Morocco has the dunes. Egypt has the river. South Africa has the mountain.
What the Agafay sunset really costs, whether the Giza camel ride is worth $48, which Hurghada boat stops long enough to swim, and what a Serengeti balloon does to a budget. Reviews of every tour you can book across Africa.
Where the reviews are
A sunset in the Agafay, the Giza plateau, Cape Point, a balloon over the Serengeti.
Four bookings that carry a first African trip, one per corner of the continent. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The Marrakech eveningAgafay Desert Sunset, Camel Ride, and Dinner ShowCamels across the stone desert, then dinner under the tents an hour from the Medina. The cheapest big night in Morocco.
02The Cairo morningPyramids & Great Sphinx Private Tour with Camel RideGiza privately, with the camel leg included, before the coaches reach the plateau and the light goes flat.
03The Cape dayCape of Good Hope & Penguins Day Tour with PickupChapman’s Peak, the Cape of Good Hope and the Boulders penguins on one loop out of Cape Town.
04The Serengeti dawnSerengeti Balloon Safari and authentic bush breakfastUp with the burner at first light, down for breakfast laid out in the grass. The one people save for.
Camel, quad or a bed in the dunes: three ways to spend a Saharan afternoon.
More African bookings start with sand than with anything else. Here is what each kind of desert day costs to board, and which base it runs from.
Eleven countries, and the day out that makes the case for each.
A stone desert outside Marrakech, a plateau of pyramids, a cable car over Cape Town, the Serengeti in the dry season, a lagoon in the Indian Ocean and the game parks an hour from Nairobi.
Egypt is one river with five thousand years parked along it.
Everything in Egypt →
Giza and Saqqara sit inside Cairo’s traffic. Four hundred miles south, Luxor keeps the tombs, the temples and the balloons. Between them run the sleeper train and the cruise boats, and off to the east the Red Sea resorts that fly most visitors in.
Giza, privately or in a group
A private car gets you to the Sphinx before the coach parties and lets you skip Saqqara if the heat wins. The group half-days cost a third as much and run to somebody else’s clock.
Luxor in a day from the coast
Hurghada to the Valley of the Kings and back is four hours of road each way. Worth it once: Tutankhamun’s tomb is a separate ticket, and Karnak at the end is the part nobody expects.
Aswan to Luxor by boat
Three nights, Kom Ombo and Edfu on the way, Abu Simbel bolted on at dawn. The cabins are small and the sun deck is the point.
The Red Sea does most of the swimming for you.
Reefs start a few hundred metres off the Hurghada hotel strip, the Sharm boats run out to Ras Mohammed, and further south the same warm water washes Zanzibar and the Mauritian lagoon. Masks, tanks and day boats, priced.
Africa’s most booked days out.
Every African tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else on the continent, spread across the countries and cities that run them.
1
Ouzoud Waterfalls Guided Hike and Boat Trip
Spend a full day visiting Ouzoud Waterfalls from Marrakech with hotel pickup, a local mountain guide, scenic trails, olive groves, Barbary macaques, and a short boat ride beneath the 110-meter cascades. Guides such as Youssef, Hashimi, and Mohamed Boufarma are known for patient explanations and help on the steep return climb. Lunch costs about €10 to €12.
From · $17
Read our review →
2
Agafay Desert Quad & Camel Rides with Dinner Show
from $24
3
Luxor Valley of the Kings & Tutankhamun Tomb Trip
from $76
4
Ouzoud Waterfalls Guided Tour & Boat Ride
from $18
5
Tour to Giza Pyramids and The Egyptian Museum
from $155
6
Cairo and Giza Highlights Full-Day Tour
from $76
7
Luxury Cruise Trip to Orange Bay with Lunch
from $53
8
Luxor Day Trip from Hurghada Small Group & Tutankhamun Tomb
from $95
Cape Town keeps a mountain, a penguin colony and the wine country within an hour of each other.
The cable car goes up when the wind lets it, which is the one thing nobody can book around. Everything else here runs to a timetable: the peninsula loop, the Franschhoek tram, the boat to Seal Island and the cage off Gansbaai.
Every Cape day out →
Three mornings that only happen in Africa.
Beaches and old towns exist everywhere. A Big Five reserve at first light, a night on the Erg Chebbi sand, and a basket lifting off the Nile at dawn do not.
