EGYPT TRAVEL GUIDE (No BS) | Scammers, Safety & Costs

and most of the time they're just asking

what's your name where are you from

they just asked what's your name

very nice

man ramble

this is what this is reality is egypt

safe to travel in it's the number one

question i got before coming here now

i'm shooting this introduction here at

the market in luxor because this is my

number one tip this is the number one

thing i've learned

i've learned about egypt and traveling

in egypt is it is

safe relatively with a few asterisk

asterixes astri what's plural for

asterix astri anyway it is relatively

safe but with a few caveats number one

is they are the greatest salesman of all

salesmen

they're always going to sell you

something this is all aspects of

traveling around egypt especially in the

locations where there is a ton of

tourism

they asked me for a tip going through

security they said special treatment for

you you don't have to take your shoes

off this is pre-security before you even

get into the airport they said special

treatment for you you don't take your

shoes off nobody was taking their shirts

off and he said can i have a tip can i

have a tip for not taking your shoes off

egyptians

i love it all right let me step away

here for a second from the crowds and

try to speak to you with the microphone

on everything i've mentioned to this

point is

what i would call the direct approach

really people just trying to feed their

families and it's completely

understandable to some extent

now it's the second method of people

hustling here in egypt that really turns

people off from visiting and that's a

more deceitful way to get money from

tourists and and try to trick them into

tips and i watched a ton of

scammers in egypt videos and

avoid this guy videos or the truth about

egypt videos and really so many of the

things that they talk about in these

videos

will be avoided by seasoned travelers

yes they're charging you tourist prices

in the most tourist locations on earth

the pyramids of giza

yes it is a tourist trap there's tons of

people trying to sell you stuff

it doesn't have to be that dramatic but

i understand

the drama and the chaos and the fear is

what sparks

views and we'll talk about youtube

stuff later on when i talk about filming

and police

but truthfully

a lot of these things come down to price

negotiation and also

a huge tip i can give you is never trust

anyone

who approaches you first if someone

approaches you and wants to hand you

something or give you a gift or

put something on your head or or do

anything with you or give you directions

do not trust them this is basic traveler

awareness and

egypt will force you to learn this very

quickly and to get more specific there

are basically two types of scammers at

the great pyramids the first is those

people that will try to get you to do a

horse ride or a camel ride

and then take you all around and then

charge you a price afterwards so to

avoid this simply tell them what price

you're willing to pay ahead of time the

second type of scammer that's going to

be at the pyramids is those that will

try to tell you what direction to go in

or follow me you're going the wrong way

you're going out of bounds and these

people could be actually registered tour

guides or officials or security guards

but do not believe them you say i'm all

good i'm going to go my own way because

eventually they're going to ask you for

a tip they will probably follow you

around keep telling you that you're not

going in the right direction and you

just have to avoid them and if you do

have an issue with someone at the

pyramids or any historical site or

anywhere across egypt tell them that

you're going to contact the tourism

police and see what they do they're all

very scared of the tourism police if

you're with a guide

none of this stuff happens they may come

up to you people may come up to you and

ask you for something or or tell you

something and a guide will immediately

shut it down unless you're looking for

souvenirs and then a guide might direct

you to a place or someone that he knows

he gets a commission from it and that's

something to be aware of as well what a

lot of places will do and tour guides

will do is they'll bring you to places

to show you demonstrations you know

perfume

ornaments whatever it may be

they'll say it's just a demonstration

you don't have to worry about something

and then they'll sell you on it later so

for example we're at an alabaster

factory right now it's basically a giant

store selling all these little trinkets

where you can get all over the place i

need the people who come again

egypt yeah come here come here we need

the people to come here everything here

is very safe and very beautiful bring

your money yeah

just made it inside the perfume palace

look at these things

for the perfume

take us on a

sensory adventure

it's our crew and this is where they're

going to try to sell us some stuff so

it's really us versus them to see if we

can hold up hold our money

but if you have a good guide a reputable

guy they'll immediately say okay sorry

