Entering Cairo & Seeing pyramids quickly august

Hey guys,

Cairo will be a stop over on a connecting flight, so I am considering flying there early, spend 3 nights in Cairo, on the outskirts of town. Doing a tour to the pyramids and then flying out. I'm Australian, and the Australian Smarttraveller says, "Reconsider travelling", but it doesn't say "Do Not Travel". Is anybody there currently.

My questions:
How unsafe is Cairo / the pyramids at the moment?
Are all the archaeological sites closed down?
Will I get killed?

Would anybody recommend this trip???
Round the end of August, 30th, August 2013 (30/8/2013)

Edited by: Dante23

The australian travel warning says: "We advise Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Egypt overall due to ongoing civil unrest" so this is clearly an advise not to visit egypt unless there is a considerable need (tourist curiosity is not such a need!).
You are not granted a guarantee whether the pyramids area will be open or closed to the public around 30 of august, due to the current unrest in egypt but possibilities are that they will be open for visits. Also the possibility to be killed (!!!) is very remote nobody was killed on tours the last months. But bear in mind that there will be very few tourists in cairo so try to be with some accompanying local-guide. As for the famous egyptian museum this is more (than the pyramids) vulnerable to closure because disturbances are happening more close to it than to the pyramids.
It is also very difficult to give you any advice to cover your three days sightseeing in cairo safely due to the current unrest. Most interesting areas of Cairo (out of the pyramids) are Islamic Cairo and the Old Cairo christian area, understandably sensitive at time of political-sectarian confrontation.
Situation is chaotic many means of transportation are not working and there are closures not only to the archeological sites, for example banks were closed during the last chaotic days.
Most important: The curfew (7pm to 6am) will be still in force till mid september so in any case plan to spend most of your time in your hotel.
Bon courage! Anas

And after reading what i wrote above I want to make clear that personally I dont recomend this three days trip in Egypt.

AnasMohandes already answered you post perfectly.
i just want to add that i too wouldnt recommend to travel to cairo now. the swiss government advices against all travel to egypt (since yesterday also to tourist resort on the red sea). the risk of you getting killed is rather small, but i dont think there could be a worse time to visit cairo than now. and honestly, do you really want to sightsee in a city where in the last couple of days so many people have been killed?

Dante double, double check - I think the recommendation has changed to "Do Not Travel"- additionally I doubt you will be able to get travel insurance for any part of Egypt due to the current situation.

...... to respond to to your post / My questions:

How unsafe is Cairo / the pyramids at the moment? .... it has never been more unsafe.

Are all the archaeological sites closed down? ..... probably, with such a deadly security (police thugs) clampdown, disruption of transport and rioting, tourist staff are unlikely to clock in on time

Will I get killed? ..... this is your best chance, a once in a lifetime experience.

Would anybody recommend this trip??? .....Yes, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture and Tourism, tour touts etc.

Round the end of August, 30th, August 2013 (30/8/2013) .... postpone for years, this is only the beginning, vulnerable tourists will be a target to disrupt the economy as the chaos deepens.

I have a quite similar 'problem' at the moment. I'm doing a world trip and will arrive in Cairo on 26 August and fly to Algiers on 8 September. I've booked this flights months ago. So what is to do?

An 'escape' to a Red Sea resort (if this is safe) is not a good option for me. I think staying in Cairo for two weeks or travelling across the country is too dangerous at the moment.

So maybe I just stay around two nights in Cairo (round the airport) and book a return flight to another destination. Though I'm also not really happy with this solution.

Hi adrien,
is difficult to give you an oppinion because:
you posted in a thread that belongs to another traveller,
you give no concrete info about yourself and your travel interests
and you donot tell us the details of your tickets in and out of cairo (airline?)
You look so fascinatecd from egypt that you want to go twice in same year (2013!) so it will be difficult to divert you elsewhere! in this case your better option, out of the redsea resorts (also vulnerable to terrorist activity though they have police restricting the access), should be a return flight to Aswan at the southern end of Egypt. There the possibilities of violent comfrontation are lower (but still they exist)
tell us something about the questions I put, may be there is another option out of egypt.
ANAS

Hi Anas

Thanks a lot for your answer. I'm in Singapore now and have made a decision. As planned I will fly from Kuala Lumpur to Cairo on Sunday (Egyptair, arrival Monday morning) but I have cancelled the flight from Cairo to Algiers (again Egyptair) two weeks later.

Instead of this I will fly from Cairo to Amman on Monday afternoon and fly directly from Amman to Algiers two weeks later (both ways Royal Jordanian). As I get some money back for the cancelled flight that won't be too expensive. And Amman was my third destination on my trip; I met two new friends in my age, so this seems a good solution for me.

I'm 26 and I wanted to explore a bit more than Cairo in Egypt (Siwa, Luxor, Abu Simbel for example). As mentioned I was in Cairo (plus one day in Alexandria) in the end of 2012 and loved my stay there.

But the situation now is very sad and so I hope I can do my planned trip one day in the future.

Sorry I disturbed in this thread :-)

Hi there Adrien!
I think you took the best decision under current circunstances. Actually this is what I was about to suggest: divert your way from Egypt into Jordan. Though Jordan is small and has less sights than Egypt is still a nice place with middle east flavour and the people are friendly.
Enjoy your travels!
Anas