Our Mother-Daughter Egypt Travel Diary
A mother-daughter trip to Egypt, what a dream that never held a place in reality for me. Afterall, Egypt itself once felt possible only in dreams. A land with 4,500-year-old impossibly high pyramids, impeccably aligned with the stars and the four cardinal directions. A land dotted with ancient temples still covered in colorful motifs, whispering tales from the past, and buried tombs patiently waiting to reveal their secrets. Who would ever believe that such a place truly exists?
I am not ashamed to admit that a small part of me had its doubts, even after watching countless documentaries and pouring over numerous books and articles. After seeing many fabulous ancient monuments around the world, Egypt was still too far-fetched for reality.
And then I saw them, the Pyramids of Giza. Our plane had not even landed when they appeared outside my window, rising from the desert in unmistakable geometrical perfection. Our trajectory was not meant to take us over them. It was unexpected and beautifully surreal. In that single suspended moment, the implausible dream came true, and a mother-daughter adventure of a lifetime began.
Below is a collection of the daily travel entries I posted to Facebook throughout our December 2025 adventure, now lightly edited for clarity and grammar errors that I was only too happy to ignore at the time. They are fast-paced and emotional, written late at night after long days of epic exploration through Cairo, Giza, and Luxor. They capture the immediacy of the experience, our exhaustion, awe, laughter, and the moments that felt too extraordinary to process in real time.
Mother-Daughter Trip to Egypt Day 1: Giza
Cheers from the land of all things ancient… very, very ancient! 
Finally, my number one childhood dream adventure has come true. 
After arriving at our accommodation at 2 AM, today was our freebie day. Nothing planned — just rested, ate, and made two new best furiends (and, yes, I do travel with cat food). 
Mother-Daughter Trip to Egypt Day 2: Giza
Wow, what a day! Started off the morning by watching the gorgeous full moon set between the pyramids. As the sun rose, slowly illuminating the pyramids and the sphinx, half a dozen paragliders soared above.
Next up, we joined up with Mariam, our guide for the next three days, who took us on a visit through the marvelous, the majestic, and the magical Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM for short), which only had its grand opening last month. The museum is a wonder of modern engineering and so well-laid out that I felt as if we were attending a perfectly manicured theme park for adults, with Ancient Egypt as the main and sole event. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves, which, frankly, might become my mantra for the rest of this trip since words will, no doubt, continue to fail me.
After a lovely lunch at GEM, we headed out to the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx. “Great” is an understatement to describe such wonders; miraculous is more like it. Then, I conjured up my inner Gryffindor and sacrificed my body (specifically, my head, back, and knees) as I delved deep into the bowels of Khufu’s Pyramid in search of his burial chamber. The terrain became trickier to navigate as everything became narrower.
Then, with a final crawl through about a ten-foot-long, small block-shaped hole, I arrived at the blazing hot burial chamber. Huzzah! I made it! But as the heat was punishing, there was no time to celebrate. After a few short minutes, I headed back through the block-shaped hole, down the curved, back-breaking, narrow paths, and out through the tunnel into fresh air. I did it! 🙌 The feelings of pride were immense as I rejoined my Mother and guide with a huge grin spread across my face.
The rest of our evening was spent in our room. We had our hotel order some Egyptian food from a local restaurant, and they graciously delivered it to our room.
Egypt Day 3: Giza and Cairo
Another day spent diving into the history of pyramids, and I do mean that literally as we ventured underneath the oldest pyramid in the world, the Step Pyramid dating back to the 2600’s BCE, in ancient Saqqara. After exploring the inside of the Step Pyramid, I somehow convinced my Mother to explore the outside of it – via camelback. It was a short fifteen-minute ride, but the photos I captured are magical!
Later on, I headed into the Pyramid of Unas, where lay the oldest hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt, and which still contain much of their original blue coloring. My Mother and I then went into the Tomb of Princess Idut. It contained some of the most stunning hieroglyphs depicting ancient life. One of them included a hippopotamus giving birth while a crocodile waited to swallow her baby behind her. 😱
Then we drove out to the Nile Carpet School, where we learned about the traditional art of carpet making. All of the students are paid to learn the trade over six months and then they have those skills for life. I purchased a carpet — it took forever to find the right one!
Next up, we drove out to the spectacularly beautiful Mosque of Muhammad Ali on the citadel overlooking Old Cairo. In the far distance, I could just make out the silhouette of the pyramids.
