Egypt is a bucket list destination for so many. There are a lot of opinions about Egypt specifically about the safety. I never once felt unsafe in Egypt. I did feel annoyed and anxious, though. I want to preface by saying I went in 2021 when Covid was still prevalent and there were not a lot of tourists. The good part of that was we got to experience a lot of the sites with no crowd. The bad part was we stuck out and were probably hassled a lot more than typical because there were so few tourists. I am not in a hurry to go back to Egypt, but I am glad I went. Here are 8 things that would have been helpful to know before traveling to Egypt.
WHAT LINE?
Lines are not real in Egypt. If you think you are in line but leave a slight gap between you and the person in front of you someone WILL swoop in and fill the gap. You might not even think there is a gap, but there is! If you are not touching the person in front of you then there is gap and someone will swoop to fill in the gap. It’s uncomfortable but you have to touch the person in front of you or else you will get cut. You might be worried about personal space but no one else is worried about it. The person behind you will be touching you. It is not that fun but just remember it is only temporary and you just have to play by their rules.
GIFTS ARE NOT GIFTS
There is a tactic in Egypt where someone will offer you something. It could be a drawing, a small pyramid, or any type of souvenir. They will offer it to you and call it a gift… but if you thank them and then try to walk away they will demand money for it or accuse you of stealing. It is just best to decline the offer and not allow them to give it to you.
KEEP THE CHANGE
If you pay with cash the person behind the counter won’t always give you change. We had to awkwardly wait a few seconds and not move before we got change sometimes. A couple times the person behind the counter told us that they didn’t have any change. If you get told this it’s not true they definitely do have change but they don’t want to give it to you. If this happens just say that you can see the money right there and wait. They will give it to you. They don’t want to hold up the line so if you wait even a little they will give you change.
BAKSHEESH
Baksheesh is the word for tip. You will probably hear this word as soon as you step off the airplane. People will ask you for a tip for the littlest things. Some of the things we were asked to give a tip for include: someone pushing our bag through the security conveyer belt at the airport, holding a door open in a bathroom, walking through a door at the same time as us, showing us an empty room, pointing out a bird clearly shown in a picture, and more. Now I’m not usually stingy on tipping but this was honestly crazy. We did not tip these people who asked for one because they had the opportunity to ask us. If you did you would get swarmed by people who would expect you to just give away your money to them. If you ignore them or say no very sternly you will usually get left alone but if you are not stern they will keep asking you. Sometimes people would swear at us but they were never physical. No one ever touched us, tried to hurt us, or tried to rob us.
MALE VS FEMALE
When we were in Egypt men were the only people we saw trying to recruit tourists to go into their shop or ride on their horse, etc. These men would talk to my husband but never talked to me. I’m honestly not sure why that was. But when my husband would say no to these men they would be very persistent and keep asking or following us. If I told them no they would stop. I was more stern and blunt and instead of just saying “no” sometimes I would specifically tell them to stop following us or to go away. I felt mean but honestly if I wasn’t so stern then they would have never left us alone.
ENGLISH
We did not have a problem with language in Egypt. There were a lot of people who spoke English. However, in train stations there were no English signs and no workers spoke English. This was the only place we had this problem. When we bought a train ticket they luckily understood us saying Cairo- the city we were trying to get to. But we had a hard time figuring out which platform and train we were supposed to get on. Luckily the workers were extremely nice even when they didn’t understand us. They looked at our ticket and then pointed to the correct platform. One worker even kept tabs on us and when the train arrived made an effort get our attention and point at the train and give us a thumbs up. We went in 2021 and back then the train workers all wore blue uniforms so it was easy to pick them out. I’m not sure if they still wear blue currently, though.
PEOPLE WANT YOUR BUSINESS
A lot of people were very aggressive with us when it came to an opportunity to get money. Taxi drivers would grab our arms and try to pull us to their car, shop workers would follow us for blocks asking us to come to their shop, and people would purposely give us wrong directions so we would pass by their stores. They are hustlers and are not afraid to be aggressive. It must work because they really don’t back down. I don’t have a solution to this but it is just something to be aware of. Another thought I have is we went during Covid and there weren’t a lot of tourists. I think that may be why people were so overly aggressive towards us. I’m hoping if you go now then it won’t be as crazy but I can’t confirm that hunch.
CANCELLED FLIGHTS
We traveled from Cairo down to Aswan. We took multiple trains down to Aswan because we stopped in cities along the way. The train ride is 12 hours from Aswan to Cairo. We wanted to take a flight because it would save us a lot of time. However, our flight got canceled the night before and so we scrambled to the train station to get a ticket for the next day. Luckily it all worked out. I am not sure how common it is for flights to be cancelled but I wanted to add it just so you are aware that this COULD happen. I’m sure there are other ways to get to Cairo from Aswan, like floating up the Nile. But we had to get back to Cairo the next day in order to catch our flight home so we did not have the luxury of time to figure out other more comfortable options to get back to Cairo.