The Western Desert in Egypt is a vast expanse of seemingly endless sand. But don’t be fooled – it is anything but monotonous. The oasis towns of the Egyptian Western Desert have a long history and played a crucial role in Egypt’s cultural and economic life. Today, modern highways connect the Western Desert’s major oases – Bahariya, Farafra, Dakhla, and Al-Kharga – to Cairo and Luxor. On our recent research trip to Egypt, we took the road less travelled. Starting in Luxor and ending in Cairo, we discovered the charm of the Western Desert Oasis towns and landscapes.
This trip reminded us of other deserts we visited, like Wadi Rum in Jordan or our trip to Wadi al Hitan, also in Egypt.
Over the course of five days, we explored everything from pharaonic temples to sleepy towns, and to bizarre limestone sculptures in the famous White Desert. In this blog post, we share all the details of our five-day journey through the Western Desert. And we have some key tips on how you can make this itinerary even better!
Day 1: From Luxor to Al-Kharga Oasis
Leaving Luxor: The Road into the Desert
With no public transport running along the Luxor – Al-Kharga Road we have arranged for a driver to take us into the Western Desert in Egypt. On leaving the city boundaries of Luxor, we need a permit to go on. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of traffic on the road because the road also leads south to Edfu and Aswan. But once we turn off from the highway running parallel to the Nile valley, the landscape transforms. Another road branches off towards the town of Sohag.
From then on, we are alone on the desert road, crossing a vast empty plateau. The landscape changes from rugged red mountains to a flat dirt plateau, and finally back to the rim of a large valley. Occasionally we spot abandoned Soviet-style bus stops, concrete structures with a simple roof to shade the people waiting for the bus. But today there are no buses, and no people waiting for them.
Visiting Al-Ghuweita in the oasis of Al-Kharga
When we near the green oasis area of Al-Kharga, we pass a checkpoint and receive a police escort. From this point on, it’s slow driving trailing behind the police car. We had agreed to visit two ancient temples along the way, but things do not go as planned. When we pass the turn-off to Al-Zaiyan, the police car continues straight towards town. Our driver, busy on the phone, is ignoring us. At the next checkpoint – one of many – we protest directly to the police. After some discussion, they finally allow us to visit Al-Ghuweita.
The late-pharaonic temple of Al-Ghuweita, dating back to the Persian period – about the 5th century BC – sits spectacularly atop a hill overlooking the oasis. Later the Romans transformed the site into a fortress. Inside the temple we admire Theban gods in the stone cella, and Ptolemaian additions at the gates. Surrounding the temple are remnants of small mudbrick houses and an outer wall, once part of a Roman settlement. Archaeologists have even discovered much older artefacts, proving that the hill had served as a caravan stop for the desert trade as early as the Middle Kingdom.
Afterwards, there is no time – or possibly no clearance – to go back to the temple of Al-Zaiyan. Instead, we head straight to the town of Al-Kharga and check into the somewhat run-down and overpriced hotel Mohandis in the town centre.
Exploring El-Bagawat Necropolis and Hibis Temple in El-Kharga
The police escort does not end at the hotel. When we decide to take a taxi to some sites just outside of town, we are again surrounded by policemen. Some taxi drivers decline to take us, seemingly wary of the attention. But eventually we find one willing to drive us to the El-Bagawat Necropolis on the northern edge of town.
The El-Bagawat Necropolis is a sprawling site with around 250 tombs and mausoleums. The tombs dating from the 2nd to 7th century AD are dotting the desert landscape. They belong to the early Christians who lived in the Western Desert of Egypt. Some tombs retain beautiful frescoes in their mud-brick cupolas, such as the Ark of Noah.
Next, we visit the nearby Hibis Temple, one of the best-preserved pharaonic temples from the Late Period under Persian rule. Inside the temple, the very detailed painted reliefs in the cella are particularly impressive and we spend some time admiring them.
By now it is late afternoon, and we decide to walk back into town. Our police escort – still present – does not approve of our independent stroll. They insist that we walk on the same side of the road as the moving traffic, while they drive directly behind us. They follow us into small restaurants and meddle in our dinner decisions. And after dinner they accompany us back to the hotel.
And we realize that our trip to the Western Desert comes with an added layer of security that will shape our journey in this part of Egypt.
Day 2: From Al-Kharga Oasis to Farafra Oasis
As the only tourists in town, we are asked to join a photo event with the new chief of tourist police. Escorted to the entrance of the Hibis Temple once again, we are handed a cheap plastic flower and pose for a photo with the police chief. At least they drop us at the minibus station afterwards, and we are lucky to get the last seats on a minibus to Dakhla Oasis.
