What I’m Most Looking Forward to About Taking Our Kids to Egypt
There are some family trips you book because the flights are cheap. Some because you need a break. Some because the kids have been asking for a pool. And then there are the trips that feel bigger than a holiday.
Egypt is one of those trips for us — and if a destination has been sitting on your own family’s bucket list for years, feeling exciting and slightly out of reach at the same time, you already know exactly what I mean.
It has been on our list for years, and knowing we are finally going still feels hard to put into words. We have travelled to some incredible places with our four kids, but Egypt will be unlike anywhere we’ve been before. The landscape, the history, the culture and the rhythm of daily life are completely different from anything we’ve shared as a family so far.
As the person who helped build our Egypt Worldschool Camp, I’ve spent hours going through the itinerary, researching the experiences and imagining what it will feel like to finally stand there. So if you’re wondering whether Egypt could work as your own family’s next big trip, here are the eighteen things I’m most looking forward to. I hope they help you picture your own family standing there too.
1. Experiencing Somewhere Completely New, Together
We’ve been lucky to travel to many places with our children, but Egypt feels like a genuinely new chapter. It won’t be another tropical island, another modern city or another familiar Western country. It will look different, sound different and feel different — the architecture, the desert, the markets, the language and the everyday rhythm of life.
There is something special about arriving somewhere for the first time as a family, knowing none of you has experienced it before. We’ll all be taking it in together, learning together, and turning to each other to ask, “Can you believe we’re actually here?”
2. Finally Seeing the Pyramids
Some places feel almost too big and too old to imagine, even after you’ve seen a thousand photos of them. The Pyramids are one of those.
Reaching that goal together, as a family, is going to feel incredible. I know we’ll take all the obligatory family photos, and I also know at least one child will complain about the heat or ask for a snack at the exact moment I’m trying to take it all in. Even so, I think standing there together will be one of those moments I never forget.
3. Cruising the Nile
I have heard so many wonderful things about cruising the Nile, and it is unlike anything else we’ve done as a family. I keep imagining waking early, opening the curtains in our cabin and watching villages, farms, palm trees and ancient landscapes drift past.
For thousands of years, the Nile has been at the centre of Egyptian life — people have travelled along it, farmed beside it and built entire communities around it. Floating along that same river with our children, hearing its stories and watching daily life unfold on its banks, feels like something we’ll talk about for years.
4. Hearing the Stories Behind the Stones
I want our Egyptologist to bring the temples, tombs, pharaohs and ancient beliefs to life — the family rivalries, the discoveries, the mysteries, the achievements that still leave historians asking questions today. Children often remember a story long after they’ve forgotten a list of dates.
I can already picture them pointing things out, making connections, and retelling the stories to each other and their cousins for months afterwards. Honestly, I’m looking forward to learning just as much as they are.
5. Watching the Camp I Helped Create Come to Life
Building this Worldschool Camp itinerary gave me the chance to put my homeschool-mum hat on and think about what I would want if we were travelling all the way to Egypt as a family — not just the famous sites, but how the whole experience would feel. I wanted hands-on activities, history explained in a way that actually lands with kids, and a pace that let families enjoy the experience without carrying the mental load of planning every detail.
Now I’m looking forward to stepping into this itinerary not only as the person who helped build it, but as a mum experiencing it alongside my own family.
6. Visiting the Grand Egyptian Museum
I had a small taste of what this might feel like when some of Egypt’s ancient artefacts toured Canberra, and even that limited exhibition was incredible — the workmanship and detail up close made everything feel so much more real.
That was only a small collection, so the thought of seeing so many of Egypt’s most significant artefacts together at the Grand Egyptian Museum is almost overwhelming. I’m especially curious to see how the children react. Reading that something is old is one thing; standing close enough to imagine the hands that shaped it thousands of years ago is something else entirely.
7. Floating Above Luxor at Sunrise
There is something almost unreal about the idea of floating over Luxor in a hot air balloon at sunrise, looking down on places connected to thousands of years of history. It’s now firmly on the list for our own family’s Egypt Worldschool Camp experience.
8. Watching the Children Make New Friends
This is something I never get tired of. Across every Worldschool Camp we host, one of my favourite parts is watching friendships form. At first, kids might stay close to their parents or quietly work out who they connect with. Before long, they’re choosing seats beside each other, sharing jokes and making plans for the next activity.
By the end of the trip, it can feel as though they’ve known each other for years — and the friendships often continue well after everyone goes home, through messages, social media and hopes of meeting again at another camp somewhere in the world. For Hannah especially, as she gets older, having other young people to share these experiences with makes such a difference. She isn’t simply travelling with her parents and younger siblings; she’s building friendships of her own.
