100% Desert & Dunes The City and Sand Tour The Western Desert and Siwa Safari Living with the locals Gif Keber - Expedition

All costs for the Siwa Villa, additional hotels or villas, three meals a day, alcohol, antiquity entrance fees, jeeps, people carriers, micro buses, donkeys, horses, tipping etc. is all included. Apart from your visas when entering Egypt, the Mummy Room in the Egyptian museum and any bar bills you manage to tot up around the country, you do not have to pay or worry about anything else for your entire stay. I meet you at the airport and make sure everything goes as planned until you catch your flight back home.

I am currently producing the itinerary for our 'Sand boarding and Snorkel Safari' that covers Siwa, Cairo and Dahab and will be posted here when ready.

One of the reasons why people come to Siwa, the Great Sand Sea, commonly known as the Sahara Desert.

If you are interested in any of the holidays below, please contact us mentioning the name of the tour, dates that are good for you and we will get back to you.

What is it like to go on a Somewhere Different tour?

100% Desert & Dunes £395pp for 10 days (additional days in Siwa £50)

Siwa

Direct connection from Alexandria airport to Siwa in 'Limousine' air-conditioned people carrier. Fly on Friday, wake up in Siwa on Saturday. Spend the whole week exploring the desert, tombs, dunes, petrified forests and unique Bedouin and Berber cultures in Siwa. Have dinner in local’s homes and sleep out under the stars deep in the Great Sand Sea after sand boarding down some very, very big sand dunes. Direct connection back to airport via the Commonwealth War Graves at El Alamain staying at the Hilton Resort nearby before catching your flight home in the morning. To see the full itinerary click on the link below.

'100% Desert & Dunes' Itinerary - Costs

The City and Sand tour £495 pp for 10 days (additional days in Siwa £50)

Alexandria – Siwa – Alexandria

Balcony room overlooking the Mediterranean and the castle built on the remains of the Alexandra lighthouse, one of the original Seven Wonders of the World. A full tour of Alexandria and then off to Siwa via the Commonwealth War Graves at El Alamain to explore the desert, dunes and Berber culture. Five days swimming in the hot springs and sand boarding in the desert in Siwa then returning to the Hilton Resort on the Mediterranean in Alexandra before flying home the next day.To see the full itinerary click on the link below.

'City and Sand Tour' Itinerary - Costs

The Western Desert & Siwa Safari £695 pp for 10 days (additional days in Siwa £50)

Cairo – Siwa – Western Desert – Cairo

Arrive at the stables before dawn for tea and biscuits, saddle up and ride out into the desert to explore the Pyramids all on our own. Boldly go where no tourists go in old Cairo before traveling via the Commonwealth War Graves at El Alamain to Siwa where you will enjoy the Berber way of life and sleep out in the Great Sand Sea. The trip through the Western Desert takes us through 420kms of open desert and remote oasis last inhabited in Roman times. Explore the mummy room and underground tombs in Bahariya before heading back to Cairo. To see the full itinerary click on the link below.

'Western Desert & Siwa Safari' Itinerary - Costs

Living with the Locals £1200 pp for 20 days (additional days in Siwa £50)

Cairo – Siwa – Western Desert –Luxor – Aswan – Cairo

On this trip we stay in houses… not hotels. Our neighbours are locals and their way of life has not changed for hundreds of years. Experience the simple life whilst questioning your own and enjoy being truly Somewhere Different whilst taking in the sites. Most of the accommodation is of a high standard and enables us to enjoy good showers and creature comforts before going native a few days at a time. The tour is similer to the Western Desert and Siwa Safari tours (above) until we carry on through the White Desert and travel through the oasis to Luxor, staying in a house on the Nile before heading down to Aswan where we stay in a house on Elephanteen island before sailing off on a felucca for a night before heading back to Cairo on the overnight sleeper for more mummies and bartering! To see the full itinerary click on the link below.

'Living with the Locals' Itinerary - Costs

Gif Keber Exhibition £1700 pp for 20 days (additional days in Siwa £50)

Cairo – Siwa – Western Desert – Gilf Keber – Siwa – Cairo

This tour is in it's exploratory stage. We are planning to do our first trip to the Gilf in the winter of 2007/08, lead by our resident deep-desert driver who has been to the Gilf over 15 times as he is regualry hired by other tour companies to lead trips there. This is the first time we will be going as Somewhere Different and so price reductions are avialable.

You’ve always talked about ‘going on a real exhibition one day’ and…well, now you can. We live in Siwa and know the best jeep drivers who lead the exhibitions to the Gif for the major tour companies. We know who’s done the trip several times and who we are comfortable putting our lives in their hands, literally – something we don’t take lightly. If you want to see the Pyramids and experience some home-comforts in Siwa before taking off to see some of the amazing landscapes and cave paintings several hundred kilometers from the nearest piece of tarmac… then this is the trip for you.

'Gif keber Exbidition' Itinerary – Costs

What is a Somewhere Different All inclusive Holiday like?

A Somewhere Different 'All inclusive holiday to Egypt' is about going where no tour group goes...meeting and sleeping next door to real locals in the desert and hanging out with them at the same time as being able to relax and have a perfectly made G&T before dinner. I'm no Indiana Jones but I do live in Siwa and friends of mine from the Berber and Bedouin tribes here have shown me places and a way of life that are very different from the 'must see' attractions on most people's itineraries. I have found guests who have come and stayed with us here in Siwa have enjoyed experiencing the Siwan culture and hospitality as much as, if not more than, the places we have shown them, literality off the beaten track. Our style is different and...well, people seem to like it.

Hanging out with the locals in the back-streets of Cairo

Guests who have come to visit us in Siwa Oasis have also wanted to see other parts of Egypt in the same way that they have experienced the desert way of life. You can breeze in and do the Pyramids in an hour, but I know I will hear the words "That was not how I imagined them...I expected them to be out in the desert somewhere and not next to all this" as you drink your coke in the Pizza Hut. I hear it time and time again, but, if we get up mega early, set off across town to Tarek's stables, where he makes us some tea and shows us around his stables before setting out across the desert on some good Arab horses, we start in the dark to seek out the only remaining Seventh Wonder of the World ... after half an hour of searching you will ride over the brow of a hill and a HUGE very triangular silhouette will rise out of nowhere, it can can only be one thing ... it will take your breath away!

There are ways, and there are ways, of having an adventure holiday in Egypt;)

Over the last year I have travelled with several groups around the Western Desert, Luxor, Aswan, the Pyramids and the twisting little alleyways of Islamic Cairo. We have explored many people's homes and ... several bars dotted around the country. It has been fun and a real adventure. I know my way around and, due to often travelling with my children who are rapidly learning the language, we have been welcomed into the towns we visit and the houses and communities we stay in.

We realise there are people like you who want to come and experience Egypt and the desert in a way that does not treat you like sheep and takes you right into local people's lives and the major sites in a way that is personal, hassle free and with lots of 'wow' factor. You want to do it all, but you do not have the time or the energy to sort it all out, and you can afford to, basically, let us organise it all for you.

So, if you would like, we can pick you up from the airport and take care of you for your entire stay in Egypt, taking you where you want to go and when and in a way that suits you.

I have put together five very different all inclusive holidays to Egypt that include all your meals and alcohol, except for bar bills in Cairo and wherever else we sniff out any drinking holes before we get to Siwa Oasis to explore the desert. As we are a small family business we can tailor your trip in any way you like and we really enjoy doing it as we don't do these trips every day.

View from the top of the Shali, a five minute walk from the Siwa Villa where you will be staying in Siwa.