As soon as the driver puts on his Quranic sures, we drift into well-practiced bus slumber. We suspect that the religious chanting is not an expression of the driver’s devotion. The Quran sures apparently serve as a magical charm to protect us from the evil spirits of the desert. And the driver turns the chanting off the moment we reach the first houses of Dakhla Oasis.
In Dakhla, we’re the last ones on the bus, and eventually the driver drops us at the nearly deserted minibus station for Farafra.
A plump elderly man introduces himself as Abdullah. He hoists our backpacks on his – as yet empty – bus and directs us to his favourite coffee shop to wait. “We only need five more people”, he assures us jovially. Languidly we get into the oasis mood. Time is not important here. And while we sip Turkish coffee on the pavement Abdullah lays everything out with full transparency: Six seats booked, plus the three of us, and one more announced; 14 seats in total. If we all agree to pay 170 LE instead of 120 LE, we can leave now. Everyone agrees.
We collect the other passengers from the oasis outskirts and head onto the road connecting the Western Desert oases. By nightfall, we finally arrive in Farafra Oasis, and we have dinner at the hotel.
Day 3: From Farafra into the White Desert
Sandboarding and dune bashing
The next day begins with a drive straight onto the sand dunes near Farafra. Below us, circular irrigation fields mark the human effort to tame the desert, but beyond them, the desert stretches far into the distance. The tour includes sandboarding and steep sand dune driving, but we are not drawn to either. But of course, that’s a standard part of the desert experience.
Limestone Sculptures and Fossil Treasures
After a lunch break at a rare spring with a few palm trees, we head deeper into the White desert. Strange limestone formations rise from the plain, shaped over millennia by wind and water. Some resemble steles, others look like giant mushrooms – all eroded from the sediments of an ancient seabed.
In one area, tiny black stones litter the white desert floor and cling to the white limestone sculptures. These black particles – hematites – sound very metallic when we examine them. And we also find numerous small ammonites among them.
The White House of the Desert
Our tour now takes us into a surreal landscape of smooth, rounded white hills. Walid, our driver, calls this the “White House” of the desert. The undulating hills as well as some erosion sculptures are coated with a thick layer of shiny white chalk. Reflecting the sun, it stays cool to the touch despite the burning Egyptian sun. And simple scratching with a fingernail reveals the darker desert floor beneath – a reminder of the layers of time beneath our feet.
Camping Under the Stars in the Western Desert in Egypt
As we drive towards the designated camping area, we pass more of the famous white rock formations, eroded into sometimes peculiar shapes. Some have names like “Mushroom and Chicken” or “The Rabbit” – but we prefer to let our imagination roam. Most of these strangely shaped rocks evoke some image when we look at them – a head, a dog, an opera singer frozen mid-song, or a skull.
By evening, we reach the authorized camping area, where all overnight tours must stop. We find ourselves a certain distance apart from the other groups, behind a small knoll. Perhaps we arrived too late for the best and most sheltered spots, but with no wind that night, it doesn’t matter. As darkness falls, we gather around a small campfire for dinner. With nothing but the White Desert around us, we retreat early to our tents, ready for another day of discovery.
Day 4: Through the White and Black Desert to Bahariya Oasis
More mushroom rocks
After a night under the spectacular desert sky and a simple Egyptian breakfast, we set off for another part of the White Desert. The early morning air is crisp, and the sun casts a golden glow over the endless sands. In the morning light, the limestone formations look beautiful. We stop several times to wander among the rocks and to invent fairy tales about the wondrous creatures set in stone, surrounding us everywhere. Eventually, we reach an area with numerous striking mushroom-like white rocks. Slender limestone pillars support larger rock tops, resembling umbrellas or mushrooms. Standing beneath them, we suppress a slight feeling of queasiness … there’s a staggering amount of heavy rock balanced above us.
Back to Farafra
The “mushrooms” are quite close to the main highway, and soon we find ourselves back on the road to Farafra. After a much-welcomed shower we visit the Museum of local artist Badr Abdel Moghni before continuing our journey towards Bahariya Oasis.
Crystal Mountain and Black Desert Views
On the way, we make two stops. The first is at Chrystal Mountain, a stretch of rocks embedded with glittering mineral inclusions. At first, we merely take photos, but then we start looking more closely where the minerals have grown out from small sandstone pebbles. In some places, the crystals grow inward from volcanic bubbles, forming magnificent druses that sparkle under the sun.