9. Seeing Egypt Through Each of Their Eyes
With four children of different ages and personalities, I know they’ll each experience Egypt differently. One might notice a tiny carved symbol on a wall while we’re admiring the view. Another might be more interested in talking with a local child than in the landmark in front of them.
One might be fascinated by the tombs, another by the food, another by the boats, and another might remember a single conversation more than any famous site. Seeing a destination through their eyes often changes the way we experience it too.
10. Watching Their School Learning Become Real
Like so many kids, ours have come across Ancient Egypt in books, documentaries and conversations. They know about pyramids, mummies, pharaohs and hieroglyphics — but knowing something exists and standing in front of it are two very different things.
I’m looking forward to watching those pieces connect: realising how large a temple really is, understanding the distance between the Nile and the desert, looking at hieroglyphics carved into stone rather than printed on a worksheet, and walking into places that have survived for thousands of years. It’s learning, but not in a forced or classroom-style way. It simply becomes part of the family experience.
11. Trying Egyptian Food Together
Food is always such a memorable part of travelling for us. We don’t eat out often, so when we do it feels like an occasion — and often becomes a story we retell for years, mostly because nobody quite knew what they’d ordered.
I’m looking forward to trying traditional Egyptian food together and watching the kids decide what they love and what they absolutely do not. Having meals included also gives them more freedom to try new things, without the pressure that comes when you’ve paid for six separate restaurant meals and a child takes one bite and refuses the rest. With shared, included meals, there’s less pressure — they can try something unfamiliar while still having other options nearby. I suspect there will be a few unexpected favourites.
12. Experiencing the Markets
Egyptian markets look completely different from the shopping centres and supermarkets our kids are used to. They’re full of colour, movement, noise and personality — spices, lamps, fabrics, souvenirs and shopkeepers ready to bargain.
I don’t usually enjoy markets much myself, but I’m looking forward to experiencing this one as a family, even though I’ll probably spend half the time counting heads and reminding someone not to touch everything they see. I think the kids will enjoy choosing a souvenir and discovering that shopping works very differently in another country. It’s one of those everyday cultural moments that teaches them just as much as a historical site.
13. Seeing the Valley of the Kings
The idea that tombs were hidden in the mountains, filled with artwork and built as resting places for ancient rulers, is extraordinary. I’m looking forward to walking into those tombs and seeing colours and carvings that have survived for thousands of years.
I think this is where the children will really understand that Ancient Egypt wasn’t simply a story or a unit of study — these were real people, with families, beliefs, fears and hopes for what came after death. Standing in those spaces will give us a completely different understanding of their world.
14. Seeing Everyday Life Alongside the Famous Sites
The pyramids and temples will be major highlights, of course. But I’m also looking forward to the ordinary moments that happen alongside them — the parts of a trip that rarely make the postcards but often make the memories.
15. The Dinner-Table Debriefs
Some of the best parts of travelling happen at the end of the day, and in the weeks that follow. Everyone is tired, we sit down for dinner, and the stories start: someone repeats something the guide said, someone else brings up the funniest moment, and we compare favourite parts of the day.
Retelling these stories together helps them settle into family memory. I’m looking forward to hearing which places impressed them, what surprised them, and what questions they still have — conversations that will probably continue long after the trip is over.
16. Having Photos That Actually Mean Something
We’ll take hundreds of photos. Probably thousands. But the ones I’m most looking forward to aren’t only the posed ones — they’re the photos of the kids listening to a story, laughing with new friends, looking completely amazed, falling asleep on the bus after a long day, trying something new, standing together somewhere we once only dreamed of visiting. Those are the photographs that mean the most.
17. Being Present, Not Managing
Travelling with a well-planned itinerary means I’m not spending every evening working out what we’re doing the next day. I can be present with my family instead — listening to the guide, enjoying the meals, talking with other parents, watching the kids make friends, and actually experiencing Egypt rather than managing it.
18. Achieving a Family Dream Together
This is probably what I’m looking forward to most. There’s something powerful about setting a family goal and eventually reaching it. For years, Egypt has felt far away, complicated, expensive — one of those places we’d love to visit “one day.” Now that day is becoming real.
Our children will grow up knowing that together, as a family, we stood in front of the pyramids, sailed down the Nile and experienced one of the most extraordinary destinations in the world. I hope they remember the history, the people, the friendships and the places we visited. But more than anything, I hope they remember how it felt to do it together.
If a trip like this has been sitting on your own family’s “one day” list, I hope our story is a small nudge to start turning it into a “this year.”
