Cairo
Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate.
Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate. It is home to more than 9.8 million people. The city is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world, and the Middle East. The Greater Cairo metropolitan area is one of the largest in the world by population with over 22 million people. Areas of what would become Cairo were inhabited from pre-dynastic and early-dynastic ancient Egypt c. 6000 years ago, as the Giza pyramid complex and the ancient cities of Memphis and Heliopolis are today within the city.
Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
What Wikivoyage says to see
Cairo is a vast metropolitan cityscape. It includes an array of modern skyscrapers, mosques, bazaars and ruins of associated ancient monuments outside the city. Cairo has an overwhelming array of attractions, listed under their individual districts along with transport and other practicalities. Some highlights: Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx.
- 01Grand Egyptian Museum
- 02Egyptian Museum
Much of its collections were moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum in 2022.
- 03National Museum of Egyptian Civilization
A relatively small museum, with a main hall, a textile hall, and a Royal Mummies Hall.
- 04Al-Azhar Park
- 05Khan El Khalily
Cairo's souk area where visitors will find many merchants selling perfume, spices, gold, Egyptian handicrafts.
- 06Abdeen Palace
About 1 km east of Midan El-Tahrir, it was the royal residence until the Egyptian monarchy was deposed in 1952.
From Wikivoyage: Cairo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Things to do
Have a coffee, mint tea or Cola at El Fishawy's coffee shop in Khan El-Khalili. Smoke a shisha water pipe (try the "double apple" flavor) and watch the world go by. Great cheap entertainment. Ride a felucca along the Nile River. A great way to relax and enjoy a night under the stars in Cairo. Feluccas are available across from the Four Seasons Hotel in Garden City.
From Wikivoyage: Cairo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Where to eat
Cairo has an enormous number of restaurants, catering to most needs. Ironically though, one may want to avoid any restaurants listed in popular guidebooks. Egyptian restaurants have a habit of after being listed, cooking up a special English menu with vastly inflated prices. That said, cheap food can be found everywhere in street restaurants and snack stalls.
From Wikivoyage: Cairo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Getting to Cairo
- Airports
- Cairo (CAI), 17 km · Sphinx (SPX), 33 km · Port Said (PSD), 168 km
- Port Said → Cairo167 km · quickest by road, 2h 55m · E£260–345
- Alexandria → Cairo180 km · quickest by road, 3h 3m · E£305–405
- El Arish → Cairo271 km · quickest by road, 4h 49m · E£425–570
- Plan a tripFrom anywhereThe planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.
No local-transport research exists yet for Cairo
Our researched notes are written from a sourced entry: every shared taxi, boat and village bus with its operator, its rule, its fare and the year we saw it, and what could not be confirmed. Nobody has done that work for Cairo. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.
- Get inAs of 2025 it has only seasonal charter services operated by Smartwings.
- Get inA cheaper option to get to Sharm by bus is to take a bus, a train, or a minibus to Suez and from the main bus station there, take the 11AM or the 1:20PM bus to Sharm.
- Get aroundBecause of problems with sexual harassment women travellers are advised only to take the small minibuses and buses which prohibit standing.
- Get aroundOn minibuses, the fare starts at LE5 and goes up to LE15 depending on the length of the route.
- Get aroundThere are actually two stations - the main bus station for the city buses, and the minibus station behind it.
From Wikivoyage: Cairo, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-09.
- 01362 km
- 02407 km
- 03409 km
- 04696 km
- 05945 km
If you know how people move in Cairo – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.
Next door to Cairo
Cairo is 5 km from Giza, the nearest large city, whose note carries the wider picture.