The hook
The gentle, Nubian-flavoured southern end of the Nile, where you sail feluccas between granite islands, and, further south, four colossal seated statues guard temples that were sawn apart and lifted to higher ground to save them from a rising lake.
01Why it's worth it
Aswan is Egypt at its most relaxed, a warm river town where the Nile is at its most beautiful, sliding past golden dunes and black granite boulders, dotted with islands and the colourful villages of the Nubian people whose homeland this is. You sail it by felucca, visit the graceful island temple of Philae, and feel the pace drop. The unmissable trip is south to Abu Simbel, where Ramesses II carved two temples into a cliff, fronted by four gigantic seated statues of himself, aligned so that twice a year the rising sun reaches the inner sanctuary. When the Aswan High Dam threatened to drown them under Lake Nasser in the 1960s, the entire complex was cut into blocks and reassembled on higher ground, one of the great feats of archaeological rescue. Together, laid-back Aswan and monumental Abu Simbel make a rich southern finale.
02How to experience it
Sail a felucca around Aswan's islands at sunset and see Philae temple, ideally by boat. Make the early trip to Abu Simbel by road convoy or a short flight, and marvel as much at the rescue and relocation as at the temples. Aswan is also the usual start or end of a Nile cruise up to Luxor.
From the locals
Aswan is the stop travellers wish they had given longer: "I would take a day from Cairo and add it to Aswan," one wrote after building an itinerary. "Aswan was my favourite city in Egypt — also the most expensive, and book accommodation in advance in my opinion." The wider steer is to front-load Cairo's museum and Giza, then slow down as you move south.