Reflections on the "Trip of a Lifetime"

I've been asked about our trip to Egypt and Jordan multiple times every day since our return and I often struggle with how to summarize it in a few pithy but evocative sentences. I'm not sure I'm doing it justice. Overall it was an unbelievable trip - many, many thousands of dollars and over 1,300 digital photos later, I can conclude that it was all well worth it.

As I've mentioned before, it was our first trip that was so full-service - we were treated with kid gloves at every stage, and all our needs were taken care of. I enjoyed having guides and drivers wherever we went - it made things go very smoothly, but I did feel somewhat constrained and limited. At a few sights, I felt that we didn't quite get the time to explore that I would have liked.

In hindsight, I would probably have just made a handful of changes. The first is to spend more time in Luxor. Cramming all the sights of Luxor into one, very long and hot day was not ideal. We should have spent one day on the East bank and then stayed an extra night in Luxor to spend another day in the temples of the West bank.

And we kept coming back to the same Four Seasons in Cairo - the hotel that was located in what was the middle of nowhere in tourist terms. On the last night back in Cairo, after our Upper Egypt segment, we should have moved to another hotel - perhaps the Mena House Oberoi, which even though it's probably even more isolated, would have yielded a phenomenal Pyramid view from the pool and another set of restaurants to try. We were frankly sick of every single restaurant at the Four Seasons in Cairo.

I would also have spent a night at one of the Dead Sea resorts in Jordan and perhaps split the Petra exploration over 2 days.

But other than that, it was as perfect a trip as I've ever been on!