Our second stop is the Black Desert View. Here are a series of small volcanos dot the Western Desert next to the road. Climbing up one of them, we take in the dramatic scenery and other details. We marvel at the layered sandstone visible in some places. They are very colourful in red and yellow, and we find at least 2 layers of black volcanic ash. How many years ago did these eruptions take place?
As the day winds down, we arrive in Bahariya Oasis, eager to rest. Before settling in, we explore the local shops, stocking up on fresh fruit and yogurt for breakfast – luxuries after our time in the Western Desert.
Day 5: From Bahariya Oasis to Cairo
Most public transport from Bahariya to Cairo leaves at 6 am or earlier. Not keen on such an early rise, we head to the minibus station around 9 am, hoping for a later option. Luck is on our side – by 10 am a minibus departs through the Western Desert towards Cairo. About 4 hours later, we reach the outskirts of the Cairo metropolis. Instead of going to the city centre in Downtown, buses end at the Giza side, avoiding Cairo’s worst traffic congestion. We are dropped at Mounib Square in Giza – conveniently near a metro station, making it easy to continue to our hotel in Giza.
Logistics of exploring the Western Desert in Egypt
The Western Desert in Egypt is dotted by several oases. In the far northwest, the oasis of Siwa is quite isolated and a long trip from Cairo. But most of the oases form a loop from Bahariya Oasis in the north down to Al-Kharga, not far from Luxor. Wanting to visit the oases one after another, we planned our route coming from Luxor, through the desert, and ending in Cairo. This seemed logical – no backtracking and no extra ride to Cairo.
However, in hindsight, this wasn’t the best approach. The southern oases, from Al-Kharga to Farafra, are in the New Valley Governorate. Strict security measures there limit tourist movement. Police escorts and constant checkpoints made exploring frustrating. Additionally, desert tours from Farafra are pricier, since multiple security forces reportedly require payments before operators can enter the desert – despite it being officially off-limits.
Had we started from Bahariya Oasis, part of the more relaxed Giza Province, these restrictions wouldn’t have applied. For a smoother experience, approaching the Western Desert in Egypt from the north is definitely the better option.
Best way to organize a trip to the Western desert
On the other hand, starting our desert trip in Farafra in the morning allowed us to spend more time in the most beautiful parts of the White Desert. In comparison, the drive from Bahariya takes much longer, and some tours that begin in Cairo spend the greater part of the day on the highway rather than in the desert itself.
As for the desert, the various areas of the White Desert were clearly the highlight for us. Both the so-called Black Desert and Chrystal Mountain, while interesting, felt more like brief roadside stops to break up the long drive from Bahariya or even Cairo.
Considering all the factors we would recommend starting your tour from Bahariya in order to spend less money and more time in the desert itself. If you are planning to continue to Dakhla and Al-Kharga, be prepared for annoying police escorts. That said, the sightseeing spots in the southern oasis towns are rarely visited and there are some further explorations in the surrounding desert possible, too (with police escort).
Have you been to the Western Desert in Egypt or are you considering a trip there?
NB: We were not sponsored in any way to write this blog post about the Western desert in Egypt. We paid all expenses ourselves.
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Thank you very much for your travel report and the beautiful photos! They make me want to travel. Can you see a lot from the car, or do you have to walk more than, say, 500m? How do you deal with a police escort? Well, I can see that you can’t shake them off. But I wonder whether they contribute positively to the feeling of safety, or whether the increased police presence feels rather restrictive. And what kind of problem did they have with your food order at the restaurant in Al-Kharga?
Many thanks for this blog entry and best wishes!
The great thing about these 4x4s is that they bring you anywhere, even up the steeper dunes. Well, ours was so old and crappy that one person was always falling off her seat when the car tilted too much to the left … But it was easy to see everything from the car – we just walked around for the pleasure of walking in the desert.
We can recommend a tour operator in Bahariya if you are interested …
And no, we have no idea what issues the police had with our food. Perhaps they wanted us to sit and eat somewhere where they could watch us from inside *their* car. Presumably the original rule was made in order to improve our safety, but since the people on the ground just follow orders blindly, it turned out mostly annoying.
Hello,
I was in a bit of this area sometime in the 1980s but a flea bite compared with your trip. I started out from Asyut meeting a man in my ‘hotel’ who was driving out to Farafra to see a relative and invited me along. The metalled road ran out just beyond the town and ran on to a good sandy track. I saw my first really good mirages which kept coming and there was something about the sky, what was it? Unfortunately I knew nothing of anything of particular interest, natural or historic and it would have been impossible to visit any of it at that time at least for me. Police and checkpoints? I never saw any of that until I returned to Cairo. Sorry you had to endure that.
