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Trip 1 · Spring 2027

Egypt + Petra, Jordan

Six worlds in one country, and a long chapter living by the sea in Sinai. Then, by ferry and desert road, three days in Petra.

  • 27 March – 22 April 2027
  • 26 nights · 27 days
  • 8–16 guests
  • from €6,900 per person
Apply for a place The route

The journey

Radically different sides of one country, then a home by the sea.

Egypt is not one place. It is a coral coast, a black-earth river valley, the largest desert on earth, and a city of twenty million, and each one changes the way you sleep and eat and move. This journey takes them in turn - slowly enough to live in each - and then stops moving for nearly two weeks in Dahab, where the sea is at the end of the street.

We open softly at the Red Sea, where the group lands, meets, and gets into the water before anyone has to think. Then the Nile: Nubian Aswan, the temples of Abu Simbel, three nights on a dahabiya sailing north under canvas, and the west bank of Luxor with its painted tombs. A flight carries us over the sea to Sinai, and Dahab becomes home - one room, one bed, for thirteen nights, with mornings on the mat and afternoons that are yours. From there we go out and come back: a night at a Bedouin camp with a sauna under the stars, a night climb to the summit of Mount Sinai for the sunrise, and three days across the water in Petra with small bags on our backs while the big ones wait in the room. Cairo is the last chapter: the pyramids, the old city, one final dinner, and the noise of a city that has been there for a thousand years.

The dates are fixed. The order of the first two weeks may shift a little around sailing schedules and ferries; the shape does not.

The route, in nights

  • Marsa Alam, the Red Sea3 nights
  • Aswan and Abu Simbel3 nights
  • The Nile, under sail3 nights
  • Luxor2 nights
  • Dahab, Sinai - home10 nights
  • St Catherine and Mount Sinai1 night
  • Petra, Jordan2 nights
  • Cairo2 nights
  • 26 nights · 27 days27 Mar – 22 Apr 2027
  • Group8 to 16 guests
  • Pricefrom €6,900 per person
  • Deposit€900 holds a place
  • FitnessA swimmer. A walker. That is all.

The chapters

Nine chapters. Not a checklist.

Each stop is long enough to stop being a stop. What the days hold, chapter by chapter - with the mornings, the free afternoons and the dinners that run through all of them.

The Red Sea coast at Marsa Alam.
Marsa Alam3 nights · 27–30 March

A soft opening at the sea

We land where the desert meets a coral coast, and the first days ask nothing of you. Sleep late. Swim out over the reef. Meet the fifteen people you will spend a month with over a long dinner, and let the first morning practice find you rather than the other way round. There is a good chance of dolphins at a bay nearby; we go out to them on the second day.

  • Snorkelling straight off the beach
  • A boat morning to the dolphins
  • First yoga and breathwork
  • Long group dinners
  • Rest
A Nubian village on the Nile at Aswan.
Aswan3 nights · 30 Mar – 2 Apr

Nubian Egypt

Four hours by road from the coast, the Nile appears: green, slow, lined with palms and painted houses. We stay among the Nubian villages of the west bank, cross to Philae by boat, eat what the families cook, and take a felucca out at dusk. One day starts before dawn for Abu Simbel, three hours south, where Ramses built himself into a cliff.

  • Nubian villages and food
  • Philae temple by boat
  • Abu Simbel, a full day
  • A felucca at sunset
  • Yoga on the roof
A dahabiya under sail on the Nile.
The Nile3 nights · 2–5 April

Three days under sail

A dahabiya is a two-masted sailing boat with a handful of cabins and a deck the length of the boat. Ours is ours alone. We sail north from Aswan the way people did before engines, tie up at islands and small temples the cruise ships cannot reach, and let the river set the pace. Meditation on the deck at first light. Nothing to organise, nowhere to be.

  • A private dahabiya, Aswan to Esna
  • Kom Ombo and Edfu
  • Swimming from the boat
  • Breathwork on deck
  • Every meal on board
The Valley of the Kings at Luxor.
Luxor2 nights · 5–7 April

The painted tombs

Luxor holds the densest concentration of ancient sites anywhere, and we do not try to see it all. Two mornings on the west bank: the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, the colours still on the walls after three thousand years. The afternoons are quiet. Then a flight over the Red Sea to Sinai.

  • Valley of the Kings
  • Valley of the Queens
  • A guide who tells it from the inside
  • Free afternoons
The Blue Hole at Dahab from the shore.
Dahab13 nights · 7–20 April

Home

Dahab is a small town on the Gulf of Aqaba where the mountains come down to the water and the reef starts a few metres out. For thirteen nights it is home: the same room, the same café, the same walk to the sea. Mornings start on the mat, for those who want them. Days are snorkelling at the Blue Hole and the Three Pools, an introduction to freediving with a licensed school, a bicycle ride to a lagoon Lisa knows and the maps do not, a boat and camel day to Ras Abu Galum, and afternoons doing very little. Evenings are dinners by the water and, some nights, a fire and music on the beach. From here we go out three times - to the Bedouin camp, to Mount Sinai, to Petra - and come back to the same bed.

  • Morning yoga, breathwork, meditation, mobility
  • The Blue Hole and the Three Pools
  • Introduction to freediving
  • Optional scuba with licensed professionals
  • Cycling to the lagoon
  • Ras Abu Galum by boat and camel
  • Beach days, free afternoons
  • Bonfire and music nights
A Bedouin camp in the Sinai desert at dusk.
The Bedouin campAn evening · from Dahab

Sauna under the stars

A Bedouin family we trust runs a camp in the desert an hour from Dahab, with a yoga shala and a wood sauna. We arrive in the afternoon, practise as the light goes, sit in the heat and walk out into the cold dark, eat what they cook over the fire, and drive back to our own beds late. It is the evening people talk about a year later.