The Big Five game drive
Lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo: a list drawn up by hunters that tour operators never stopped using. The animals move at dawn and at dusk and sleep through the heat between, so a reserve day is two short drives with a long breakfast in the middle. Kruger and the Eastern Cape reserves are malaria-light and reachable on a day trip; the Serengeti and the Mara are not, and cost accordingly.
- 1Serengeti Balloon Safari and authentic bush breakfast★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,480 reviews
- 2Big Five Game Reserve with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,409 reviews
- 3Balloon Safari & Bush Breakfast in Serengeti – Miracle Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,646 reviews
Erg Chebbi
The dunes at Merzouga rise 150 metres out of flat hammada and run to the Algerian border. Getting there from Marrakech is two full days of driving over the Tizi n’Tichka pass, through Ait Ben Haddou and down the Draa valley, which is why almost every trip is sold as three days. You sleep in a canvas camp, the drums come out, and the sky does the rest.
- 13-Day Merzouga and Sahara Desert Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 15,308 reviews
- 2Merzouga 3-Day Desert Safari with Food★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 12,232 reviews
- 33 Days Desert Tour From Marrakech To Merzouga Dunes & Camel Trek★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 10,125 reviews
Dawn from a basket
Balloons fly at first light because that is the only hour the air is still. Over Luxor they drift across the Valley of the Kings and the mortuary temples on the west bank; over Marrakech the target is the Atlas foothills and a Berber breakfast on landing; over the Serengeti it is whatever is moving below. Pickups are brutal, around four in the morning, and a windy forecast cancels everything.
- 1Balloon Flight, Berber Breakfast & Certificate★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 8,164 reviews
- 2Early Morning 40-Minute Balloon Flight★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6,533 reviews
- 3Hot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers Included★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,319 reviews
What a day out in Africa actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A Moroccan day out still lands under the price of an airport sandwich; a Tanzanian one does not.
Almost all of Morocco and most of Egypt: quad runs, camel evenings, medina walks, waterfall days and the Hurghada boats.
The long ones. Luxor from the coast, the Cape peninsula loop, Moroccan balloon flights and the three-day Sahara runs.
East and southern Africa: game drives in the reserves, the Serengeti balloon, Nile cruises and the Kilimanjaro routes.
Four African bookings that will not wait.
Most of this continent can be arranged from a riad terrace the night before. These four run on permits, sailing dates and baskets with a fixed number of seats, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 013 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in UgandaUganda issues a strict daily quota of gorilla permits, one small group per habituated family. In high season they are gone months out.
- 02Kilimanjaro climb by Lemosho Route (7-day)Park fees are charged per day on the mountain and the good routes run on set departure dates, so operators need weeks of notice, not days.
- 03Balloon Flight, Berber Breakfast & CertificateA basket holds a fixed number of people and only flies in the still air at first light. One cancelled morning fills the next one.
- 044-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air BalloonThe boats sail Aswan to Luxor on a fixed timetable. Miss the sailing and the next one is days away, not hours.
What to do between noon and four, when nobody sane is outside.
Marrakech and Luxor both pass 45°C in summer, and an open archaeological site at midday is a bad idea in any month. The answer is the same in both: start at dawn, then go under a roof. Hammams, tiled palaces, a cooking table, a museum with the air conditioning on.
By place — country first, then the city you land in
By kind of day — sand, water, ruins or wildlife
Marrakech, the High Atlas, the dunes, Fez: the run most first trips follow.
High Atlas
Ait Ben Haddou
Merzouga
Fez
EssaouiraThe newest reviews from across the continent.
The rest of the new ones →
Grand Egyptian Museum, Grand staircase, New Galleries & lunch
Read our review →
Islamic Cairo Walking Tour: Khan el Khalili, Al-Azhar Mosque
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Cairo Private Day Tours: Discover Islamic and Coptic Cairo
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Visiting Egyptian Museum Citadel and Old market of Khan Khalili
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Full-Day Diving Tour with Lunch & Two Dive Sites
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Private Guided tour to Giza Pyramids,Sphinx Camel Ride and Lunch
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Allinclusive Half DayPrivateTour Giza PyramidsSphinx Ticke Lunch
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All Inclusive Private Trip to Giza Pyramids,sphinx , Camel ride
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Best ViP Private Tour Giza Pyramids,Sphinx, inside Pyramids
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VIP Private Tour Giza Pyramids Sphinx ,Camel,Inside Pyramid
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private Giza Pyramids,Sphinx and the New Grand Egyptian Museum
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The Giza Pyramids, the Great Sphinx, and Local Lunch.
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