I do remember to this day in the house of arrival the relative placed on the table a single orange. After days in the rather uniform muted colours of the Egyptian environment and after the desert ride the orange appeared to me as a unique alien object of solid gold, priceless and never to be seen again. I stared at it. No, I wasn’t stoned. I don’t remember how I got to Bahriya for the bus to Cairo only that I slept out a couple of nights near settlements on the way. I wrote nothing in those days.
So no info for present day travellers and nothing of interest but you jogged my memory a bit – thanks.
Dear Dennis, the Western Desert in the 1980s must have been a quite different experience! Both more remote and – with a more laissez-faire approach – more accessible for the adventurous … Now, there are lots of big highways going through the desert, and many Chinese tourists (at certain times of the day).
Thanks for sharing your memories!
After my first visit to Egypt two years ago, it has quickly become one of my favourite travel destinations! I would love to come back and see the Western part, including all of these spots you’ve listed on your itinerary!
Dear Michelle, make sure you go with a good operator from the area. Travelling in these parts of Egypt can be very tiresome.
I just recently got my first desert experience at AbuDhabi and now I’m smitten. I should plan my future desert trips and Egypt is very much in the pipeline. Thank you for showing a very different Egypt that the usual Cairo & Luxor. It’s good to see that the ruins of the late-pharaonic temple of Al-Ghuweita still intact. Very interesting to know about the lack of public transport and need for permit to go beyond Luxor. It would be awesome be all alone and driving in the vast empty plateau with mountains to plateaus! Wow… I need to visit here. This sounds too good & so thrilling! The sand-dunes tour at Farafra sounds awesome. Camping the middle of the desert is just so awesome and yes, I’m gonna plan my trip here soon.
Dear Busha, starting your trip from Bahariya instead of Luxor will make things a lot easier. We began from Luxor, and the logistics were definitely more complicated and frustrating that way.
When I will go back to Egypt I would like to explore the White Desert. On my first trip there I only planned for 10 days, which I’ve spent discovering Ancient Egypt. I would have loved to explore the White Desert and Siwa Oasis but after a lot of research I realised that you need at least a week in order to do it properly and not rush. This trip requires a lot of planning as well, taking in consideration that there are limited trusted travel companies that will take you there safely.
Hi Joanna, you’re so right — the White Desert and Siwa really need a dedicated trip. I also wished I had more time there; even five days felt too short. One thing to be prepared for are the constant police escorts, which can be a bit frustrating. Having a trusted local company definitely helps with all the logistics. The area itself isn’t dangerous at all — it feels more like the government wants to manage and control the flow of tourists than anything else.
The White Desert captured my attention with its incredible limestone structures and the tiny black stones. I am amazed by rock formations, so the Western Desert in Egypt is turning into my bucket list. I wonder if you had to pay the police because they offered to escort you around. Or maybe they wanted some in return.
Dear Umiko, you do not have to pay the police escort in Egypt.
I have been to Egypt decades ago with our family – visited Luxor (was the best), Aswan and Cairo. But this western desert ride you did from Luxor looks totally like a hidden gem. But having police escort and perhaps dress restrictions like a head dress will probably not be as much fun as doing by yourself. The mushroom rocks looking like umbrellas look totally awesome! I love the look of those. There’s so much history and the super tall temples in Luxor and Aswan to explore and it’s incredible how the egyptians built those without any cement or nails and they are all holding so well!
You’re so right – the temples in Luxor and Aswan are mind-blowing, and most people head to Egypt mainly for the historical sightseeing. The engineering and scale are just incredible. The desert trip from Luxor was a completely different experience though – the police escort was definitely a bit annoying and restrictive, but once you’re out there, the landscape really makes up for it.
What a unique experience! Thank you for sharing your detailed post and the wonderful photos. I salute you for being so brave and determined to explore the Western part. Having the need for a police escort is enough reason for me not to push through with a trip, but the temple of Al-Ghuweita is worth exploring so I guess I will be torn if I am going to visit or not. 🙂
The Western desert in Egypt is a picturesque place to explore with its surreal landscape. Camping under the desert sky would be quite an exciting experience and the mushroom like stone formations truly takes the experience a few notches higher . The mausoleums of El- Bagawat and the frescoes in the temple of hibis speak so much about the architecture of the past.