Luxor is roughly 650 kilometres south of Cairo. There are three ways to cover that: an internal flight, the overnight sleeper train, or a day train.

Almost every package uses the flight. That is not laziness — it is arithmetic.

The flight

About an hour in the air, several departures a day, and the airport at each end is close to where you want to be. Door to door it costs you around half a day once you add check-in and transfers.

On a six-day or seven-day trip that half day is the difference between seeing both banks of Luxor and seeing one. There is no version of the arithmetic where the train wins on a short trip.

Internal flights in Egypt are routine and frequent. Build in a little slack around them the way you would anywhere.

The sleeper train

The overnight sleeper leaves Cairo in the evening and arrives in Luxor in the morning, taking roughly ten hours. You get a private compartment with a fold-down bed, a door that locks, and a meal brought to you.

It is not luxurious and it should not be sold as though it were. It is clean, functional and old-fashioned, the bathroom is at the end of the carriage, and the track is not smooth. What it is, genuinely, is memorable — waking up to the Nile valley going past the window is one of the better hours of an Egypt trip.

The practical case is that it saves a hotel night and uses time you would have spent asleep anyway. On a ten-day or longer trip, that makes it close to free in time terms.

The day train

Ordinary day trains run the same route and take a similar length of time, in daylight, in a seat.

That means giving up an entire usable day of an Egypt trip to look at agricultural land. Some people want exactly that and they should have it. Almost nobody else should.

Which to pick

  • Fly if your trip is seven days or fewer, if you are travelling with children, or if you have a fixed early start the next morning.
  • Take the sleeper if you have ten days or more, if you like trains, or if you would rather spend the money on the trip than on the transfer.
  • Take the sleeper southbound and fly back if you want the experience once. The novelty is entirely in the first direction.
  • One thing that decides it for many people: a balloon flight the morning after a night on a train is a hard start. Fly if that is the plan.

Booking notes

  • Sleeper compartments are limited and sell out in high season. Book well ahead rather than on arrival.
  • Compartments are usually sold as singles or doubles; a family of four is two compartments.
  • The train continues to Aswan, so it works as Cairo to Aswan too — which suits an itinerary that cruises northward to Luxor.
  • Whichever you choose, do not schedule it on the same day as a long-haul arrival.