we'll keep going if you tell them that

you're not interested for me i avoid a

ton of this headache because one i never

buy souvenirs when i'm traveling it's i

just don't want the extra baggage and

two especially at the pyramids i didn't

do any of the animal rides the camel

rides the horse the donkey rides because

i just didn't like the way the animals

were treated so it's not something that

i'm going to support personally and the

only time i really ran into this

kind of this bait and switch kind of

this deceitful way of selling that is

prominent here in egypt is on our trip

to siwa and we had a local connection

and

we had a tour that we ended up paying a

lot more money than we thought for that

the desert tour again we we did a ton of

stuff with this guy he gave us one price

at the beginning of the day the end of

the day he said we took longer than

expected which

throughout the time we were together

he was saying oh no no it's fine we can

do whatever you want we can do whatever

you want and then at the end of it he's

like oh we took a lot longer than

expected i'm gonna charge you more hours

and then also the hotel that we stayed

at they gave us one price at the

beginning and then end up paying another

price at the end you really have to

communicate with the people that you're

with about the final price because they

will try to avoid the conversation or be

like oh don't worry about it we'll

figure it out later that's a huge thing

for egyptian scammers to do oh don't

worry don't worry come over here come

over here we'll do this now and you say

how much

and i'll say oh no we'll figure it out

later don't worry about it and that's

the same thing what happened to us in

siwa so that was a bit frustrating now

granted i'll give them the benefit of

the doubt with the siwa oasis experience

because that was on me too for a lack of

communication so make sure you

communicate prices at every step along

the way and you have to be as assertive

as other people are trying to get your

money and that is a a tough thing for a

lot of people but when you're traveling

you have to be confident and assertive

and you have to be protective of your

wallet otherwise in egypt you can really

be taken advantage of now based on all

the stories that i've heard and videos

that i've seen we went into this trip

knowing that this type of stuff was

going to happen so we were extra alert

from start to finish

so if you go into it with the attitude

that i need to be aware of everything

it will really change your perspective

and you'll just say no you'll let it you

know roll off your shoulder it won't be

a problem for you honestly we treated it

like a game at one point it was just fun

to hear all the people trying to sell us

stuff and other people trying to get us

to go down to different places oh no no

you want to go this way check out this

shop and we'd even walk with some people

and just joke and talk with them

but truthfully we went in with a really

good attitude but i do have to say

tyler's here with me as well they are

very very playful

and they're very good i see hello so

even if you don't want to buy anything

or you know you're not buying what

they're selling you'll find someone

who's coming i'm very very good looking

thank you very good looking people

they're very playful so even if you're

not buying something you can still be

playful you can talk to them but they're

all going to say something no matter

what so no hustle in here though no

hustle here you walk around camera or

not you're going to be heckled also side

note interjection here when dealing with

transportation here in egypt number one

you want to take ubers pretty much

everywhere this is mostly in the bigger

cities so in cairo taking uber

everywhere and it's very very cheap one

thing for me that i'm always anxious

about if i can jump in here from the

airport coming back from lucky to cairo

is how do i get to my location from the

airport i don't know why but something

i'm always super anxious about so for

this

in cairo it's very easy they have uber

here

it's cheap it's safe and it's a great

idea so you just

order it up once you get your baggage

frame

right through there

and then you come outside

which is right through there so you go

directly across from arrivals you go

across the street past all the taxi guys

down the stairs into the parking lot

and there

is our uber there's gonna be a lot of

taxi people asking you for stuff but

just keep going and you'll reach your

uber that's how you get out of the

airport in an uber here in cairo in

regards to taxis

that's a different story they have very

interesting negotiation tactics

basically they'll give you a very high

price and then they'll cut it down for

example we're here in downtown luxor and

he started at 10 us dollars then we said

no we'll do 40 total

uh egyptian pounds he said okay and if

he doesn't take that immediately just

walk away right away and then they're

like wait wait wait hold on okay we'll

do it so

big time negotiation there's big gaps in

where they start and where they'll end

