Egypt has a crowd problem in a narrow band: certain sites, certain hours, certain months. Outside that band the country is remarkably quiet, and most of the difference is under your control.

Three levers work: when you go, which site you choose, and which month you come.

Lever one: the hour

Coach groups reach the major sites between about nine and eleven in the morning. Cruise passengers arrive on the boats' schedule, which clusters at the same time in Aswan and around dusk at Kom Ombo.

Being at the gate when it opens is the single highest-value decision in Egyptian travel. It gets you the Valley of the Kings before it heats up and before the queues form at the tomb doors, and it gets you Karnak's Hypostyle Hall in raking light with almost nobody in it.

Late afternoon is the underrated alternative. Most groups are back at their hotels by four, and sites that were solid at ten are near-empty at five.

Lever two: substitution

This is the one people never think of, and it works better than the others.

Instead of only the Giza pyramids, add Dahshur, which has the Bent and Red pyramids and a fraction of the visitors. Instead of Karnak twice, go to Medinet Habu, which keeps more original paint than any large temple in Egypt and is routinely empty.

Instead of the crowded Luxor west-bank circuit, take Deir el-Medina and the Valley of the Queens. Instead of only Khan el-Khalili, walk Ibn Tulun and the Sayyida Zeinab district, which has the best building in Cairo and hardly anyone in it.

And for anyone with an extra day: Abydos, Beni Hasan and Tell el-Amarna are world-class sites that see almost no visitors at all.

Lever three: the month

High season is roughly October to April, and Christmas and New Year are the peak of the peak. If you can move your dates by two weeks either side of those, you avoid a lot.

May and September are the shoulder months worth knowing about: hot but not yet brutal, and noticeably quieter than the winter.

Summer empties everything, at the price described in the summer guide. It is a real trade and for photographers it is often the right one.

When to visit Egypt sets the months out in full.

Site-specific timing

  • Giza plateau — at opening, or the last two hours. Midday is the worst of both crowds and heat.
  • Grand Egyptian Museum — at opening; the Tutankhamun galleries fill first.
  • Luxor Temple — after dark, which is both quieter and better.
  • Philae — first boat of the day or last; mid-morning brings every cruise in Aswan at once.
  • Abu Simbel — the convoys arrive together, so either be ahead of them or stay overnight in Abu Simbel and see it in the late afternoon.

One thing that does not work

Trying to outpace a coach group inside a site. If you arrive at the same time, you will be in front of them or behind them for the whole visit, and being in front means rushing.

Let them pass. Sit down, look at something small, and go back to the main hall in twenty minutes. Groups move on a schedule and they do not linger.