Tipping in Egypt, UPDATED: Do I tip in Dollars or Egyptian Pounds? Whom do I tip? How much to tip?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Tipping in Egypt is an important part of any trip, so let me help by giving exact recommendations on whom you should be tipping in Egypt, when, and how much!
1:06 Why tip in Egypt
4:15 Why I give Egypt tipping recommendations in USD $
5:38 How much to tip your Egypt tour guide
9:40 How much to tip your Egypt driver
12:38 How much to tip meet-and-assist representatives in Egypt
16:03 Do I tip at restaurants in Egypt?
18:42 Tipping on a Nile Cruise or Dahabiya
21:25 Tipping at hotels (cleaning staff and porterage)
23:48 Tipping bathroom attendants in Egypt
25:50 Do I tip Uber/taxis in Egypt?
27:38 Tipping tomb/pyramids attendants
29:59 Do I tip military/police/security?
30:52 Tipping for spa services in Egypt
31:57 Should I tip in US Dollars, or Egyptian Pounds?
33:45 Can I tip with $1 bills?
35:46 How do I get small bills in local currency for tipping?
37:05 Do I need new, crisp bills for paying cash tips?
38:45 What is the "black market"?
Blog post on tipping: egyptadventure...
Don't see your question in this video? Leave a comment below and I'll answer it!
Tour Egypt with Gus! www.egyptadven...
Egypt Adventures Travel offers:
1. Consulting on your upcoming Egypt trip (answering all your questions or building your itinerary for you)
2. Entire, customized Egypt adventures booked with our Egyptian partners
3. A customized Egypt adventure with Gus accompanying as your guide
Get in touch by heading to our website!
We can adjust our services to fit any need, travel style, or budget, while still staying true to our mission-providing you with a customized, curated, and authentic Egypt adventure.
Use any of our social media channels, our email, or website to contact us. It is never too early to start planning your Egypt adventure, even if you are not ready to travel just yet!
www.egyptadventurestravel.com
Insta: / egyptadventurestravel
Facebook: / egyptadventurestravel
Email list: Go to www.egyptadventurestravel.com and fill in the form at the bottom of the page.
So much fantastic information, I subbed immediately. Saving up for my 1st trip to Egypt, this helped so much.
Awesome! Glad it was helpful, and welcome!
Thanks for the helpful info, but I feel like tipping the driver from the airport 10 dollars is a lot.. You're already paying for the ride, and then on top of that 10 dollars, so in total 25-30 dollars... In that case we may as well be in the USA. That can't be right. Surely a tip is a percentage of the service cost, like 10%
A taxi ride that costs 350 egp should get an extra 30... Not 250 or another 350
My concern is that by getting them used to this, it'll just create an expectation that will hurt other tourists and locals too. Locals can't tip like foreigners, so they'll be ignored in favour for the foreigners.. And the foreigners who don't or can't pay that much will get bad treatment. We're not all super wealthy BTW
Gotta love your informative videos
Thanks for watching!
Wonderful information! ❤
Thank you! ❤️
Great resource, very well done good Sir! Thank you.
My pleasure!
I'm glad you spoke about how to give a tip and what to say. I've noticed that, even though tips are necessary compensation, most Egyptians want a tip as a form of gratitude and not as just something that is expected. It seems that giving someone $5 and saying, "here you go," doesn't sit well and is awkward. It works much better to give some sort of expression of thanks as you hand over the money. Thanks for the excellent model of how to give a tip!
It’s my pleasure! I’m glad you found it helpful ❤️.
Thanks for the insights. However, you should talk more about travelling solo tipping
Thanks for this feedback! The recommended amounts are similar, but I’ll note on a future video more about this. I appreciate the suggestion 🙂
@@EgyptAdventuresTravel thanks for your videos. I’ll be traveling to Egypt late October and have binge watched your videos and blog
@@juanfelipecaicedo7035 I’m glad they’re helpful! I hope you have a great trip.
Thank you so much, very valuable information
Glad it was helpful!
Great content!
Any details if we can exchange big USD denomination with smaller USD denomination currency and from where in Egypt?