  • Group practice at sunset
  • Sauna
  • Bedouin dinner
  • Time together
The summit of Mount Sinai at sunrise.
Mount Sinai1 night · St Catherine

Up in the dark, down in the light

Breakfast in Dahab, then two hours by private transport up to St Catherine, 1,600 metres above the sea. We eat, sleep a few hours at the camp, and start walking around two in the morning with a Bedouin guide, by torchlight, up the mountain where Moses is said to have received the law. The summit at 2,285 metres for the sunrise. Then down for breakfast, and a slow afternoon back in Dahab. Small bags only; the rest stays in your room.

  • The night climb, with a guide
  • Sunrise on the summit
  • St Catherine's monastery
  • A recovery afternoon after

St Catherine sits at the edge of the areas foreign offices advise against. We read the advice the week before and, if it has changed, this night becomes a second night in the desert camp.

The Treasury at Petra, seen from the Siq.
Petra2 nights · Jordan

Three days in a carved city

Up the coast to Nuweiba, the ferry across the gulf to Aqaba, and a private transfer through the desert to Wadi Musa. Petra deserves time, so we give it a two-day ticket: the Siq and the Treasury on the first evening when the crowds have gone, the long climb to the Monastery the next morning, and the high places in the afternoon. Small backpacks only. Back the same way, to Dahab.

  • Ferry Nuweiba to Aqaba
  • A two-day Petra ticket
  • The Monastery, on foot
  • Main luggage stays in Dahab
The pyramids of Giza.
Cairo2 nights · 20–22 April

The loud, brilliant end

After two weeks of sea and silence, Cairo is a shock, and that is the point. The pyramids and the Sphinx at opening time, the alleys of the old city and the great bazaar, a boat on the Nile at dusk with the city lit up on both banks, and the last dinner together. The next morning everyone flies home from the same airport.

  • Giza and the Sphinx
  • The old city and the bazaar
  • A Nile boat at dusk
  • The final dinner

The rhythm

What a day looks like

The itinerary is a strong shape with room inside it. Nobody is counted in the morning. Nobody is left behind either.

Who this journey is for

You do not have to be a diver, a yogi or an athlete.

You have to be a swimmer, willing to walk, and willing to be somewhere unfamiliar with people you have not met. Open the ones that sound like you.

You want to be somewhere completely different for a while

Four weeks is long enough for the routine to let go of you. By the second week in Dahab you will have a café, a swim, a walk, and no idea what day it is. That is the idea.

You like to move

Swimming over reefs, cycling in the desert, climbing a mountain at night, a long day on your feet in Petra. None of it needs training. All of it is better if you are reasonably fit and say yes.

You want company without a crowd

Eight to sixteen people, the same ones, for a month. Meals, boats and long drives do what team-building never can. You will also have a room of your own if you choose one, and afternoons to yourself.

You practise, or you are curious

Yoga, breathwork and meditation run every morning for anyone who wants them, from beginners to teachers. Nobody is checked. They support the places; they never replace them.

You are not sure you are fit enough

If you can swim a few hundred metres in calm water and walk for a few hours with breaks, you are fit enough. The mountain is the hardest day and the most optional one. Write to us if you are unsure - we would rather talk it through than have you guess.

The price

One price. Everything in it.

The price covers the whole 26 nights - every stay, every transfer, the boat, the ferry, the flights inside the journey, the guides, the entries, and most meals. You arrive with a bag and a passport.

Included

  • All 26 nights: hotels, the dahabiya, the desert camp
  • Every transfer inside the journey, the domestic flights and the ferry to Jordan
  • Breakfast and dinner every day; all meals on the boat and on excursion days
  • Local guides and all entries at the sites in the chapters, the two-day Petra ticket included
  • Morning yoga, breathwork and meditation with Lisa and Balder
  • Snorkelling gear, the freediving introduction, the Bedouin evening, the Mount Sinai guide
  • Lisa and Balder with you for all 27 days

Not included

  • International flights to Marsa Alam and home from Cairo
  • Visas: the Egyptian e-visa, about USD 25, and the Jordanian entry at Aqaba
  • Travel and medical insurance, which is required
  • Lunches on free days, drinks, tips
  • Scuba dives and courses, and anything else you add on your own

A deposit of €900 holds your place. The balance is due 90 days before departure, on 27 December 2026. Nothing is charged until the journey is confirmed with at least eight guests, and if it is not, the deposit comes back in full. The terms say the rest, in plain words.

Why Egypt

Because it is enormous, and nobody sees that on a week's holiday.

Most people who go to Egypt see a pyramid, a temple and a hotel pool, and come home with an opinion. The country that opinion is about is the size of Spain and France together, and its parts do not resemble each other at all. The Red Sea coast is a desert that falls into a coral reef. The Nile valley is a strip of black earth so narrow you can see both edges of it from the boat. Sinai is a mountain range that happens to have a sea on both sides. Cairo is a civilisation with the volume turned up.

We wanted a journey long enough to let those places be different, and slow enough that one of them could become ordinary. That is why Dahab gets thirteen nights and Luxor gets two. You do not need a fortnight to see the Valley of the Kings. You do need a fortnight to stop being a visitor somewhere, and Dahab, with its mountains and its reef and its slow cafés, is the easiest place we know to do that.

And then Petra, because from Dahab it is a ferry and a desert road away, and because a city carved out of a canyon should be walked into slowly, in the evening, when the day-trippers have gone.

Lisa and BalderOsmia Trips

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