Coming Back to Luxor: A 5-Day Plan for People Who Have Already Done the Basics
Painted tomb ceiling at Deir el-Medina showing red and gold hieroglyphs in detail
Five days for the returning visitor, built around the 8 sites first-timers skip, with 3 half-day excursions and one full day for Abydos.
What the first trip missed
First-time Luxor is Karnak, Luxor Temple, the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut and the Colossi of Memnon. That is the correct itinerary and you should not apologise for it. What it leaves out, though, is most of what makes Luxor a place people return to: Medinat Habu, the Tombs of the Nobles, Deir el-Medina, Abydos, Dendera, the Ramesseum interior, the Luxor Museum's second floor, and any real time on the West Bank at all. This plan assumes you have done the greatest hits and want the second-tier sites that are, in truth, often better.
The structure is two nights East Bank, three nights West Bank. You have earned the West Bank stay. Al Moudira Hotel at $180-260 is the destination address; Villa Al Diwan Luxor at $90-130 is the mid-range alternative; Nour House or Nefertarie Guest House at $30-50 handle the budget end. Skip the East Bank luxury this time in favour of a competent city hotel — Steigenberger Nile Palace at $110-150 or Emilio Hotel at $50-70 — so you can spend the money on longer days out to Abydos and better guides.
Day 1: Karnak in depth and the Museum's second floor
You have done Karnak once. This time hire a specialist guide ($100-120 for a half-day) and spend three hours in the outer precincts almost no one visits: the Mut precinct with its lion-headed Sekhmet statues, the Khonsu temple with its intact roof, the sacred lake at 6:30am when it is still glassy. Then walk out through the avenue of sphinxes toward Luxor Temple, a 2.7km processional route now fully excavated and open to walking after several years of restoration work.
In the afternoon, do the Luxor Museum properly. First-timers give it an hour on the ground floor; second-timers give it three hours and go upstairs to the Thutmose III cache and the New Kingdom mummies of Ahmose I and Ramesses I. This is one of the best-curated museums in Egypt, small enough to see thoroughly but rich enough to reward genuine attention. Dinner at 1886 or Sofra. Sleep on the East Bank.
Day 2: Dendera as a proper morning
Hire a car and driver for the day ($70-90) and be on the road by 6:30am. Dendera is 75km north, about 90 minutes by car. Arrive by 8am for the temple opening and give it three full hours. The zodiac ceiling is the picture, but the outer courtyard mammisi, the crypts under the sanctuary and the Roman-era Hathor heads on the columns are what will actually surprise you. This is the best-preserved ceiling paint of any temple in Egypt and it deserves more than the 45 minutes cruise buses give it.
Late lunch in Qena on the way back ($5 for a fish grill by the river), and back at your Luxor hotel by 3pm. Rest through the afternoon, then a sunset felucca from the Corniche for $20 and dinner at Al-Sahaby Lane. This is your last East Bank night; check out in the morning. Save the balloon for tomorrow so the transfer to the West Bank flows naturally.
Day 3: transfer, Medinat Habu, and settling in
4:15am pickup for a 5:15am balloon flight over the West Bank ($95-120). Land by 6:15, drive straight to Al Moudira or your West Bank hotel for breakfast at 8am. Sleep until noon; you have earned it. Afternoon: Medinat Habu at 4pm, which you probably skipped last time. This is the second-best-preserved temple in Egypt after Edfu, its battle reliefs on the outer walls are astonishing, and its painted internal ceilings still hold pigment. Give it 90 minutes and stay for sunset over the outer courtyard.
Dinner at your hotel or at the Nile Valley Hotel & Restaurant on the ferry landing. The West Bank at night is a different Luxor: no coach parties, no Corniche noise, just the sound of dogs and the call to prayer bouncing off the Theban hills. Bed by 10pm. This is the moment where a returning visitor understands why the West Bank is where the country's Egyptologists actually live and work.
Day 4: the Nobles' Tombs and Deir el-Medina
This is the great overlooked day of Luxor tourism. 6:30am start to the Tombs of the Nobles at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, where painted tombs of Ramose (TT55), Nakht (TT52) and Menna (TT69) hold better-preserved daily-life scenes than anything in the Valley of the Kings. Entry is around $10 for two tombs. Small, quiet, coach parties never stop here, and the colour on Nakht's ceiling is one of the best 15 minutes of ancient art anywhere.
Continue to Deir el-Medina, the workers' village where the builders of the royal tombs lived. Sennedjem's tomb (TT1) and Inherkha's (TT359) are the pictures. Then walk 300m up the hill to the small Ptolemaic temple to Hathor and Maat, a jewel-box of a site that takes 20 minutes and you will not share with more than three other visitors. Lunch at the Marsam Hotel courtyard under the trees, afternoon back at your hotel by the pool. Dinner in the garden.
Day 5: Abydos as an all-day pilgrimage
6am pickup by hired car ($100-140 for the day). Abydos is 165km north, about three hours by road. Arrive at 9am for the Seti I temple opening. This is the destination site for anyone serious about Egyptology: the king list of Seti I with its cartouches of every legitimate pharaoh, the astonishing raised relief in the seven chapels, and the Osireion behind the temple where the mythology of Osiris was localised. Give it three hours minimum, plus 45 minutes at the adjacent Ramesses II temple.
Lunch in the small town outside the temple gate ($4 for a lentil-and-bread meal), back on the road by 2pm, home to your West Bank hotel by 5pm. Farewell dinner at Al Moudira's main restaurant or at Villa Al Diwan Luxor. Sleep, morning transfer to the airport. Total for the five days, mid-range: about $1,200-1,600 per person including hotels, guides, cars, entries and food. Splurge version with Al Moudira for three nights and private guiding: $2,200-2,800.
What returning visitors get right the second time
The second trip is where you learn that fewer sites, done properly, beat the greatest-hits reel. You will not visit the Valley of the Kings again; you already saw it, and Deir el-Medina and the Nobles' Tombs give you better-preserved painted interiors with a fraction of the crowds. You will not do Karnak in 90 minutes; you will give it three hours with a guide who reads the reliefs. You will not skip Abydos because it is a long drive; you will drive to it because it is the best day of the trip.
You will also sleep differently. First-timers stay on the Corniche because they do not know any better. Second-timers stay on the West Bank because they now understand that the noise and the taxi-touts and the constant selling of the East Bank is worth escaping. This is the trip where Luxor becomes a place you love rather than a place you tick off. Some people take a third trip and stay a fortnight. The West Bank does that to serious visitors.
Before you book
The questions people ask about East Bank, answered with this month’s numbers.
Yes if you are on your second Luxor trip and care about ancient Egypt. The Seti I temple is the best-preserved raised relief in the country and the king list is one of the founding documents of Egyptology. If you found the temples merely pleasant on your first trip, save Abydos for a later visit.
You need a more specialist guide. Standard tour guides work for Karnak and the Valley of the Kings; the Nobles' Tombs, Deir el-Medina and Abydos reward someone with real Egyptology training. Ask hotels for Egyptologist-track guides at $150-200 a day rather than the standard $80-120 rate.
Extend by three nights and take the train south. Two nights in Aswan gives you Philae, the Nubian Museum, Elephantine Island and a felucca sunset, plus optional Abu Simbel as a dawn trip. Do not try to squeeze Aswan into the five days above; it will hollow out both places.