Unfortunately no-unless someone is willing to give you change - but no official place
LOVE your informational videos! I go to Egypt every year and this is very helpful for me. I love Egypt so much....Luxor is my favorite city but enjoy the entire country!! Not sure if you believe in psychic mediums, but my Medium Thomas John told me that I lived in Egypt my past lives...which makes sense to me because I feel a strong connection there. :)
My pleasure! Have you read the story of Umm Seti? I think you’d find her life interesting 😎
@@EgyptAdventuresTravel Awesome, thank you!! 😊
@@imhoteppsm her story reminds me of what you talked about-she ended up living in the Abydos Temple area and believed she was the mother of the ancient Pharaoh Seti I. She was even able to direct archaeologists to dig in specific areas and they found ancient artifacts buried in those areas-really an interesting story!
@EgyptAdventuresTravel That is really amazing! I believe in past lives and spiritual enlightenment. I just wonder who I was. 😊
Gus, are your recommendations for tips for guides and drivers the same for private tours? It's going to be just me, a guide, and driver most days and I will be asking the guide to take photos and video of me from time to time. Thanks!
Hi Andy, yep, same recommendations, whether there’s just one person in the group or more. Great question! Thanks for watching.
And a heads up that the amounts I recommend, even the lowest amounts, are still considered a good tip/gratuity 👍🏼.
@@EgyptAdventuresTravel Also, it seems that if the locals prefer tips in U.S. dollars, that benefits them more, but for U.S. tourists, I would assume that giving tips in Egyptian Pounds and just paying for things in Egyptian Pounds in general, benefits us more, given the exhange rate.
@AndysAwesomeAdventures it doesn’t make much of a difference-the exchange rate is government set and the black market rate is currently around neck and neck with the official exchange rate. So if you want to tip a guide $10 for example, you’d tip them 500 Egyptian Pounds, so either way, you’re tipping them $10 equivalent. It’s up to you about what’s more convenient-would you rather pre-plan a range of what you want to do for gratuities and bring the cash so it’s easy, or do you want to get lots and lots of local currency and have trips to the ATM as you go in order to get amounts for tipping? It can also be difficult to get smaller bills than 200 or 100 EGP notes. So it’s really up to you! It’s also a great idea to ask your tour guide; they’ll be able to tell you what they prefer.
@@EgyptAdventuresTravel O.K., thanks!
@@AndysAwesomeAdventures my pleasure! And like lots of topics in travel, with tipping in Egypt, there’s not a “right” or “wrong” way to do it. I give my recommendations, but I encourage folks to continue researching and to find out whatever works for them and what they feel best doing.
If you ever want a sidekick to travel with you throughout Egypt, let me know
I'm American and live in Egypt. Ive been here since 2014 and love teaveling around Egypt.
Take care. Love your video's
Awesome! Thanks for watching!
Can I get your details
I always tip in sterling I always tip cleaners, taxi transfers to and from airport.
Person that takes us to our room, usual take £100 in 5.00 notes me and my partner always tip 5.00 per person
Thanks for sharing! Tipping in £5 notes is a great way to make sure that someone can exchange the money somewhere, and is more convenient for you, not needing to have change.
Not even the local banks in the U.S. have fresh crisp bills for traveling...I have tried
Strange--mine always does! I just have to ask them in-person.
@@EgyptAdventuresTravel perhaps that because tellers at your banks still use bank drawers to provide customers with cash. At my local banks tellers dispense cash to customers from a machine. So they have no control regarding whether the bills they give you are new, marked or wrinkled.
I'm running into trouble finding new bills too...fingers crossed that a Credit Union I have an account with will come to the rescue. Super surprising that Bank of America in the City I'm in doesn't get new bills...
@@EgyptAdventuresTravel Ya, I guess it depends the region you come from in the U.S. I tried all over the Denver metro banks, in person, and no luck
Hello brother, I am Ahmed from Egypt. Thank you very much for your videos. I know of archaeological landmarks and places that you should photograph.
My pleasure
We are on a Nile tour/cruise with one of the big river cruise companies. They say tipping is included, but is giving an additional tip to their employees customary?
If they say it’s included, I wouldn’t give additional tipping, unless someone really, really went above and beyond. Enjoy your Nile Cruise!
Those bathroom attendants need the money they get for their service. I have heard that often tips are their entire salary. Be generous. She might be struggling to feed her family. Prices of food and housing have risen like crazy and she is stuck in a stinky bathroom all day. Usually, these ppl will fold the bill and kiss it in gratitude. Thank you for this video.