up so keep that in mind and in regards

to public buses or tour buses we

honestly haven't taken them around much

because they take a long time we did do

a horse and carriage ride at one of the

temples but make sure you pre-determine

your rate before you leave no matter

what you do no matter where you are in

the world make sure you pre-determine

your transportation fee before you leave

that's transportation here in egypt but

honestly the time i felt most unsafe

here in egypt

is actually driving in a car

the transportation the the drivers here

are nuts the traffic they weave in now

they don't respect the lines it's wild

so for me that's where i feel the most

at risk is in a car because they are

just wild especially in cairo

in cairo

and uh

our car broke down

on the side of the highway

trying to get to our hotel

tough start as an american traveling in

egypt how was your experience do you

think it was safe would you recommend it

yes i'd recommend it and what was your

experience like it was great

i found some good local food traffic's a

little hectic found a nice little spot

to eat got hit by a car leaving from

there crossing the sidewalk

that was where in cairo right it was in

cairo by the egyptian museum

and you're okay yep

all right

well tyler's off talking to the guide

let's talk money real quick well they're

not paying attention first of all is

egypt a cheap or expensive place to

travel and i would say generally very

generally speaking if you don't get

ripped off it is a very inexpensive

place to travel overall the flight is

obviously your biggest expense that

costs us about a thousand dollars each

to get here flying 24 to 30 hours

second your next biggest expense is

going to be your hotels and for our

first night stay first three nights

actually we stayed at that pyramids

hotel right in giza and it was called

the guardian guest house highly

recommend it and that was like 40 us

dollars a night which was perfect for

what we needed then

the nicer end of hotels we stayed at the

hilton in luxor which was

beautiful and that was about a hundred

and eight dollars a night which is an

incredible steal and i highly recommend

it if you want a taste of the nicer

things along the nile river and on top

of that you have food and the food costs

we're about from three dollars to eight

dollars a meal

very inexpensive especially when you're

going out with locals they'll set you up

with the right prices in the right

places if you go with the right people

and on top of that

true egyptian friends as you've seen

from a couple of these episodes they

won't let you pay at all true egyptian

hospitality which a lot of youtubers

don't get a chance to see and a lot of

people traveling there don't get a

chance to see a true egyptian friend

won't even let you touch the bill

okay

now in regards to tipping let me make

sure they're not coming in regards to

tipping

this is the most interesting aspect of

traveling in egypt number one you have

these small little tips that you give

off to people for helping you

in certain locations so if you go around

with 20 egyptian pounds

everybody

if you anybody's bothering you but

people want to help you out with stuff

just hand over 20 which is about a

dollar

a little dollar a little change

give them a few pounds so keep small

change on you give out a few pounds

people are helping you with parking

people helping in the pyramids

outside of food places so that's another

thing now you can easily say no to these

people but

we have found that it's just as easy to

give them a 5 a 10 or a 20 egyptian

pound if they help us with directions or

there's the parking guys these little

people that are just hustling to you

know make ends meet small amount of

money no problem we'll give it over but

you can always say no to that

tipping in general i give about 600

egyptian pounds per day for a full day

guide along the cruise and other places

that we've had and then i'll give about

100 to 200

egyptian pounds to drivers now that

varies a little bit i'll give a little

bit more if they're going to be on

camera a lot if i'm asking them a ton of

questions and i'm filming them for their

answers i will give them a little bit

more up to 800 egyptian pounds and this

is a pretty good price so that's about

what 32

to 40 us dollars so a nice nice tip and

you could do anything from you know 200

to 400 to 600 we tip a lot more because

the guys are on camera and we're asking

usually a lot more now there has been a

couple of times where we don't really

use the guide much at all in those

circumstances i'll go maybe two to four

hundred egyptian pounds so it really

depends on you how much work and effort

they put into it now definitely the most

expensive portion of our trips were one

the nile river cruise and to the trip to

siwa oasis then we did have a local

connection we did a rental car we also

gas for nine hours each way of driving

and then tour through the desert uh he

was with us all day but ended up

charging a little bit over 200 us

dollars which is a pretty high amount

again we are filming we set up the

dinner so

