Egypt convoy questions..?
 

We're doing a fly in/out trip to Egypt next month and renting a vehicle to drive around. We've found a fair amount of info on the convoys between cairo/luxor, but wanted to then go Luxor-Marsa Alam, then drive back up the Red Sea coast to Cairo.

From what we've been able to figure out, the only "permitted" route from Luxor to Marsa Alam is the convoy from Luxor to Safaga, then the coastal road south. Does anyone know whether this is right, or whether it is possible to go south from Luxor to Edfu and then over to the coast (either with or without convoy)?

Second, does anyone know whether the (Red Sea) coastal road back up from Marsa Alam to Cairo officially requires a convoy, or whether it's free travel the whole way?

Thanks in advance!

Another poster recently said there are no more convoys along the Nile, just lots of checkpoints.
Rea Sea coast - don't know but probably the same.

I was avoiding answering as we didn't take that route:'we talked about going to Marsa Alam, but it was too much of a detour for our trip.

The route is well sign-posted and we didn't see any checkpoints nearby. I would almost hope the road is clear, as the friendly hotel owner in Abu simbel didn't give us any other information otherwise.

Red Sea coastal road: like Chris, don't know but doubt it.

We drove Cairo-Luxor-AlQusayr a few years ago, then up along the coast to Suez and across the peninsula to Mt Sinai. When we did it (though check with others for more up-to-date info!!), the road down to Luxor had lots of checkpoints, and at each they tried to insist on sending a guide along and we talked them out of it (full car :-)). However, we weren't able to talk our way out of an "escort" across the desert from Luxor to AlQusayr - apparently (at least at that point) they were most worried about tourists breaking down, getting stranded and dying in the desert, because (again, at that point) the road didn't have much traffic. That being said, the rest stop halfway from Luxor to AlQusayr (brand new) had 35 restroom stalls, so clearly they were expecting increased traffic. (In the end, however, the "escort" was in his own vehicle and drove more slowly than we did, and we simply left him behind.)

There were no checkpoints on the red sea road up to Suez. There were a couple down near the camel market on the Sudan border, as you'd expect ...

Again, though, the info above is a couple of years old.

Sorry, correction - went back and checked, and our route actually did take us down to edfu and then over to marsa alam, rather than across from Luxor. That was the road with the big (and at that point empty) new rest stop in the middle of the desert.

On the coastal road Marsa Alam - Hurghada etc there is a discreet military presence where they are prepared in case of an alert. But no roadblocks last year.

Current FO advise is no travel in the Sinai region . You do not hear about most of the incidents that occur in that area , there are lots . My partner who works in a dept that is aware of such incidents raised her eyebrows when I mentioned this post and said that it was a bad idea and then carried on reading the paper....... That's generally code for I can't tell u why but dont go there
That said u r an adult and its ur choice but ur travel insurance may b void......best of luck

I think the OP was asking about 'mainland' Egypt which is all green according to current FCO travel advice.
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/egypt