The Best Time to Visit Egypt — An Honest Month-by-Month Guide

Egypt has one genuinely difficult season and one genuinely perfect one, and a lot of nuance in between. Most guides collapse this into "go in winter", which is true but not very useful when you are trying to book flights around school holidays.

November to February — the easy answer

Daytime highs in Luxor sit around 23–26°C and Cairo is a few degrees cooler. This is when the sites are pleasant to walk around at midday, which is not true for half the year.

The trade-off is company. December and the first week of January are the busiest weeks in Egypt, prices rise across hotels and cruises, and the Valley of the Kings gets genuinely crowded by 9am.

Desert nights are cold. If you are camping in the White Desert between November and February, bring a fleece, a hat and socks — it drops close to freezing after midnight.

March, April and October — the sweet spot

These are the months we personally recommend most often. Warm rather than hot, noticeably quieter than midwinter, and prices sit between the two extremes.

One caveat for spring: the khamaseen wind can blow sand for a day or two at a time between March and May. It is unpleasant rather than dangerous, and it grounds hot air balloons.

May to September — the hard months

Luxor and Aswan regularly pass 40°C in June, July and August, and 45°C is not unusual. This is a dry heat and it is survivable, but standing in the Valley of the Kings at noon in July is genuinely punishing.

If summer is your only option, it is still worth going — you just plan differently. Sites at dawn, a long break in the middle of the day, and the Red Sea rather than Upper Egypt for the second half of the trip.

The upside is real: summer is the cheapest time to visit by a wide margin, and the major sites are as empty as they ever get.

Ramadan and the Egyptian calendar

Ramadan moves earlier by about eleven days each year. Sites stay open and tours run normally, but daytime hours can be shorter and some restaurants close until sunset.

It is a genuinely interesting time to visit if you are curious about the culture — iftar in Cairo is an experience — but it is a poor choice if you want everything running at full pace.

If you take one thing from this: the difference between February and July in Egypt is not a matter of a few degrees. It changes what kind of trip is possible. Tell us which months you can travel and we will tell you honestly whether the itinerary you want makes sense.