• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Egypt Travel Blog

  • Cities & Regions
    • Cairo
    • Giza
    • Luxor
    • Aswan
    • Abu Simbel
    • Alexandria
    • The Red Sea
    • Siwa
  • The Sites
    • The Pyramids & Sphinx
    • Downtown Cairo Sites
    • Luxor Sites
    • Aswan Sites
    • Abu Simbel
    • Alexandria Sites
    • Edfu
    • Kom Ombo
    • Abydos
    • Dendera
    • Siwa
  • Museums
    • All Cairo Area Museums
    • Old Egyptian Museum
    • Grand Egyptian Museum
    • National Museum of Egyptian Civilization
    • Abdeen Palace Museum
    • Royal Carriages Museum
    • Manial Palace Museum
    • Nubian Museum
    • Sharm el-Sheikh Museum 
  • Food & Dining
  • Hotel Reviews
    • Greater Cairo Hotels
    • Luxor Hotels
    • Red Sea Hotels
    • Alexandria Hotels
  • Travel Advice
  • Trips
  • News
  • The Podcast

When Is the Best Time to Visit Egypt?

February 8, 2018 by Egypt Travel Blog

A trip to Egypt is truly a bucket list trip of a lifetime, so planning the right time to go can ensure that your trip maximized to be as amazing as it can possibly be. That’s why planning for and around weather can be critical to making sure you have a great experience when you finally arrive.

Egypt is obviously a hot country because, well, it’s Egypt. But the summers can just be unbearably hot in some places, like down south in Luxor where the tombs and temples are, and tolerable farther up north in Cairo and Alexandria and along the coasts. If you can, I’d generally recommend avoiding June, July, and August. If your choice is between going during one of those months and not being able to go, then definitely go. But plan appropriately so that you avoid the worst of the sun and heat.

For example, if you find yourself down south in Luxor visiting the tombs and temples during the summer months, you’ll want to go out of your way to wake up super early and get to the sites the minute they open so that you can explore them before the day gets too hot. In the fall and winter you can sleep in later and go later in the morning and early afternoon and it’ll be warm but not scorching like in the summer. You can still do Egypt during the hot months, but you just have to plan around the worst of the heat and take extra precautions.

Pretty much any other month is fine weather-wise. Obviously, the fall and spring will still be a bit hot, and the dead of winter can be a little cool sometimes in the north, even cold at night. It rarely rains there, so no need to worry about that. It happens on occasion, but not enough to pack an umbrella or anything like that.

When I first lived there in 2003, I was riding horses in the desert behind the Pyramids one day (I used to love to ride horses out in the desert for fun and to clear my mind after a stressful week or month there) and it actually started to rain on us. And then, believe it or not, it actually started to sleet on us – hard. We literally had to take our horses up to the pyramids complex and huddle up beside one of the smaller queens pyramids to shield ourselves from the sideways sleet for about 10 minutes until it stopped. It was the most bizarre thing, but I kid you not it actually sleeted on us at the Pyramids once.

And there was another time a few years ago when it snowed in Cairo and the Pyramids and Sphinx had a very light coating of snow on them for a little while. You can google photos of it and it’s really neat to see. It snows there so rarely that I think most Egyptians alive at that point had maybe only seen snow once before there in their lives… and by snow I mean like a few snowflakes forming a very very thin layer. Not like an all-out snowfall by any means.

Ok so you’ll ideally want to avoid the height of summer if you can, but if not that’s ok too. The only other time I’d recommend trying to avoid if you can is Ramadan. Ramadan is like Christmas for the Islamic world. It’s very different in origin and meaning, but the time of year for the holy month of Ramadan – yeah it’s a whole month – is similar to the festive atmosphere of Christmas in the Western world. And that includes shops closing and special store hours and such too.

Most Muslims fast during the day during Ramadan, so demand for food drops off drastically. As a result, a lot of restaurants will close or alter their hours to sync up with decreased demand. After the sun goes down though, the feasting commences and you can usually find plenty of grub at night. But because it’s a strange time schedule-wise and things like sites and shops will close early and have odd hours, it’s generally best to try to avoid it if you can.

The exact dates for Ramadan change from year to year because the holiday actually shifts about 11 days earlier every year, so you’ll have to google it to be sure when it is in the year you’re looking at. Right now it’s generally during early summer and within a few years it’ll be in late spring and it’ll continue to shift earlier and earlier until it’s occurring during winter again eventually.

If you do go during Ramadan, though be prepared for a really festive atmosphere with lots of lights and decorations just like Christmas in the West. Oh, and when Christmas time does come around, you’ll actually see a lot of hotels and businesses in Egypt decorating for that holiday too, since about a tenth of the population is Christian and since so many foreigners who celebrate Christmas live in and visit Egypt. So don’t be surprised if you’re there in December and see Christmas trees up in some places.

How’s that for tolerance and acceptance for ya? Can you imagine public places in the United States and the UK and Germany and Spain actually decorating for a minority holiday like Ramadan? Hell naw! But in Egypt, you’ll see many businesses putting up decorations to honor and celebrate Christmas for Egypt’s minority Christian population and it’s just an accepted tradition.

Egypt is full of little surprises like that which are contrary to the many stereotypes that plague Western minds about Egypt and the wider Middle East. And that’s yet another reason to come explore this amazing place and see what life-changing and mind-changing experiences are in store for you when you get there.

