When to go matters more than almost anything else.
The same Luxor temple is a different experience in February than in August. The same Cairo museum is a different museum on Eid than on a normal Tuesday. The same Nile cruise is a different cruise in the November high season than in the May shoulder. This is our month-by-month read on the country — temperatures, crowds, prices, closures, school-holiday traffic, the cruise season and the Saharan dust-storm window — drawn from a year of our own visits. Open to read, re-checked twice a year.
The short version: October–November and March–April are the sweet spots — temples tolerable, museums not empty but not overrun, the cruise season running, prices not yet peaked. December–January is high season: pleasant weather, full hotels, double the cruise rate. June–September is genuinely hot south of Cairo and best avoided without a reason. May and October are the shoulder months — a little hotter than the sweet spots but the cheapest weeks of the visitor year.
- JanuaryCairo 8–19 °C, Luxor 6–22 °C. Cool and pleasant for sites. High season — hotels full at New Year, cruise rates peak. Coptic Christmas (7 Jan) is a holiday; some museums close.
- FebruaryCairo 9–20 °C, Luxor 7–24 °C. The best month for Luxor temple-walking — cool mornings, no dust. The Abu Simbel equinox (22 Feb) sells out three months ahead.
- MarchCairo 11–24 °C, Luxor 11–28 °C. The sweet spot begins. Shoulder weather, fewer crowds, prices dropping. Watch for two or three khamsin (dusty) days.
- AprilCairo 13–28 °C, Luxor 16–34 °C. Still good if you start early. Confirm the year's Ramadan dates before planning. The Eid al-Fitr week brings closures and full domestic flights.
- MayCairo 17–32 °C, Luxor 22–40 °C. Shoulder month — low prices, low crowds. Luxor open-air sites get uncomfortable after 11:00; visit Karnak before 09:00. Cruises at half capacity.
- JuneCairo 21–35 °C, Luxor 26–42 °C. Hot. Avoid open-air sites 10:00–16:00. Cairo museums pleasant inside. Red Sea diving at its warmest.
- JulyCairo 22–36 °C, Luxor 27–43 °C. Genuinely hot. Egyptian school holidays — domestic family travel peaks, Alexandria fills up. Cruise season largely off.
- AugustCairo 22–36 °C, Luxor 26–42 °C. The hottest month in the south. Dust storms most common. Some small museums shorten hours. Avoid the south unless you can do open-air sites at dawn only.
- SeptemberCairo 21–34 °C, Luxor 23–41 °C. Heat starts to drop; temples tolerable in the late afternoon. Schools restart, domestic travel quiets, the cruise season restarts mid-month.
- OctoberCairo 18–30 °C, Luxor 18–35 °C. The sweet spot resumes. Comfortable temples, pleasant museums. The Abu Simbel equinox (22 Oct) sells out three months ahead. Hotel prices climb mid-month.
- NovemberCairo 14–25 °C, Luxor 13–30 °C. The best month overall, in our view — reliable weather, present but not overwhelming crowds, the cruise season at full capacity, the high-season crunch not yet arrived. Book three months ahead.
- DecemberCairo 11–22 °C, Luxor 9–25 °C. High season begins. Pleasant, sometimes brisk Cairo mornings. Cruise rates climb fast and peak between Christmas and New Year.
The Egyptian calendar that affects your visit
The Egyptian calendar matters more than the Western one for museum hours, transport and atmosphere. The dates below shift each Western year by about 11 days where they are lunar; these are the 2026 dates.
| Date / window | Event | Effect on a visit |
|---|---|---|
| 7 January | Coptic Christmas | Coptic Cairo busy, some museum closures, devotional atmosphere |
| 22 February | Abu Simbel solar alignment | Temple sells out months ahead, photography rules tighter |
| Late Feb–mid Mar 2026 | Ramadan | Daytime restaurants close, evenings vibrant, afternoons slower |
| Mid-March 2026 | Eid al-Fitr (3 days) | Museum closures, full domestic flights, family travel |
| 25 April | Sinai Liberation Day | Sinai resort prices peak; Cairo museums normal |
| End May 2026 | Eid al-Adha (3–4 days) | Major closures, full flights, expensive hotels |
| 23 July | Revolution Day | Some closures |
| 6 October | Armed Forces Day | National holiday, some museum closures |
| 22 October | Abu Simbel solar alignment | Second equinox sell-out of the year |
| December (variable) | Western Christmas / New Year | Sites at peak crowding, cruise rates at peak |
Two practical notes. Ramadan shifts about 11 days earlier each year, so build the dates into your planning. And the two Eids are the biggest domestic-travel weeks of the year — flights and intercity trains can sell out a week ahead. If you land during an Eid, the sites are mostly open and quieter than usual, but the transport is the bottleneck.
