aswan to Luxor cruises often squeeze.
Our guide to Luxor to Aswan or Aswan to Luxor compares both directions.
What is Luxor Temple like at night?
After dark the temple is floodlit, so the pylon, the obelisk and the colossal statues of Ramesses II stand out in warm light against the sky. It is cooler than a midday visit and usually calmer. Amenhotep III built most of it, and it was the stage for the yearly Opet festival.
How does this compare with the other Nile cruise packages from Hurghada?
It is the simplest of the four: hotel pickup, four nights on the river and no flights. The 4-day Cairo and Nile cruise flies you to Giza first and sails three nights. The 8-day cruise returns to Luxor and adds Abu Simbel.
The 8-day Hurghada and Nile cruise holiday runs much the same cruise but adds three hotel nights by the sea and airport transfers. If you are already in Luxor, the 5-day cruise from Luxor to Aswan covers the same river.
Tour Itinerary
Four days of sightseeing on the river between a drive at the start and a train ride at the end, with lunch and dinner on board most days.
We pick you up at your hotel in Hurghada in a private air-conditioned car and drive to Luxor, where your Egyptologist guide meets you for Karnak, the vast temple of Amun that kings enlarged for some two thousand years. You then board your 5-star cruise for lunch and a rest. In the evening your guide takes you to Luxor Temple, lit up after dark. Dinner is on board.
After breakfast your private guide and car take you to the West Bank. In the Valley of the Kings, New Kingdom pharaohs were buried in tombs cut deep into the hills. Next come Hatshepsut's temple, rising in terraces against the cliffs of Deir el-Bahari, and the Colossi of Memnon, two seated statues of Amenhotep III. Lunch and dinner are on board.
After breakfast you visit Edfu, the temple of the falcon god Horus, built under the Ptolemies between 237 and 57 BC and still roofed in places. Back on board for lunch, the cruise sails south to Kom Ombo, where the temple has two of everything, one side for Sobek and one for Haroeris. Dinner and the night are on the boat.
Your guide collects you after breakfast for a tour of Aswan. The High Dam, built between 1960 and 1970, ended the yearly flood and formed Lake Nasser. In the ancient quarries you see the Unfinished Obelisk, abandoned when the granite cracked. Last comes Philae, the temple of Isis, moved to Agilkia Island in the UNESCO Nubia campaign. Lunch and dinner are on board.
After breakfast you check out of the cruise, and we drive you to Aswan station for the train north to Qena, the Nile town where the road to the Red Sea begins. Our driver meets you at Qena station and takes you back to your hotel in Hurghada to end the trip.
What's Included
What the tour price covers, and what to plan for separately.
Paid
★
Your
Own
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers about this tour. For anything else, message us on WhatsApp — we reply fast.
It starts at your hotel in Hurghada, where a private car picks you up on the morning of day one for the drive to Luxor. It ends at the same hotel on day five, after the train from Aswan to Qena and the short drive from Qena back to the coast.
The price covers four nights on a 5-star cruise with the meals listed in the program, a private Egyptologist guide for the sightseeing, all transfers by private air-conditioned car, the train from Aswan to Qena, entrance fees to the sites in the program, mineral water in the car, and taxes. Tips are not included.
Your guide and car are private to your group, while the cruise ship is shared with other guests. The per-person price falls as your group grows, because guide and car costs are shared, and it changes by season, with the highest rates over Christmas and New Year.
It starts on Saturdays and Mondays, the days the cruise leaves Luxor. Choose one of those days for your pickup and plan the rest of your Red Sea stay around it. Winter and the Christmas and New Year weeks are the busiest, so book early if you travel then.
Yes. Avicon Travel is a Class "A" travel agency licensed by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism under License No. 1962 and registered since 2010. Our office and team are in Karnak, Luxor, so the guides, drivers and cars on this tour are our own local team, not a booking desk abroad.