My pleasure-thank you for watching!
Hi Gus, thanks for the info…very much appreciated. Mate are ATM’s readily available for withdrawing cash? A group of us (six) from Australia are headed over end of Feb to late March 2025 (Ramadan) and we’ve been told different things about the availability of ATM’s….cheers.
Hey John, ATMs are everywhere-most hotels (the international brand hotels) have one in house, banks all have one and they’re everywhere, and even in smaller cities they should be easy to find. Hope that helps! Have a great trip.
DO NOT WITHDRAW FROM ATM's!!! If you have Australian currency, go to bank and you get more favorable rates!
Seeing as Egypt desperately needs foreign currency, you can bypass the stupid bank fee those ATM charge and the unfavorable conversion rate... Just saying, win win. This way, you win more (and leave more small change for tipping). Sidenote you're heading to Egypt End of February? 😢 Clearly you're not going for the hot weather during those months it gets chilly.
@@dontlaughtoomuch11 Mate we’ll be at the tail end of an Australian summer so will forward to the change in heat…as for ATM charges, we use a ING account when travelling which refund any fees involved when doing any card transactions ( have used it all over the world). As for exchange rates…thats the price you pay for travel and in the scheme of things its not that big of a deal…Not to mention you don’t have to carry around large amounts of Australian cash. The most interesting part is we will be there in the month of Ramadan…cheers.
@@johncleaver4245 I am just trying to help you out and get you the most amount of Egyptian pounds. I find it quite bizarre John, that you're looking forward to travelling to Egypt during Ramadan? Can I ask you why, if you're not participating in the ramadan? Don't you know that people fasting get cranky and moody during Ramadan? Btw Egyptians are expecting ANOTHER currency devaluation by next year so it will be interesting to see how much you will get for your Australian dollars
@@dontlaughtoomuch11 ???…obviously you’ve never experienced Ramadan in Australia…everything comes alive in the evening. Growing up in a very multicultural part of Sydney we have experienced Ramadan here so looking forward to it…but I get it, some like the generic type travel but not us. The best travel stories/ memories come from the unexpected and “sticky situations…cheers.
Do people use digital platforms for payment like paypal, cashapp, or venmo?
Some people use digital methods like Flash, InstaPay, and Vodafone cash.
Egyptian here, why would you tip in any currency other than Egyptian pounds?
You can tip in all Egyptian Pounds for sure! Some people just prefer foreign currency, and for some guests in Egypt, it's much easier for them to tip using foreign currency, so they don't have to worry about exchanging a lot of money into Egyptian Pounds.
Plus, when a tourist is ready to leave Egypt, its almost IMPOSSIBLE to exchange Egyptian pounds back to USD or another foreign currency, so it's best for tourists to not have a lot of Egyptian Pounds in case they are stuck with them at the end of the trip.
@EgyptAdventuresTravel yeah, but if you tip a person 1 dollar it's like an entire month's salary almost.
When I tip someone like a waiter or delivery guy or whoever, like max 10 pounds.
@@Amghannam $1 USD is approximately 50 Egyptian Pounds. I’d be shocked if anyone had a monthly salary at that amount 😳
@@EgyptAdventuresTravel Yeah, I'm exaggerating, but I mean 50 pounds as tips is a lot
Where to find Egyptologist tour guides?
I connect travelers with guides who’ve been vetted by me and I trust. Otherwise any tour company will have guides they use, or you can find guides through recommendations if you know of anyone who’s been to Egypt.
If someone is generous enough to tip someone there, why should it matter if it is your currency of there's? They're lucky that you're tipping at all.
Feel free to tip in local currency 👍🏼
Important subject Gus but I cant watch a 40 minute video on tips. Having to bail after 7mins.
That’s ok! That’s why I put the blog post in the video description, most importantly with the quick cheat sheet you can skim in 2 minutes and get the gist of what you need to know. Did you find the blog post and cheat sheet?
@@EgyptAdventuresTravel Super thanks Gus, I did not see before but have now seen your cheat sheet which is very helpful. I enjoy your vids and would watch a video of this length on other subjects.
Glad the cheat sheet and blog post are helpful! Yes, I’d love to do more longer-form content on other topics. Stay tuned!