we were happy to pay a little bit more

um again there was a confusion with

price which i explained but

in general we were happy paying a little

bit more if we would have known up front

and also the same as i've talked about

with the hotel and siwa but still it was

about 300 us dollars for three people

for two nights so

really not bad

it's just

you want to know prices up front you

know that's the biggest thing and i'm

going to reiterate that in this video

understand prices on every single little

aspect of your trip before you do

anything overall

inexpensive all right let's change gears

for a second and talk about one of the

most asked questions and that is filming

and the police

now let's just call it what it is

egypt is notorious for being a very

difficult place to film so many

youtubers have had nightmares filming

here and they express their concern

all across the internet and i understand

it can be very disheartening

when you're trying to film and create

content and have all these obstacles

coming your way and

to be even more real based on all you

guys comments and the message you left

across instagram and youtube i know that

sunny from best damn food reviews show

was filming and uploading videos at

around the same time as i was and so i

did go back and watch his series and now

i don't know sunny

uh personally we're just friends of

friends

and

upon watching his videos

i want to speak on it because one we'll

just dive right into it one

it seems like sunny has a much bigger

production team than i do it is just

tyler and myself and we came with very

limited gear because of the knowledge

that we have received from other people

so we brought only two cameras his and

mine we brought two lenses for each

camera we did not bring tripods and we

definitely did not bring drones drones

are

a no-no so what i did was you do see

some drone footage in these episodes i

hired a local guy selim that you saw

from siwa and he helped us drone a ton

of different places and on top of that

one big thing we got rid of our

microphones which i have on right now

because i'm in a little incognito but no

microphones those are

the number one red flag for officials in

archaeological sites the pyramids and

the streets everywhere so as you can

tell from the footage if you're

listening closely there's a lot of

additional noise in these episodes let

me explain very quickly why so in 2011

there was a massive revolution in egypt

and

they're very concerned about terrorism

because of the problems that they've had

so between

political and social issues and fear of

terrorism they really are concerned

about what people film in the country

what they record and what they showcase

so that's why they're so

scared or or

on edge about filming in the country and

on top of that it goes with a lot of

um corruption and issues with police and

things like that that they don't want

you to see

the whole story so that's why a lot of

people have trouble filming here now

there was one instance which was a

little bit tricky we ran into a couple

of security guards while we were walking

around old town the day of street food

with bisu and kareem and the security

guards wanted to see the footage or the

photos on our cameras and bisou and

karim immediately walked up to him

started talking to him explaining that

we were american tourists just taking

photos and

a very interesting aspect that gave me a

little peek into the the egyptian

culture is that on all egyptian licenses

they have their career listed right on

there and visual by trade is an engineer

and that garnered a bit of respect and

it had more credibility so these

security guards immediately backed down

let us through and said you guys have a

good day i just had to make sure i had

my microphone away and we are good to go

again that's just a big shout out to the

people we are with and

says a lot about the

class systems and structures we got a

little peek into that based on this

scenario and

i mean unfortunately it's like this a

lot of places it's who you know it's

it's who you're with and i've heard from

some other egyptian friends that don't

have this same type of credentials and

they get harassed they they get in

trouble and it makes it very difficult

for them to go out and film or take

photographs and the same thing with

you know any different youtubers that

have tried this as well without the

right credits without the right

credentials

and getting some trouble i know he had a

very tough time with his production

person that he brought in his fixer his

local fixer and that sucks because when

you don't have a good local connection

and we've we've seen that before then

everything goes wrong

and truthfully what made this experience

so amazing for us is that we had the

best local connections now i will say we

do film a little bit different we run

and gun we just travel around and try to

experience the place and film it as we

go

and i know some creators will do the

reverse they will go to a place to film

and set up scenes and things like that

so i think that helps us a lot sometimes

