Cairo sits at the junction of the Delta, the Nile valley and the Western Desert, and a day’s travel in any direction reaches something quite different.
Saqqara, Dahshur and Memphis — 1 hour
The obvious one and the best. Saqqara holds the Step Pyramid of Djoser from around 2670 BC — the oldest large stone building in the world — now open inside after a fourteen-year restoration. Also the Serapeum, with its seventy-tonne granite sarcophagi cut for sacred bulls, and painted tombs of a liveliness the royal monuments lack.
Dahshur, ten kilometres further, has Sneferu’s Bent and Red pyramids, and is usually almost empty.
Memphis is a field with a colossal fallen Ramesses in it.
Getting there: hire a driver for the day. Cheaper than a coach tour for two and you control the pace.
Alexandria — 2.5 hours
The Mediterranean city: the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa, the Roman theatre at Kom el-Dikka, Qaitbay Citadel on the Pharos foundations, and a long seafront with good fish.
Doable in a long day by train from Ramses Station; better as an overnight.
Wadi al-Natrun — 1.5 hours
Four working Coptic monasteries in the desert between Cairo and Alexandria, in a depression that has been a centre of Christian monasticism since the fourth century. Deir Anba Bishoi and Deir al-Suryan are the ones usually visited, with frescoes, relics and monks who will show you round.
This is where Christian monasticism as an institution largely began, and it is still functioning. Modest dress and check visiting arrangements, which can close during fasts.
The Fayoum — 2 hours
A large depression south-west of Cairo, watered by a branch of the Nile and containing Lake Qarun. It has waterwheels, pottery villages at Tunis, Greco-Roman sites, and the Fayoum mummy portraits came from here — the extraordinarily lifelike painted panels now scattered across the world’s museums.
Wadi al-Rayan has waterfalls and desert lakes.
Wadi al-Hitan — 3 hours
The Valley of the Whales, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Western Desert beyond the Fayoum, holding hundreds of fossil skeletons of archaeoceti — early whales with hind legs, documenting the transition from land mammal to sea creature.
They lie in the open desert with a walking trail between them and a small museum. It is one of the most remarkable palaeontological sites anywhere and it receives very few visitors.
Needs a 4x4 and a full day, usually combined with Wadi al-Rayan.
The Red Sea — 5 to 6 hours
Ain Sokhna is the closest coast, about two hours, and is a resort strip rather than anything else. Hurghada and El Gouna are five to six hours by road and are holidays rather than day trips.
Luxor and Aswan
Not day trips. They are 500 and 900 kilometres away. Fly (an hour) or take the overnight sleeper train, and give them at least two nights. Anyone offering a day trip to Luxor from Cairo is proposing a very long day involving a flight at dawn.
Practicalities
A driver for the day is the standard solution for Saqqara, Dahshur, Wadi al-Natrun and the Fayoum. Agree the route and the price in advance, in writing if possible.
Trains for Alexandria, booked at Ramses or through the Egyptian National Railways site.
Take cash, water and sun cover for everything. There is no shade at any desert site.
Arranging a driver
The standard approach for Saqqara, Dahshur, Wadi al-Natrun and the Fayoum, and much cheaper than a coach tour for two or more people.
Agree in advance: the full itinerary, the total price, whether waiting time is included, and whether fuel and tolls are covered. Write it down. Pay at the end.
Your hotel will arrange one, and that is usually the safest route. Drivers are not guides and generally will not come into the sites with you.
Site tickets and cash
Every site charges separately, several charge extra for specific tombs or the Serapeum, and almost none takes cards. Take more cash than you think you need, in small notes.
Ticket offices at the remoter sites close earlier than the site itself.
Timing and heat
Every destination above is outdoors and unshaded. Start early — genuinely early, leaving Cairo by seven or eight — and be finished by early afternoon in summer.
Winter is the good season for all of it, and December to February the desert sites are genuinely pleasant.
Combining them sensibly
Saqqara, Dahshur and Memphis form one natural loop and are usually done together. The Fayoum and Wadi al-Rayan form another. Wadi al-Natrun sits on the Alexandria desert road and can be attached to a journey north.
What does not combine is Giza and Saqqara in the same day with any comfort — both are large, both are outdoors, and doing them back to back in summer is a mistake people make once.