What is Tour Egypt

Perhaps it might be easiest to explain what Tour Egypt is not.  About the only subject we try to stay away from is modern politics, unless it effects tourism in some manner.  Every other topic related to modern and historic Egypt is fair game, from ancient pharaohs to modern culture.

Realistically, the most prevalent topics deal with ancient Egypt and travel.  Ancient topics are broadly, and extensively covered.  Travel is specifically detailed, but in conjunction with this, topics such as religion and other cultural topics are also discussed.

Four Primary Tools, Many Resources

Essentially, Tour Egypt is made up of fairly static sections covering a number of topics and an article database likewise covering different issues. The database of articles is fairly straightforward and indexed according to subject matter. There is also a list of the most recent additions to this database. The static sections represent the Tour Egypt core information and some of these areas have existed from the beginning.  Most static sections have links to the related article database, and most of the article database also has links to relevant static sections. In addition, there is also our search engine with links to other Egyptian related web site.  It is one of the most extensive and up to date Egyptian oriented search engines on the Internet, and also includes other resources such as book searches and news. Finally, there is our Conferencing system with messaging and live chat.  Many people overlook this tool.  However, there are Egyptians, foreigners living in Egypt and seasoned Egyptian travelers who frequent the conference system and can provide a wealth of information to travelers (as well as those seeking other types of information such as historical).

The most important and extensive top level static sections include:

• Our Travel Guide, which is actually located at the bottom of the home page
• The Antiquities Section

This is not to say that other top level sections are not also important, or for that matter highly popular. Several other extremely popular sections include:

• The Egyptian Recipes Section
• Color Me Egypt Kids Section
• Picture of the Day (with Archive) Section (which now includes an extensive database of information on objects within the Egyptian Antiquities Museum)

The Sinai with stretches of isolated beaches

What makes the Travel Guide and Antiquities sections so important is that each have extensive subsections that are at least as extensive as other top level sections.

While Tour Egypt started out as a travel guide, today its antiquities section is the most extensive resource on ancient Egypt found on the Internet. While many people come to Egypt just to enjoy the beaches of the Red Sea and the Sinai, those who come to explore Egypt's ancient treasures require considerable resources in order to truly appreciate their adventure. 

For example, our monument section in the antiquity pages in a section called Egypt Places, is massive, and one if not the most extensive references on Egyptian monuments on the Internet, useful for both antiquities study and travel information. However, we have now further divided the monuments sections with special references on ancient temples, pyramids, archaic churches and monasteries and historical mosques. These sections not only provide links to specific monuments, but also provide valuable general information about their respective types of monuments. Other major subsections in the antiquities section provide detailed documentation on Egyptian history, kings and other important people, ancient life and, under a section called Religion, ancient mythology. However, the religion section also contains information on other topics including early Egyptian Christianity. Of course there are also a number of other minor subsections notably including areas on Government and law, the military, writing, science and the discovery of ancient Egypt.

The Tour Egypt Travel Guide has subsections that are so extensive that many contain even extensive subsections of their own.  Some of the most important of these include the sections on:

• Things to Know About Traveling in Egypt
• Destinations in Egypt

And for divers and others interested in beach vacations,

• Egypt's Red Sea Virtual Diving Center

Things to Know About Traveling in Egypt is a must read for anyone planning a first trip to Egypt, and may be useful for seasoned tourists. It covers many aspects of Egypt including what to wear, what else to take, visa information, the weather, money and many other important topics. In addition, this subsection links to highly valuable articles in our database such as Budget and Independent Travel to Egypt, Part I, II & III, independent travel or packaged tours to Egypt, and A Classical Short Tour of Egypt. A Classical Short Tour of Egypt provides a fairly straightforward example of what a normal tour to Egypt should include. 

The Destination in Egypt section is helpful in several ways.  Of course it documents all major cities in Egypt, and we have tried to include most every other possible tourists destinations.  This extensive section even has virtual tours of the larger cities such as Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Aswan, among others. It is also a useful resource because it cross references to the monuments and article database for information relevant to the specific area.

Other sections in the Travel Guide provide specific, and often extensive information on topics such as national parks (with considerable information on individual parks), wildlife in Egypt, golf and even fishing. 

Finally, the Egypt's Red Sea Virtual Diving Center is one of the very best and most up to date references on the Red Sea Coast and Sinai, specifically for diving.  It is much more than a simple guide, with extensive and unique information on shipwrecks, dive sites and much more.

Of course there is also our resource database, found on the right hand side of the Travel Guide.  These are various databases, some with simple listings, others with extensive detail. For example, the hotel database has considerable information on many Egyptian hotels, including reviews, while the museum database links to entire separate sections on major museums, with at least limited information on almost every museum. There is also a highly useful database of maps.

Finding Specific Information

There are numerous tools to assist people in finding information on Tour Egypt. Obviously there is our database of articles which often link to other sections of Tour Egypt.  But the four most frequently used tools include the search engine for the Tour Egypt web site, the search engine for Egyptian oriented sites throughout the internet, the site map and the conference center.

Both the search engine for the Tour Egypt web site and the search engine for Egyptian oriented sites throughout the internet should be used when very difficult information must be found, or an exhaustive search is in order.  Both will usually return a huge amount of information on most topics.  Obviously, one search engine finds information within the Tour Egypt web site while the other finds information anywhere on the internet. But indeed, both will return considerable results that must be examined for relevancy.

One of our favorite tools for finding information on the Tour Egypt web site is to simply use the "find in page" function of most browsers to search the Tour Egypt site map.  This will provide a much more limited search and is very good for finding more specific topics.  Finally, there is our conference system with "real people" who are very helpful.  Egyptologists, tour guides, foreign nationals living in Egypt, people who frequently travel to Egypt and Egyptians themselves frequent the conference system and actively answer questions on any number of different topics. There is no question that the conference system is one of our most useful resources.  Some members have even been known to meet and assist tourists arriving in Egypt.