Almost twenty-five hundred years ago Herodotus cautioned his readers, “I am going to talk at some length about Egypt because it has produced more monuments which beggar description than anywhere else in the world.” Time has only added luster (and even more monuments) to his words. You begin with two days of sightseeing in and around Cairo and the Pyramids, then fly to Luxor where you board your luxury cruise boat for a trip through antiquity to Lower Egypt. Along the riverbank a timeless scene unfolds; feluccas drift by, women launder on the shores, children wave, monuments appear, and, as Kipling wrote, we “run the gauntlet before eternity.” Disembarking at Aswan with a side excursion to fabled Abu Simbel, you then fly on to Amman, capital of Jordan, ancient Philadelphia, built on seven hills. You’ll visit Jerash, one of the ten Greco-Roman cities of the Decapolis, a federation created by Pompey in 64 b.c.e., then turn south on the Tariq as-Sultani, where biblical names pop up at every turn (Machaerus, for example, where John the Baptist lost his head). You drive to Petra: “The loftiest portals ever raised by the hand of man, the proudest monuments of architectural skill and daring sink into insignificance by comparison,” wrote John Lloyd Stephens in 1836 of the great city carved from living rock. And on to the desert of Wadi Rum, where you spend the night absorbing stupendous, red-infused beauty in a tented Bedouin camp. After some wandering in Wadi Rum’s crags and dunes in jeeps and on camelback, you drive to the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea, where the salts and mud baths of its luxurious shoreline spas are the salubrious end to your wanderings.

Days 1 & 2: USA to Cairo • Days 3 & 4: Cairo and Giza Pyramids • Day 5: fly to Luxor • Day 6: Luxor, board Nile cruise ship, Valley of the Kings & Queens • Day 7: Luxor, sail to Esna • Day 8: Edfu and Kom Ombo • Day 9: sail to Aswan • Day 10: Aswan, excursion to Abu Simbel • Day 11: fly to Cairo and Amman • Day 12: Amman, excursion to Jerash • Day 13: Amman to Petra • Day 14: Petra • Day 15: Petra to Wadi Rum • Day 16: drive to the Dead Sea • Day 17: return to USA.

• General Description
• Health Precautions
• Reading List
• Travel Conditions
• Visa Information
• Weather Information

• More Egypt Trips
• More Touring Trips