How prices and crowds move
The shape of an Egyptian season is reliable enough to plan around. Hotel rates roughly double between November and February versus May–September; cruise rates can triple; domestic flights move 20–40% but depend more on the booking window than the month. Site ticket prices are fixed and do not move with the season.
- Cheapest months: May, June, September — hotels at 50–60% of high-season rates, cruises at 40%.
- Most expensive: Christmas-to-New-Year, Coptic Christmas week, the two Eid weeks, the Abu Simbel equinox days.
- Best value: mid-October before the peak, mid-March after the school rush, early November before Christmas pricing.
- When to book: three to four months ahead for October–February, six to eight weeks for the shoulder, two to three weeks for the off-season.
Worst and best times at the big sites
Crowding concentrates in the first two hours of the morning and at weekends. The simplest rule is to invert the tour-bus schedule: buses arrive 09:00–11:00 and again 14:00–16:00, so being on site at 06:30 or 17:00 gives you the place without them.
| Site | Worst time | Best time |
|---|---|---|
| Giza pyramids | 10:00–12:00 daily Nov–Feb | 06:30–08:30 or 16:00–17:30 |
| Egyptian Museum Tahrir | 10:00–12:00 weekends | 09:00 opening, weekday |
| Grand Egyptian Museum | 11:00–14:00 weekends | 08:30 opening, any day |
| Karnak | 09:00–11:00 daily Nov–Mar | 06:45–08:30 |
| Valley of the Kings | 09:30–11:30 daily Nov–Mar | 06:00–08:00 |
| Abu Simbel | 07:30–10:00 during convoy arrival | 11:00–14:00 (hot but quiet) |
| Khan el-Khalili | 20:00–22:00 weekends | 17:00–19:00 weekdays |
The open-air guides in open-air guides carry a best-window line for each site, and the trip builders are timed around this principle. Use this page to pick the right weeks before you start booking anything.
Common questions about timing
Is Ramadan a bad time to visit?
Not bad — different. Sites are open as normal. Daytime restaurants close in non-tourist neighbourhoods but most tourist-zone ones stay open. The evenings, especially the iftar hour, are vibrant. The country slows in the afternoon — that is the real difference. The harder window is Eid al-Fitr at the end, with closures and full trains.
When is the dust-storm season?
The khamsin runs roughly March to May, concentrated in late March and April. A bad khamsin day drops Cairo visibility to a couple of hundred metres. Two or three bad days a spring is typical, and the forecast is reliable a day ahead — if one is coming, swap an open-air day for a museum day.
How hot is too hot for the south?
We use 40 °C as the line. Below it the open-air sites are doable before 11:00 with shade and water; above it they are not. Luxor and Aswan are above 40 most of June, July and August. If you must go then, plan dawn-only site visits and afternoon hotel rest.
Does the Nile cruise run all year?
Yes, at very different intensities. November–February is full season; March–May and October run at 60–80%; June–September drops to 30–40% with some boats dry-docked. The water level is constant, so the cruise itself is the same — only the on-board energy changes.
What is Christmas like at the pyramids?
A normal tourist day — the pyramids, the GEM and the Egyptian Museum are all open. Hotels run Christmas dinners at chain rates. New Year's Eve is busier, with paid gala dinners booked months ahead.
Pair this page with arrival basics for the practical essentials that do not change with the season, the trip builders for routes timed around these realities, and open-air guides for the per-site best windows.
Re-checked every March and September.
The weather table and the calendar shift each year, so this page gets two full re-checks annually. Want a short seasonal heads-up before the dust and the peak heat? The free monthly note covers it.
Ask for the update note