Filed Under: Evergreen Egypt Travel Advice

Other Neat Stuff

The Mystery of King Tut’s “Other Worldly” Burial Dagger Finally Solved

Although the entire field of Egyptology is only about 200 years old, dating back to the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone and the unlocking of the ancient hieroglyphic script in which the civilization’s history was recorded, the study of ancient Egyptian history and artifacts is still accelerating at an astonishing pace. With the application of […]

New archaeological finds in Egypt continue to astonish

Important discoveries out of Egypt have again been flooding the global news as archaeologists continue to explore beneath the sands of the Saqqara necropolis near Cairo, which is home to temples, burial grounds, and pyramids of the once-mighty ancient empire. Over the last year, researchers have unearthed at least 210 sarcophagi not touched since their burial two millennia ago, including the coffin of Queen Neit, […]

More Unsealed Mummies Discovered at Saqqara

If you’ve ever wandered around the rocky grounds of the Saqqara royal necropolis, the site of the Pharaoh Djoser’s famous Step Pyramid just south of the most famous pyramids at Giza, you’ve likely walked above hundreds of undiscovered treasures, mummies, and noble tombs still hidden in the ground beneath your feet. Frequent readers of the […]

Step Pyramid Interior Reopens to the Public

The Step Pyramid of Djoser at Sakkara is one of the most unique pyramids in Egypt and the oldest pyramid still standing anywhere in the world. While most of the other famous pyramids nearby at Giza and Dashur have been generally open for the public to go inside of them to explore the narrow passageways […]

Mummies on the Move

There have been quite a few recent developments about mummies in Egypt lately, including the largest discovery of mummies in over a century near Luxor, which was followed by the eruption of a minor a controversy over where those mummies will now be housed (national officials prefer the new Grand Egyptian Museum while local Luxor […]

Pet Mummies

We all know that the ancient Egyptians mummified the dead bodies of their loved ones with elaborate rituals and scientific rigor, whether they were a revered pharaoh or, if non-royal Egyptians could afford it, a beloved family member. But even in modern times, we can understand that human love and affection extend beyond just our […]

New Major Mummy Discovery Unveiled in Luxor

The largest new discovery of ancient Egyptian mummies in over a century has been revealed to the public by Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities at a ceremony in the southern city of Luxor, resting place to hundreds of ancient pharaohs, other royalty, high court officials, and evidently more middle class folks as well. The discovery, which […]

New Discovery Makes Pharaohs Look Modern, Sort Of

A team of archaeologists work in northern Egypt have discovered the site of an ancient settlement that makes even the Pharaohs and the Pyramids look young, relatively speaking. The discovery was made in the town of Tel el-Samara, which is located north of Cairo in the fertile Nile Delta region. Egypt’s most famous pyramids at […]

Tracing the Physical Legacy of Cleopatra

On this year’s International Women’s Day today, Egypt Travel Blog would like to pay homage to one of ancient Egypt’s most famous figures and a woman whose life and legacy are worthy of remembrance. Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in all of human history. She was a beloved queen of an ancient […]

New Discoveries

One of the amazing things about Egypt is that the entire country is still an active archaeological site. With over five thousand years of history under its sands, the slice that we know about and have uncovered so far is by no means all there is to be discovered. When you visit the Pyramids couples, […]

Ancient Knowledge and Modern Remembrance

It’s National Library Week in the United States, so it’s as good of a time as any to talk about one of the world’s most famous libraries – the ancient Library of Alexandria. After the death of Alexander the Great and the founding of the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt, the Library of Alexandria was created […]

Visiting the Pyramids of Giza

Egypt’s most popular historical site, and one of the most well known the world over, is of course the Pyramids, the most famous of which are located just outside of Cairo. The greater Cairo area is a sprawling metropolis of nearly 20 million people spread out over dozens of suburbs on both sides of the […]

Luxor Temple

Despite its prominent name, Luxor Temple is actually the second most famous temple in Luxor behind the much larger and greater Temple of Karnak just down the road. However, Luxor Temple has several unique features of its own that merit a visit and some independent attention. The first and most obvious aspect of Luxor Temple […]

The Valley of the Queens

The Valley of the Queens in the area of Luxor is a lesser visited royal necropolis in which various family members of several dynasties of pharaohs were laid to rest. As the name suggests, many queens were buried here in elaborate tombs befitting their status and wealth, but many princesses and even princes had dedicated […]

World’s Oldest Haute Couture

Anyone a fan of vintage fashion? How about 5000 year old couture? One of the neat things about Egypt is that its advanced civilization was good at both recording and preserving its own history. Unlike most other of the world’s great ancient civilizations whose moist climates caused the disintegration of its remnants thousands of years […]

Primary Sidebar

Check out our hit podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!

Join our “Egypt Insider” email list!

Loading

Beware – Scams, Taboos, Faux Pas, & Other Crazy Stuff

“Dr.” Sherif and the Great Papyrus “Institute” Scam

All About Camels… and the Pyramids Camel Scam

What NOT to Wear in Egypt

Cairo’s Chaotic Traffic

Taking the Right Type of Taxi in Cairo & Giza

The Super Aggressive “Taxi Jumpers” at the Giza Pyramids

Discoveries, Artifacts, and Unique Takes on Egyptian History

The Mystery of King Tut’s “Other Worldly” Burial Dagger Finally Solved

New archaeological finds in Egypt continue to astonish

More Unsealed Mummies Discovered at Saqqara

Step Pyramid Interior Reopens to the Public

Mummies on the Move

Pet Mummies

New Major Mummy Discovery Unveiled in Luxor

New Discovery Makes Pharaohs Look Modern, Sort Of

Egypt Travel Blog and the Egypt Travel Blog Podcast are produced in partnership with Jetset.Ninja and Egypt Elite.
. .