we just captured stuff with iphones and

sometimes it was with the camera

sometimes we just did whatever we could

to get the footage but truthfully we

were trying to be in the moment as well

as much as possible and so i think that

helps and honestly we got stopped by

police twice on our entire trip

once was in the cairo train station

and he just wanted to help me

find the right train and he also said

i'll help you put your luggage away and

he didn't ask for money he didn't ask

for anything he was just very excited to

talk to us and that was

very reassuring and the second time is

at the checkpoints on the way to siwa

and you saw what happened from that and

truthfully the airport is another big

place that youtubers or or filmers have

trouble and to be honest i didn't even

open my bag through this second security

checkpoint outside of customs

because some guy in plainclothes just

said he saw my american passport and he

just said oh come over here come over

here just go right through here and they

were checking somebody else so maybe we

both got lucky take this for what it is

the american passport

went a long way to

the police and the officials were very

supportive they were very excited

we said we were american and and

they

they were very accommodating to us

because of that and that isn't always

the case everywhere sometimes it's

exactly the opposite but in egypt in my

experience that was the case and lastly

this doesn't have to do with sunny

because i i think he really was trying

to go and film and have a great

experience and it was unfortunate

but to some other youtubers and content

creators you gotta remember fear

drama

chaos

this gets views i mean

this is what the news does on a daily

basis

you have to remember that when you're

watching these videos

yes there is corruption yes there's

problems yes there's scammers but it's

also

gorgeous and so historical and the food

is amazing and the people are amazing

and

you have to go see it for yourself

and i recommend going with local person

a local connection and you know keeping

your head on a swivel but

this is the this is our goal our goal is

to to get views our goal is to get you

to watch and be excited about it and our

goal is this

this and a thumbnail oh my god

oh no it happened to me watch out for

this guy oh my god

that's our goal

youtube's the news man

it works on the same formula and just

like that i made it back to my house

here in san diego

and i'm gonna finish this video with a

rapid fire round of questions that you

guys asked me on instagram and also on

the youtube community tab so let's dive

right into it first where to find a

reputable guide so i use two different

companies among tours am u n tours at

the pyramids and you can contact them

directly through their website and

second i used i egypt from the aswan to

luxor cruise and send them a dm via

instagram and tell them i sent you and

they'll set you up with pricing and

itinerary and all the information that

you need and if either of these

companies don't hold up their end of the

bargain please let me know and i'll make

sure to keep them in check because i

want you guys to have an awesome trip

number two visa requirements and covid

testing what's the deal with that you

guys asked first visa requirements get a

visa directly at the airport in cairo

when you arrive it's 25 u.s dollars

there are a bunch of sites that say you

can do it online beforehand

don't mess with it make sure you bring

cash with you u.s dollars you have to

pay in cash 25 and it's super easy

directly before you get into baggage

claim made it to cairo that was a very

quick entrance we got off the plane you

paid 25 in cash to get a visa then take

the visa and the customs customs puts

the stamp that you're given into your

passport and you go right through a

couple of people asking you for a ride

but really not much

not just waiting on bags and with covid

testing as of february and march of this

year you do not need a negative coven

test to enter egypt

but you do have to show proof of

vaccination with a qr code from your

vaccination and leaving egypt going back

into the u.s and canada we did both

tyler and i both needed a proof of covid

negative tests and for that we simply

just asked at our hotel in cairo before

we left and they have someone on call

they brought in we paid 800 egyptian

pounds

the morning of our flight to get

negative coveted tests and everything

worked out really well so i i suggest

that next what do you do about a cell

phone so in order to get an uber from

the airport you're going to need cell

phone reception now a lot of people have

international plans these days but if

you don't that's okay because there's a

bunch of different cell phone carriers

directly in the airport after you get

out of baggage claim and they have great

deals on plans i think tyler got his for

like 15 us dollars for something like 50

gigs more than we needed and i ended up

getting a sim card later on but with

about the same price it was like 10 15

us dollars for

20 to 30 gigs which was more than enough

for the few weeks that we were there so

