Giza Pyramids: Guided tour or self-guided?

Giza Pyramids: Guided tour or self-guided to Giza Pyramids? That’s the first question that comes to our mind when we think about visiting these imposing structures seeped in history. Egypt is not known to be a very tourist friendly country. The images of hawkers trying to lure you, guides behind you, shopkeepers trying to sell their wares to you, an unknown language and to top it all the hot scorching sun – everything that points you to a feeling that a guided tour may be better. But wait a minute… Guided Tour of Giza Pyramid, the guides charge exhorbitantly for something you could have done in half the money and some amount of reading, they take you to all these shops that you don’t even want to buy anything from in the first place, tell you fables and stories instead of telling you the actual history and facts about the place and lastly they tell you where to go and where not based on what suits them and not what is in a tourist’s best interests.
So if the scales are tilted equally on both sides, what would be your answer: Guided tour or self-guided to Giza Pyramids?
The following three considerations or questions, will help you decide whether you should take a guided tour or self-guided to giza pyramids. For the sake of simplicity, I’m bucketing both the first and second option together into a guided tour.

The first question is what all do you want to do – Pyramids or Pyramids ++ (Solar boat museum, Memphis, Sphinx etc). Also Do you want to do Pyramids at only Giza or the ones at Sakkara and/or Dahsur too?

Did I just hear you say, there are more pyramids near Cairo apart from Giza? Or Why should I visit the other ones that most of the tourists don’t go to anyways?

Let’s get into the second question first: First of all, there are three pyramids in the Great Pyramids of Giza complex – The biggest one of Khofu (father), middle one of Kafra (Son) and the smallest one, the Pyramid of Menkaure (the grandson). Within this complex is also the Sphinx which stands guard to the pyramid of Kafra and is the only one with the 2 temples – that of mummification and of funeral rites connected with the ascending staircase. Read more about the Pyramids complex of Giza in this post.

The great pyramids of Giza are the most famous, being the oldest seven wonders of the world. Being the tallest pyramids, they are also a sight to behold. What one wonders about is how on earth, could these people build these ginormous structures 3000yrs ago. Without any modern construction equipment, large cranes or evolved science (as we believe modern science is probably more evolved than yesteryears). Although this thought gets challenged when you look at the structures Egyptians created in those days and I’m not talking about the Pyramids only.

Coming back to the question, is Guided tour to Giza pyramids needed? May be. You can easily get an uber or a careem to take you to these pyramids and get you back too. Or you could just hire a car with a driver and do these by yourself. There is nothing much in them as these pyramids are empty from inside. The mummies and the sarcophagus have been moved to the Egyptian museum. There are no hieroglyphic inscriptions or paintings inside these tombs and pyramid. You need some kind of a transport to go to the other pyramids and then to the panoramic view point where you can see all the three pyramids together. So a guide is absolutely not needed as you can read up some and go visit these pyramids. All you need is a driver with a car.

If you are keen on doing the pyramids of Sakkara and Dahsur too, typically tour companies will cover these in a so called full day tour (6hrs) and a guided tour to Giza pyramids is recommended. During this time they will also take you to papyrus institute, a carpet factory and a place where they make secret and special oils (which were supposedly used by the last Egyptian Queen, Queen Cleopatra).

These pyramids have a lot more to see (paintings and inscriptions inside the pyramid and tombs) and a good guide could be very helpful if he shows you everything that is worth seeing instead of you referring to a guide book. Most of these places don’t have an audio guide either.

Guided tour of Giza Pyramids or self-guided…
Whats your travel style: Visit and click pictures or Nerdy history and intricate details

For the visit and click pictures, you’ll be wasting your money on a half day or full day guided tour to Giza pyramids. Just rent a car with a local driver, who can understand English, and ask him to take you to the Giza pyramids and back. You could even take him to Sakkara and Dahsur and click pictures from the inside and get back to your hotel by afternoon. You can take a look here to see what’s inside the Saqqara pyramids.

Are you by yourself or in a group?

Opting for a private guided tour of Giza Pyramids could be very expensive as they typically charge on a per head basis. In this case you can look up group tours instead of private tours as it may end up being semi private for you if you have a big group. Otherwise, just plan to hire a bigger vehicle with a driver as in big groups typically not everyone may be interested in the history but surely everyone wants to see it and get some of the customary pics done.

Bonus Question: Planned or last minute?

If this was a trip you had not planned for and is a very last minute, don’t think twice and take a guided tour if finding a rental car with driver is proving to be a challenge. If you manage to get a good guide, he could even recommend you how to make the most of your time in Cairo.

My experience

Emo Tours: Private guided full day tour to Giza pyramid Complex, Sakkara and Memphis. (USD 90) including water, snacks and lunch; booked through Viator.

I was here on a business trip and till the last working day, I had almost no time to plan and book my trip. I wanted to do some research before booking it and that delayed me. I wanted to get a cabbie with the car to drive me around but was unable to manage it in the last minute. I finally ended up booking my full day tour which was to start from 8am next morning, at 10pm in the night. I did not manage to get a full day tour that included Dahsur although that’s the one I had wanted. Obviously, I didn’t have much choice in the operators as the most value for money ones get booked much earlier. Also, while the guide I got was good, he wasn’t as knowledgeable as I would have like him to be. May be it was Ramadan effect that he would not remember to tell me a lot of bits. I would read it up from my research or from the boards on the place and he would relate to me the whole story. Other times he would not even know it. He suggested to go to the Papyrus institute and the sacred oils place. I wanted to buy some papyrus paintings so I was happy to go there but I refused to go to the Sacred oils place.

In the name of lunch he bought an Egyptian bread sandwich with foul medammes and some falafels from a street vendor which I wasn’t even sure of eating due to hygiene.

On my request he dropped me to the Egyptian museum instead of my hotel, as I only had one day and wanted to do both the pyramids and the Egyptian museum. Due to the Ramadan timings, the Egyptian museum closed at 3pm. If your situation is similar to mine, check out this link to make the most of your weekend in Cairo.

Viator or Tripadvisor: I got the same operators for the full day tour I was looking for but that may not be the case if you start looking a little earlier and finalize. On other trips and other situations, we have used both Tripadvisor and Viator and both have worked phenomenally well for us.