🇪🇬Cost of Travel in Egypt (2026): Daily Budgets for 3 Cities
Five thousand years of monuments strung along one river — Cairo's pyramids and new Grand Egyptian Museum, Luxor's temples and tombs, Aswan's feluccas and Nubian villages. Cheaper since the 2024 currency float, and hard work in the heat.
Daily budgets in Egypt
The cheapest city in Egypt is Aswan, at $40–80 a day mid-range per person; the priciest is Cairo, at $50–100 — about 25% more for the same style of trip.
| City | Budget / day | Mid-range / day | Comfort / day | Cheap meal | Mid-range hotel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aswan | $25–50 | $40–80 | $70–140 | $1–3 | $35–80 |
| Luxor | $25–55 | $40–90 | $70–160 | $1–3 | $35–80 |
| Cairo | $30–60 | $50–100 | $90–180 | $1–3 | $45–100 |
Per person in US dollars, flights not included. Mid-range is each guide's researched figure and includes a mid-range room; budget and comfort scale it by 0.6 and 1.8, so treat those as rough. How we work these out.
Plan a trip across Egypt
Set the nights you'd spend in each city. Per person, before flights; each night counts one day of that city's daily budget.
Cities
🇪🇬Aswan
EgyptEgypt's southern frontier, where the Nile narrows between granite boulders and golden dunes, feluccas outnumber cars, and Nubian villages paint their houses blue. The slowest, easiest city on the tourist route — and the base for Abu Simbel.
🇪🇬Cairo
EgyptTwenty-odd million people, the last standing Wonder of the ancient world at the end of a city bus route, and a brand-new museum built to hold Tutankhamun. Loud, hot and exhausting, and nowhere else is quite like it.
🇪🇬Luxor
EgyptAncient Thebes, split by the Nile: the temples of the living on the east bank, the tombs of the pharaohs on the west. The densest concentration of ancient monuments on earth, in a small town that works hard for your money.
Head to head
Two cities side by side — costs, best months and what you'd do in each.