you're gonna need a local cell phone sim

card and any iphone now you can just

if you don't know you know that right

you can just take your sim out and put a

local one in i assume you guys know that

did i really like the food in egypt that

much and let me tell you

i loved it honestly i loved it all the

street food we had from the desserts to

the shawarmas and everything in between

it was delicious my favorite of all was

actually the first two nights in egypt

at el prince and the hawaushi spot in

the second night with the boys

the kebda and the hawaushi those are my

two favorite and i love the fact that

everything is served with pickled

veggies and tahini and also whiskey of

course how's it taste

you understand why it's cold

and in regards to food poisoning or if i

had any problems i can honestly say that

i didn't have one issue the entire time

i do bring imodium tablets with me just

in case but i'm happy to report that

everything was uh regular on the trip

in regards to language it does help a

ton to pick up a little bit of arabic

before you go

very basic words like shokran habibi

actually habibi for everything if you

have any trouble say habibi habibi

habibi

also

which just means no and another word to

learn is halas so you could say

which means no enough whenever you're

dealing with people trying to sell you

stuff tell me about weather i'd say come

in the winter we went in february and

march and it was amazing december

through april is what i would recommend

it's much cooler and just be aware of

when ramadan is because prices will go

up and everything is a little bit off

but i definitely want to go back during

ramadan next time and see the full

experience next what would you have done

differently

and if you had to do everything over

again what would you what would you

change anything

i'd fire my tour guide and uh did it

myself

i still would have done c walk because

that was an adventure but really just

more places and i'll talk about that in

a second

the other thing is i wish i had more

time around aswan and had a real

experience at the nubian village that

was

very on the surface but it would have

been cool to meet an actual nubian and

learn more in depth about their culture

and also i wish i would have spent a

night at abu senbel at one of the guest

house around there to get to the temple

super late at night or really early in

the morning and that would have been

just beautiful to have the whole place

peaceful to ourselves before all the

crowds get there because it's a

beautiful beautiful temple but there's a

ton of people there what were your

expectations versus the reality so i was

expecting to be on edge the whole time i

was expecting not to feel safe

i was expecting more latin america where

you have to be aware of your

surroundings the motorcycles roll up and

you should be very very cautious and

late at night all these things as far as

safety goes we truly did feel

very safe all the time and i was

expecting to feel uncomfortable in a lot

of situations because there was just

guys coming up to us all the time asking

us questions and some pretty shady

looking characters at times but versus

let's say certain areas in argentina

colombia brazil where i've been and

lived

i felt comfortable you know guys would

walk up and you you got to give that you

know that long-term traveler mentality

you're a little paranoid at first and

what does this guy want and

it was always fun and if anything was

just trying to sell you something or

trying to direct you somewhere and just

like nah i'm good man and there was no

problems ever and the last and final

question i feel that's fitting to cover

here is

what's next would you ever return to

egypt and my answer is without a doubt

absolutely so i want to hit alexandria i

want to hit sharmal sheikh i want to hit

dahab i want to hit the north coast in

the summertime there are so many more

places that we didn't hit

in egypt that i really want to

experience even in cairo

we went to new cairo a couple of days

but didn't really film there and you saw

a lot of old cairo a lot of the old

dishes the street food the culture

because that's what we were really

interested in but there's a whole modern

side to egypt that i didn't really

showcase in this series that i would

love to go back and film the plans are

already in motion so be sure to stay

tuned for that and with that being said

that's a wrap on the egypt series i hope

you guys enjoyed it we're actually

planning a trip to croatia at the moment

so stay tuned for that a few videos from

back here in california around my home

but honestly thank you guys so much for

tuning in to the egypt series i hope

this video was helpful if you guys did

like it as always please give it a

thumbs up subscribe if you haven't

already hit that notifications bell

leave a comment any other questions you

have about egypt i will be happy to

answer them in the comments and anybody

else that has good information make sure

to tune in as well so i appreciate it

thank you guys so much and as always

travel deeper

habibi