Get ready! John takes you through what to expect when planning post-Covid travel to Egypt, including warnings about insanely overpriced branded trips, what those trip should really cost, and how to take advantage of the post-pandemic travel downturn to plan upcoming travel for less.

Please feel welcome to reach out to me at John@EgyptElite.com for help planning your trip to Egypt and I’ll be personally happy to help you make it a reality with my company Egypt Elite.

<iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/942512593&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=true&show_comments=false&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=false"></iframe>

---

NEW: Episode Transcript

Hello again everybody and happy December. I’m recording this podcast on December 4th, 2020 and what a hell of a year it has been for all of us. The last episode of the Egypt Travel Podcast I recorded was back in June right after what we now know was the first wave of the global Coronavirus pandemic hit, and while we knew we still had a ways to go before it would all be over and we’d be able to go back to traveling again, I think few of us imagined it would continue on for quite as long as it has and with the second wave now being even worse than the first wave in nearly every country around the world.

But I’m not going to spend any more of this episode talking about Coronavirus because it finally appears that we’re in the last inning or the last chapter of this nightmare and there’s a lot of reason to be hopeful and start seriously talking about travel and travel planning again. Three vaccines are on the cusp of approval and mass distribution in Western countries, in addition to the vaccines developed in China and Russia. And I read somewhere recently that there are dozens more that are also out there and still in various lesser stages of development, so it finally appears that relief and resolution are on the horizon as we close out this crazy crazy year.

So THAT means that we can start planning travel again and we can make up for all of that lost travel time in 2020 with some amazing bucket-list experiences we’ve always wanted to do before we die – like travel to Egypt and see the Pyramids, the tombs and temples of the Pharaohs, the magnificent golden treasures of King Tut that survived into the modern era by sheer chance, and all of the other incredible stuff there is to see and do in Egypt.

You know, most people think of Egypt as a destination that you go to just to see pyramids, tombs, and temples, but there is SO much more to this country than just all of the historic monuments. Don’t get me wrong though. Those are incredible enough and plenty of reason alone to go to Egypt without anything else even being there. No other place in the world can you see the combinations of things you can in Egypt.

Sure, other countries have temples and a few have pyramid-like structures, and there are burial sites of famous rulers in other countries too. But nowhere else can you see all of these things in one place and in one trip, and nowhere else has these things on the scale of magnificence and grandeur as does Egypt. Egypt and its sites is just a whole other world, so even if you’ve literally been to every other country in the world, Egypt still blows people away when they finally make it there and see it.

Now if there’s one thing about travel that this pandemic has taught us this year in 2020 it’s that life is short and precious, and we don’t have time to waste to see and do the things that we want to see and do. Covid has targeted the young, the old, the healthy, the unhealthy, the rich, the poor. It has not spared any demographic around the world. It has showed us that we might not be here next year and that procrastination in getting back out there on the road and in there air when international travel becomes safe again is what we should be doing with an eagerness like never before, and the time to start planning out that travel and is now!

To be honest, just since the announcement of the 3 new vaccines in North America and Europe in the last month, I’ve seen an enormous uptick in requests for trip proposals at my company Egypt Elite, and 2021 travel, even late-2021 travel, is already starting to book up. The best guides, the limited slots available with the best companies, the nicer vehicles, the nicer hotels, etc. are going to book up by the end of this month and early next month.

So my best advice to anyone wanting to see Egypt in 2021 or 2022 is to start the planning and booking process now. You don’t have to pay now, but you should at least reach out and get on our calendar so that we can save a spot for you and your family or group and you’re not left with the bottom of the barrel in terms of the companies and service providers that are left if you want until later to get started in your planning.

Egypt is a place where you really want to have a good tour operator behind you handling your logistics, even if you’re just one or two people traveling together or even if you’re an experienced traveler. Egypt is a whole other world of chaos and complications too for those who try to go it alone, so just keep that in mind as you’re thinking about your trip planning there.

Now, what I did want to do in this episode is follow through on what I promised in the last episode and tell you about how you can take full advantage of the slowdown in global travel and tourism to plan a cheaper in price but much better in quality trip than ever before.

One of the things we did in Egypt during 2020 is lock in long-term pricing contracts for 2021 and 2022 because we knew that travel would of course eventually bounce back and that Egypt is one of the absolute top destinations in the world that everyone wants to and should see before they die.

Egypt is not a fad destination like many other places are, so we knew that there would always be a market here, so we had no qualms with investing in 2020 and doubling down on our capabilities there so that when travel resumed we’d be able to offer the best quality and services in Egypt.

So some of the trips and packages we’ve been able to put together late this year for clients who are traveling to Egypt in mid- and late-2021 – and who are being smart by already planning those trips out and getting their spots reserved with us – some of those packages have been between 40 and 60 percent below what those same exact itineraries priced out as last year in 2019.

So I wanted to give a couple of examples of real itineraries that we’ve put together for some of our clients and give you real costs for what those itineraries cost last year vs. this year… meaning for booking this year, although they’re actually traveling next year. Once travel resumes at scale next year, prices will obviously go back up again because the demand will return and probably increase a lot since everyone missed travel in 2020. But it is what it is now for the lucky and smart ones who at least start the process of booking their trips in late-2020 and even into early 2021.

First, I want to talk about the trips that Disney started offering to Egypt either last year or the year before. Now I know that many people just love the Disney brand for various reasons, and if you have kids then of course you’re wedded to Disney. They have some of the most classic movies and theme park experiences of all time. But when a brand starts to stretch out beyond what made them a great brand and they start looking to slap their brand on anything and everything to make more and more money and keep shareholders happy, things are never as good as their original products.

Disney branched out from creating destinations – their theme parks – years ago into trying to organize trips to other places around the world for groups of Disney fans. Now it’s possible that in other places, these trips have been wonderful and worth the price. In Egypt, however, which I do know inside and out, I can tell you that the Disney trips are a huge ripoff. Not only are they overpriced, especially for 2021, but they’re using these mass market service providers as subcontractors that don’t know their guides, don’t know their drivers, and deliver these typical huge-group, flag-following, tourist bubble trips that are not authentic experiences in the least and which are a huge waste of your money, if you ask me.

It’s pretty rare to have huge tour groups of 25 or 30 these days anymore because the tourism industry has kind of grown past that and it’s a thing of the past now. It’s really impersonal and you’re just herded around like cattle on these huge uncomfortable coach busses and you’re herded from place to place with maybe one guide for 20 or 3