Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Egypt, 4th Edition

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Though I found the Rough Guide to Egypt to be fairly good on providing practical information, its grasp of Egyptian history and culture was poor, much of it copied from other and better guide books.

To the point, told you what you needed to know, without saturating you with information. I travelled with a couple of friends to Egypt and found their book to be more informative than mine, despite the fact that their Rough Guide was a little out of date when they bought it. It is especially useful if you are looking for cheap accomodation in Luxor and to a lesser extent, Aswan, plus it also provided some decent maps of both areas. One amusing snippet that caught my attention was the information about the back way into the Valley of the Kings (for the fit amongst you only) - you turn right just before the ticket collection point at Hapshepsut, passed the souvenir stalls and follow the path up the side of the hill. Once at the top and passed a hill on top, veer right again to go into the Valley of the Kings. Unlike the main entrance (where you are checked to see you have tickets), you don't have to pay to get in this way, but you can't get into any of the tombs if you haven't bought the tickets - courtesy of the information in Rough Guide. The Egyptians check for tickets again at each tomb entrance, which from what I can remember, you are told about in the book anyway. Still worth it for the views though, especially of Hapshepsut, but DON'T GO TOO NEAR THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF.

The Aswan bit is also clearer than other books, for example, one bit of info. it gives compared to others, is the fact that once you have paid to go to Philae Temple (which is on an island), you have to haggle with the owners of the boats in order to get there.

All in all, a very comprehensive book, but the edition I saw needed a little updating.

An industriously put together guidebook but poorly informed and dull to read. It's not bad on practical information but hardly turns up anything really new or interesting that you can't find in any other book. More importantly, you do not really have confidence that its authors know much about the history or culture of the country, while what they tell you of the sites seems either taken from other and better books or is what you can see for yourself. No insight, in other words, no gleams of illumination. And it is so politically correct that it is worse than having gippy tummy.

Egypt is my country, I know it well, but I would not recognize it from what I read in this book. We are an old country, with a great history and culture. But this guide talks of McDonalds, of out of date pop music, of how to cheat my people by paying them as little as possible for their services and generosity. This book is an insult to my country, and I think only fools would waste their money buying it.

I used this book while in egypt. I found it to be very outdated and did not have much of the relevent information that I needed. I am normally a big fan of the rough guides but this purchase taught me the lesson that you need to be aware of when the book was published. I did not realize the book was nearly three years old when I bought it. If they have not come out with a recent update then purchase a different book -time schedules change rather frequently and the more uptodate the book is the better off you are.

I recently took a trip to Egypt, While there I had a copy of the Rough Guide, it was a real help and I could not have been able to stay as long as I did had it not been for the information that the Rough Guide provided me. I would highly recomend this book if you have any intentions of being in this area of the world.

I spent about a month reading this guide and the Lonely Planet series while planning my trip to Egypt... Well, they were both OK, but the Rough by Dan Richardson is way more detailed and has more practical info on fees, schedules, hotels and workarounds if something goes wrong. Through the trip (Hurghada - Aswan - Luxor - Cairo - Suez - Hurghada) the LP was what I read in the evening before going to museums or tombs and RG was what I carried around in my pocket through the day. My estimate is that I saved not less than fifty times the cost of this book just because I knew most of the prices and situations in advance, before bargaining :)
A must have for travel in Egypt

This book has a wonderful account of the history and culture of Egypt as well as ways on how to make your hard earned dollar do more for you by not letting people rip you off. If you don't like getting robbed by those crazy Egyptians and want to have fun in Egypt this is the book for YOU.