Every backpacker route in Egypt eventually resolves into the same beautiful line: down the Nile, temple by temple, ideally with two nights asleep on the deck of a felucca. Here's how we did it in ten days for around $500 excluding flights.
Cairo: three days minimum
Base yourself downtown near Tahrir — hostels with pharaonic murals and sagging balconies run $8–15 a night. The Giza pyramids are a 40-minute Uber away ($4–5); go at 8am opening, walk the full circuit out to the panoramic viewpoint, and skip the camel unless you've agreed a price twice. Entry is about EGP 700 (roughly $14). Give the Grand Egyptian Museum most of a day — Tutankhamun's collection finally displayed properly is genuinely overwhelming — then spend an evening getting lost in Khan el-Khalili with a mango juice in hand. Cairo's noise is total; by day three you stop hearing the horns and start hearing the city.
The sleeper south
The Watania sleeper train leaves Giza around 8pm and arrives in Aswan mid-morning: about $80 in a two-berth cabin with a surprisingly decent dinner and breakfast tray. Cheaper option: the ordinary seated day trains, around $10 in first class, which foreigners can now book on the ENR app. We took the sleeper south and seats north, which is the right way around — you want to wake up in Nubia.
Aswan and Abu Simbel
Aswan is the exhale after Cairo. Stay on Elephantine Island in a Nubian guesthouse ($15–25 with breakfast on a roof looking at the river), take the public ferry (EGP 5) instead of hassling with motorboat touts, and give Philae temple a half day. The Abu Simbel run leaves at 4am — shared minibus tours cost $20–30 plus entry — and yes, the 3.5-hour desert drive each way is worth it. Ramses II built the whole mountain façade to intimidate Nubia, and 3,200 years later it still works.
Two nights on a felucca
This is the heart of the trip. Feluccas sail north with the current from Aswan, and captains gather near the corniche; agree everything clearly — route, food, water, how many passengers — and expect to pay $35–50 per person for two nights, meals included, ending near Kom Ombo or Edfu with onward minibus transfer. There is no engine, no toilet (the boat pulls over), no schedule. You read, you swim, you drink hibiscus tea, and at night the captain folds the sail down as a windbreak and you sleep on deck under more stars than seem structurally possible. It is the best $40 in Egypt.
Edfu and on to Luxor
The transfer north stops at Kom Ombo's double temple to Sobek — check the mummified crocodiles — and then Edfu, the most complete temple in Egypt, its sanctuary still black with ancient lamp soot. From Edfu it's about two hours by minibus or train to Luxor.
Luxor: pace yourself
Luxor has more heavyweight sites than anywhere on earth, so split it: East Bank one day (Karnak early, Luxor Temple at sunset when the columns glow), West Bank the next. Rent bicycles ($3/day), take the local ferry across (EGP 5), and ride to the Valley of the Kings — the standard ticket covers three tombs (about $16); pay extra for Seti I only if you're a completist, but do pay for Nefertari's tomb in the Valley of the Queens if your budget allows one splurge. Sunrise hot-air balloons run $60–90 and are the cheapest ballooning on the planet.
When and how
October to April is the season; summer in Upper Egypt hits 45°C. Haggle warmly, tip small and often (carry EGP 10 notes), and buy a local SIM at the airport. Egypt asks a lot of energy and gives back more than almost anywhere.