| Duration |
4 Days / 3 Nights |
|---|---|
| Tour Location |
Aswan / Kom Ombo / Edfu / Luxor |
| Tour Type |
Daily Tour |
| Pickup |
Aswan Airport or Your Hotel |
This 4 day Nile cruise from Aswan covers the full Upper Egypt temple circuit in three nights aboard a 5-star motor cruiser departing directly from Aswan, with no transit days to Cairo, and arriving in Luxor on day four. The departure point is Aswan itself, which means every hour of the itinerary is spent on the river or at the temples it was designed around. It's the same route covered across Tripidays' Luxor and Aswan Nile cruise, worth a look if you want to see how this specific departure stacks up against similar ones.
Day 1 begins at the Aswan High Dam, the Unfinished Obelisk, and Philae Temple before boarding in Aswan that afternoon. Day 2 takes the cruise north through Kom Ombo Temple and Edfu Temple. Day 3 arrives in Luxor for the West Bank Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut Temple, and Colossi of Memnon. Day 4 closes the circuit on the East Bank at Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple before a transfer to Luxor airport or hotel.
Only on this route
Your Tripidays guide meets you at Aswan airport or your hotel and takes you directly to Aswan’s most important monuments before you board your 5-star Nile cruise. After lunch on board, the cruise sails north to Kom Ombo for an evening visit before continuing along the Nile.
You'll stand on a structure that redirected the entire Nile 3.6 kilometres wide, built between 1960 and 1970 to end the flood cycles that had governed Egyptian agriculture for millennia. Your guide will point out the reservoir on one side and the transformed floodplain on the other, which makes the scale of the decision legible in a way the numbers alone don't.
Still lying in the granite quarry where it cracked before completion, this is the largest obelisk ancient Egypt ever attempted — at 42 metres, it would have outweighed all others by over a third. You'll walk its full length and see the chisel marks still visible in the stone, the only surviving record of how these monuments were actually made.
Our guide takes you to Philae by boat. The temple sits on its own island, relocated stone by stone in the 1970s when the High Dam's rising waters threatened to submerge it permanently. Dedicated to the goddess Isis, the complex is one of the last ancient Egyptian temples to have remained in active religious use into the 6th century AD.
After embarkation, your cruise begins sailing north through Upper Egypt toward Kom Ombo.
Approaching by river, you'll see one of Egypt’s most distinctive temples rising above the Nile bank. Kom Ombo is uniquely dedicated to two gods—Sobek the crocodile god and Haroeris the falcon god—with twin sanctuaries mirrored throughout the structure.
The cruise continues sailing overnight toward Edfu.
Lunch and Dinner
The cruise arrives in Edfu during the morning before continuing its journey north toward Luxor. The cruise arrives in Luxor later in the day and overnights there.
Stand before one of the best-preserved temples in Egypt, dominated by a gateway that rises 36 metres above the courtyard. Dedicated to Horus, the temple preserves detailed reliefs that recount the legendary battle between Horus and Seth, still remarkably clear after more than two thousand years.
Return to the cruise and enjoy a relaxing afternoon sailing through the Nile Valley as the vessel continues toward Luxor.
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner
After breakfast, the day focuses on Luxor’s East Bank, the religious centre of ancient Thebes and home to some of the most important temple complexes ever built in Egypt.
Built primarily by Amenhotep III and later extended by Ramesses II, Luxor Temple sits at the centre of the modern city — the town grew up around it, over it, and in some cases through it. You'll enter past the obelisk of Ramesses II, one of a pair (the other has stood in the Place de la Concorde in Paris since 1833), and walk through sanctuary rooms where the stone floors are still worn smooth from centuries of use.
You'll enter through an avenue of sphinx statues and arrive at the Hypostyle Hall — 134 columns, the tallest reaching 21 metres, arranged so tightly that the space between them narrows to the width of two people walking side by side. Karnak was built, expanded, and added to by successive pharaohs over 2,000 years; your guide will trace the layers of construction visible in the different stone colours and column styles, which makes the political history of ancient Egypt readable in a single building.
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner
After breakfast and disembarkation, your guide accompanies you to Luxor’s West Bank and returns to Aswan.
You'll descend into tombs cut 30 to 100 metres into the limestone cliffs, the burial chambers of 64 pharaohs, including Ramesses II, Tutankhamun, and Seti I. The painted ceilings and corridor walls show the complete Amduat, the ancient Egyptian guide to navigating the underworld, and the colours, protected from light for three millennia, remain some of the most vivid in any surviving ancient monument.
Next, visit the impressive Hatshepsut Temple, built for Egypt’s most influential female pharaoh. Carved into the cliffs of Deir el-Bahari, the temple’s terraces and reliefs reflect architectural brilliance and political power rarely matched in ancient history.
Two seated figures of Amenhotep III, each 18 metres high and weighing over 700 tonnes, standing in an open field with no enclosing structure. What you're looking at is the entrance forecourt of what was once the largest mortuary temple in Thebes.
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner
* You can let us know if you'd like to customize your tour itinerary to meet your needs. We value your input and aim to accommodate your requirements.
The package includes 3 nights full-board on a 5-star Nile cruiser, a private Egyptologist guide, all transfers by private vehicle, and entrance fees to all ten sites across Aswan and Luxor. International flights, visa, insurance, and tips are not included.
This cruise departs directly from Aswan, meaning no day is absorbed by a flight from Cairo — every night of the itinerary is spent on the river, and every temple in the Upper Egypt circuit is reached on schedule. For travellers choosing between departure points, prefer to start your cruise from Cairo instead.
Aswan is the southernmost point of the classic Upper Egypt temple circuit — departing here means the cruise travels the full route north, stopping at Kom Ombo and Edfu in sequence before reaching Luxor, rather than splitting the journey across two directions. If you're considering a different style of vessel for the same Aswan departure, experience a boutique Dahabiya sailboat from Aswan.
The cruise sails approximately 200 kilometres north across three nights — overnighting in Aswan on Day 1, near Edfu on Day 2, and docked at Luxor from Day 3. The sailing itself covers the stretch of the Nile that connects Egypt's densest concentration of surviving ancient temples.
No, this tour begins directly in Aswan, so no domestic flight is required or included. If you need to travel from Cairo to join the cruise, a separate Cairo–Aswan flight can be arranged; alternatively, the 4 Day Nile Cruise from Cairo includes the domestic flight within the package price.
4 Days / 3 Nights
Aswan Airport or Your Hotel
Aswan / Kom Ombo / Gebel el Silsila / Edfu / Esna / Luxor
4 Days / 3 Nights
Abu Simbel Airport or Your Hotel
Abu Simbel / Amada / Wadi El Seboua / Kalabsha / Aswan
3 Days / 2 Nights
Cairo Airport or Your Hotel
Cairo / Giza
5 Days / 4 Nights
Luxor Airport or Your Hotel
Luxor / Edfu / Kom Ombo / Aswan / Abu Simbel
All things you should know before visiting Egypt & Beyond
Tripidays Egypt Tours has been offering an exceptional range of Egypt tours, vacation packages, Nile cruises, day trips, and shore excursions tailored to meet the diverse interests of travelers worldwide for over 45 years.
