Guided tours of Egypt have already taken a bit of a bashing from me on the Egypt Tours page, so I will try and refrain from repeating myself.

"Why take a guided tour of Egypt? I can do it all myself can't I?"

I hear this question a lot, the answer is simple, yes you can do a tour of Egypt on your own, no problem. Egypt is a very safe place, you can move around the country easily and the chances of being mugged or robbed are around 1000% less than in the capital of your home country. 27 teenagers where stabbed to death in 2008 in London, yet people are worried about walking around Cairo where no foreigners ( or random local for that matter) has been stabbed, ever, as far as I know. yes there is the remote threat of terrorism, like there has been in London for the last 30 years.

You can do it. But there is a down side. You need to do your home work, you need to know where your going, when the bus leaves and you need to be able to speak a small amount of arabic to communicate. If you don't, you will still be fine, but you will be ripe for the types I have talked about on the Egypt Tour page.

If you speak 0 arabic, have no idea where you are going or how much the taxi should cost, you will be spotted by the opportunist quickly and you will get, not hassled, that I think is too strong a word, you will get repeatedly asked if you need any help and you will not get a straight answer, you will always get the " without me, you will have a big problem" answer. The opportunist, you new best friend will want to follow you to the end of the earth, he will take you to the Egyptian Pyramids, Islamic Cairo, no problem, even when he has no idea were they are and how to get there.

Part of Egyptian culture is to help strangers, to be willing and to be open and curious It is a very nice part of Egyptian culture, it is also a major problem when you are trying to get directions. I have been sent around a building, right the way round till I got back to the front door with 100% correct directions for where the Egyptian Museum is. The people on the street, didn't know, but to not look like they did not want to help, to be respectful to the foreigner, they said, as they always do, " just around the corner" If you have traveled in Egypt on your own you will know this one well.