We ended our day dining at a local Lebanese restaurant called Taboula, which I had found on TripAdvisor while researching our trip. The food was mouth-wateringly delicious and it was even more enjoyable because our guide, Mariam, and our driver joined us. The more the merrier! We tried probably a dozen different dishes (all beautifully presented, of course) and fresh Lebanese bread served warm. It was the stuff of culinary dreams and it all cost just under $60! 
Egypt Day 4:
What a marvelous final day in Giza/Cairo! We visited Coptic churches, a charming synagogue, a fabulous mosque, heard the Muslim Call to Prayer a couple times, said hey to some twenty or so royal mummies (including some of the biggies like Ramses II, Seti I, Hatshepsut, and Nefertari) at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, perused through the historic center of Old Cairo and the Bazar of Khan el-Khalili, fed a couple dozen cats, drank Egyptian tea at a tea house stretching back eight generations, got caught in a full-on and incredibly rare rain storm (and had to teach our driver and guide the magic of defrosting the windshield), and had a lovely Moroccan dinner with our lively guide, Mohamed (who is Mariam’s spouse), right along the banks of the Nile.
Egypt Day 5:
Hello from Luxor, aka Ancient Thebes and the land of the Valley of the Kings and Queens! Our day started off early as we had to pack up and grab a quick breakfast. (Funny enough, our meal incorporated feeding three cats, one of which took a falafel right from my plate. No complaints from me though!) We then said a sad goodbye to the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx and headed for the hour journey to the airport. Thankfully, the airport was super chill, even suspiciously chill, because we could not see our flight listed or that it had been delayed. 
Lo and behold, it was late — by two hours and we had not been notified by email. 
So, we got to the airport four hours too early. Yay! 
In hindsight, though, it was fine because we got here in the end.
My first impressions of Luxor were that there was no traffic, even hardly any cars, and the land was rich with vegetation like sugar cane and bananas. As we reached Djorff Palace, our new accommodation for the next four nights, we were immediately greeted by fresh hibiscus juice and a marvelous view from our room of the Nile with traditional feluccas sailing by at sunset.
After video chatting with a friend and my Dad, we headed out to dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, where we were 100% pampered. Zucchini beignets and feta strawberry salad as appetizers, chicken piccata and fennel pasta as mains, and ginger ice cream and an interesting pear dessert to complete. The service was lovely and the food was perfection. In all, it totaled just $42. 
I’m telling you people, if you can get to Egypt, you’ll find that the rest of your time here can be very affordable! Anyway, tomorrow will be packed with many wonders. I’m not sure which wonders we’ll experience, but one thing I do know — I need to pick up more cat food!
Mother-Daughter Trip to Egypt Day 6: Luxor
Someone pinch me because I’m seriously questioning if today really happened or if I dreamt it all:
Did I REALLY start off my day with having the cutest orange-speckled gecko fall from the ceiling onto me while taking a shower? 😆 (Don’t worry, we rescued it!)
Did both our guide and driver REALLY understand my plea to pick up cat food without any looks of bewilderment or questions asked? 🥹
Did they REALLY escort us to THE Valley of the Kings and did I really easily convince my claustrophobic Mom to go into every single tomb with me? 😱
Were we REALLY allowed to take photos (without flash) and videos of everything and without being charged extra (contrary to what I had read on the internet)?
Did we REALLY get to go into THE King Tutankhamen’s Tomb AND see his mummy AND get to photograph him? 😲
Did we REALLY get to explore one of the most GORGEOUS tombs in the world of Seti I essentially alone? 😯
Did a kind local man inside Seti I’s tomb REALLY open blocked off sections for us to experience on our own? Did the same man REALLY gently take my hand and place it on a depiction of Anubis, god of mummification, to feel the power radiating from it? 🫨
Did I REALLY feel the most alive while experiencing the Ancient Egyptians’ version of the Afterlife?
Did we REALLY get to visit Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple and see every place where preceding rulers hacked her depictions away because they hated her? 🥺
Did my Mom REALLY lose her new sunglasses, only to find them down her shirt an hour later? 😂
Did I REALLY get to feed a mother cat and her kittens and a dog outside of a beautiful temple dedicated to Ramses II during Golden Hour?
Did a local man dressed in local garb REALLY pose at different places around the temple for us to photograph him? 😊
Did we REALLY order three divine appetizers, three main dishes, and a dessert from our hotel restaurant because we were famished from a full day of fantastic, mind-blowing, jaw-dropping adventures and all for just $55? 😋😚
And is my glasses container REALLY covered with, for lack of a better word, “tomb dust”? 🧐 Yes, yes, it really is! 🤩
Egypt Day 7:
What a long day we had, and I mean LONG! It started at 3:30 AM for a 4:30 pick up to go ballooning during sunrise. We should have been a bit suspicious at that point because sunrise would not happen until 6:30. Indeed, we spent a long time sitting in a van waiting around for something to happen. Supposedly, we were waiting for another ballooner, but they didn’t show.
