Egypt

Egypt is where recorded African history begins. Along the Nile — the river that made the desert bloom — pharaohs raised the Pyramids of Giza, carved the temples of Luxor and Abu Simbel, and built a civilization whose mathematics, medicine and monumental art still shape the world. For travelers of the diaspora, Egypt (Kemet, "the Black land," as its ancient people called it) is a cornerstone: proof, in granite and gold, of African genius on a scale no one can argue with. Modern Egypt is just as compelling. Cairo is the Arab world's largest metropolis and one of Africa's great cultural capitals — home since November 2025 to the Grand Egyptian Museum, the largest museum on earth devoted to a single civilization. South along the Nile, Luxor holds the densest concentration of ancient monuments anywhere, and Aswan opens onto Nubia, a living African culture that predates and outlasted the pharaohs. Beyond the river, Egypt offers Red Sea reefs at Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh, the otherworldly White Desert, Mediterranean Alexandria and Sinai's mountains. Most first-time itineraries pair Cairo with a Luxor–Aswan Nile cruise — a route travelers have followed, in one form or another, for more than two thousand years.