What exactly is Abu Simbel?

Abu Simbel is one of the most famous temples in all of Egypt, situated in the town with the same name on the shores of Lake Nasser. The two temples, cut into the solid rock cliff are famous for their distinct facades and were constructed under the reign of Ramses II. The site consists of the Great Temple in honor of Ra-Horakty, Ptah and the deified Ramses II and the Small Temple in honor of Hathor and Queen Nefertari. Additionally there is a small museum area explaing the history in more depth. As I am not an Egyptologist, I can recommend you read more about the area on the official website. The recent history of these ancient sites is especially interesting though, as due to the flooding of Lake Nasser in the 1960s, the entire monument was moved from it’s original location 180 meters to the west and 64 meters further up, to keep it from disappearing under the waves. For that reason, the site is situated on an island within the lake with views of the blue waters and the desolate coastline on the opposing shoreline.

Planning a visit to Abu Simbel

Visits to Abu Simbel are usually combined with a visit to Aswan. Usually, people spend one or two days in the city itself visiting other sites such as the Philae Temple, the Unfinished Obelisk or the Assuan High Dam and visit Abu Simbel on one of the days.

Crucially, Aswan is more than 240 kilometers away from Abu Simbel, which means, that reaching the temples is not a walk in the park. You are in for a long day-trip. You can also split the journey up and spend a night in the town of Abu Simbel, but accomodation there is not cheap and most people choose the first option. If you want to know more about transportation in southern Egypt, read my guide on travelling between Luxor and Aswan.

Transportation Options

Public Bus

Well, there is a public bus, but this comes with a caveat. The bus leaves Aswan early in the morning at 7 or 8 am. Be there a bit earlier to buy your ticket and find the bus. Online tickets are not available. The bus leaves from Aswan Bus Station. The tickets are really cheap and only cost a couple euros. It will take you with all other travellers, which are mostly locals, to Abu Simbel, but stops in the town itself, so you will have to hail a TukTuk to reach the temples.

The downside to taking the bus is the schedule. It leaves once in the early morning and turns around in Abu Simbel to drive back to Aswan only 30 minutes after it arrived. If you are visiting the temples you will thus have no chance of reaching it in time. The solution here is either to stay the night in Aswan or try to take one of the minivans that leave Abu Simbel once they are full. Just ask your TukTuk driver to take you to the location, where they depart.

Be aware though, where these minivans will take you. As our driver told us, some of them are going to Aswan and drop you off in the city center, while others only go until Karkar bus station, which sits roughly 28 kilometers west of the city itself and is the main bus station if you want to travel between Egypt and Sudan. If you arrive here, you will have to pay for an extra transport to Aswan. I cannot summarize, what all of this would cost, but my guess from other rides through Egypt is that bus + tuktuk + minivan would set you back 15 to 25€ if you negotiate well.

Group Tour

This is the „tourist option“, that most other travellers will choose. Every hotel and hostel offers it and every tour agency will want to set you up with this. You will be picked up in a minivan at around 3:30 am at either your hotel or the ferry terminal and taken with other tourists to Abu Simbel. You will arrive there at around 8 and have 2 hours to explore before heading back to Aswan.

Most other travellers we met had chosen this option, but told us that the entire itinerary is pretty hard on yourself. Not only do you have to wake up extremely early in the morning, you also have only 2 hours actually at the site before the minivans turns around. As we took more than 3 hours to truly see everything I cannot imagine this to be enough time without rushing yourself.

The price of this group tour sat at around 1700 EGP per person as of April 2026, which was around 27€ at the time. I would only consider this option, if you are travelling alone. With more than one person paying for that private driver is probably the more comfortable option at only a small upcharge.

Private Driver

This is the option, that we chose. There are many organizers, some more formal than others, who offer to take you to Abu Simbel and back in a private car. Usually, I would not recommend this option in most other countries, but in Egypt, this is a different story. Due to the extremely low fuel costs, you are mainly paying the driver for their time and not the car itself. We paid 70€ for the entire thing. This included being picked up at the ferry point (our hostel was on île Éléphantine) in a climatized and modern car, that was to our disposal for the entire day. If you book the car online prices can be way higher, but I would recommend to just ask around different hotels and agencies in Aswan, while you are there. That way you will get the best deal. We booked the car through this number: +201142006248. He has WhattsApp and is the owner of a hostel on the island.

This option has the advantage, that you are not forced to wake up at 3 in the morning. We had ourselves picked up at 8am, with some more time to spare to get breakfast on our way out into the desert. This alone made the trip so much better, as we were able to enjoy Abu Simbel without a rough night right beforehand. Another bonus is of course, that not a lot of people were around anymore, as the group tours had already left, once we arrived in Abu Simbel around 12 pm. We spent roughly 3:30 hours at the site. The area is massive and includes not only the temples but a museum and several lookout points over the lake so it takes quite a while to see everything. We returned to Aswan at roughly 6:30 pm and had ourselves dropped off at this nice restaurant for dinner, which I can really recommend.

If you do the math, taking a private car is not that expensive anymore, when you share it with multiple people. You only need three people to break the price down to 27€ per person matching the group tour prices. With a 4th person, you’ll get it for even less. I can thus highly recommend choosing this option and banding together with other travellers.

Airplane

The most luxurious option, yet the also most expensive is to simply fly from Aswan to Abu Simbel. As of summer 2026, there are 3 flights daily. You can check the schedule easily on this website. If you take the first flight out in the morning, you will arrive in Abu Simbel at 9am and have enough time to visit the entire city before returning to Aswan on the 2:30 pm flight. Airport checks in Egypt are very fast on flights within Egypt, so you will not have to arrive hours before your departure making this itinerary possible. Return tickets cost between 220 – 300€ per person, which is an absurd price compared to the other options. I would only recommend this, if money is no issue for you at all.

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