After picking up an Indian mother and daughter and a single traveler, we embarked for the fields on the west bank of Luxor. As we stepped out onto the fields, the air was quite crisp, and there were dozens of local people of all ages dressed in traditional clothing singing and dancing and beating drums. It was a welcome like no other and one I doubt to re-experience again! We were forbidden from photographing or videoing the inflating of the balloons for some reason, which is a shame because the experience makes for great photography. Finally, shortly before sunrise, we were given clearance to take off. What a beautiful flight it was! We did not travel very far, but, as the temples of the West Bank are very close in proximity to each other, it was not an issue. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. ☺️
After our flight, we returned to a lovely breakfast served along the banks of the Nile with locals tending to the vegetation in the distance, of course, with the help of some cows. Breakfast incorporated mango juice, Egyptian bread with delicious mashed fava beans, toast with jam and honey, yoghurt, local bananas, cheese, and mint tea. And breakfast included feeding the local cat some kibble, but she ended up preferring my Mom’s leftover omelet. 😆
The rest of the day was spent visiting an alabaster factory, Karnak Temple, and Luxor Temple. The alabaster factory was a brief but interesting visit, and we did purchase a small vase.
Karnak, being the second largest temple in the world, was certainly stunning with its massive columns and obelisks, but it was quite crowded and warm. But with the help of our trusted guide, Michael, we were still able to learn a lot and capture some fun photos.
At just around three kilometers or so away, Luxor Temple is vastly different than Karnak! A couple of favorite parts were that it was much less crowded by tourists, it was a site where four different religions merged together, and there was a fantastic open area museum that included reliefs that covered some 3,000 years of history.
Our day’s adventures ended with a relaxing sunset sail along the Nile in a traditional Egyptian felucca. Dinner at the hotel was once again fantastic and included a truly best-in-my-life Caesar salad, mouthwatering beef goulash, and a perfect chocolate mousse and mango crepe.
Egypt Day 8:
What a lovely final day of adventures! Started off with watching the sunrise over the Nile from our room and another delicious breakfast shared with the palace cat, Fatima.
Then we were off to Deir-el-Medina, the ancient workmen’s village of skilled artisans who built the tombs in both the Valleys of the Kings and Queens. It contained some of the most ancient tombs we had seen so far in Luxor and were unique in the way they depicted the daily life of the people who lived during that time.
The site also contained the exquisite tomb of Ramose, the Governor of Thebes during the 18th Dynasty. This tomb was interesting because it was never finished and, thus, showcases the process of creating tombs. The columns inside the tomb were so pristine that they looked like they could have been finished yesterday, not 3,300 years ago!
We then continued onward to the tiniest, but the most elaborate, of the tombs in the archaeological site. These tombs were truly stunning, but often difficult to get into because the entrances were small. Even so, my Mom joined me on all of them and was rewarded each time with spectacular beauty that had to be seen to be believed. 😯 It’s because of these tiny tombs that I have to break this post into several parts. I can’t help including so many photos and Facebook will only allow me to share so many in one post! 😅
After Deir-el-Medina, we headed to the house of Howard Carter, discoverer of Tutankhamen’s Tomb. A major highlight of this visit was seeing his dark room, where many of the photos of the excavation were processed. They even had some negatives! The site also included a complete reconstruction of Tutankhamen’s Tomb, which we could fully move around and look at photos from the excavation and the artifacts pulled from the tomb.
We wrapped up our Egyptian adventuring at perhaps my favorite temple of them all, Habu. This temple is nearly just as beautiful as Karnak, but far less crowded. The reliefs are just as beautiful, the columns just as striking, but what was really cool was how deep the hieroglyphs were throughout the site. Sometimes I could fit my whole fist and wrist inside them. This would ensure that nobody could remove the evidence of the pharaoh (as was done at Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple) from the walls without destroying the temple itself!
We finished off our day with a dip in the pool during sunset as the feluccas sailed by on the Nile and another delicious dinner.
We are both incredibly grateful for the time we were able to spend in this beautiful country and with the especially gracious and welcoming people we met along the way. There is little doubt that we will miss Egypt very much, but as my Mom has always said, “It is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.” ♥️🇪🇬