The first time I stood in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza, I did something I almost never do on research trips: I went completely silent. Not thoughtful-pause silent. Not Instagram-caption-composing silent. The kind of silent where your brain stops narrating your experience and your body just... receives.
I've been back four times since. Each visit reveals something the previous one missed. And I'm going again, because Egypt is not a destination you check off a list. It's a conversation that deepens every time you return.
The First Time: Awe
My first trip to Egypt was in 2019, before I'd formally launched Caviar in the Air. I went as a traveler, not as a business owner scouting experiences. And what I found shattered every preconception I'd carried from history textbooks and Hollywood films.
The pyramids are bigger than you think. I know everyone says this, and I know you think you understand what "bigger" means. You don't. Standing at the base of the Great Pyramid, touching stones that were placed with mathematical precision 4,500 years ago, you feel the full weight of human capability. Not ancient capability. Human capability. Our ancestors built this. Let that settle in your bones.
But here's what nobody told me: the pyramids aren't even the most impressive thing in Egypt.
The Second Time: Depth
I returned in 2020 to scout the Nile cruise that would become part of our Egypt Experience. This time, I went south—to Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, Karnak Temple. And this is where Egypt broke me open.
Karnak Temple at sunrise is one of the most powerful places I've ever stood. The hypostyle hall—134 columns, each nearly 70 feet tall, covered in hieroglyphs that have survived 3,000 years of weather, war, and human indifference—makes every modern achievement feel temporary. And it should. Because the people who built Karnak understood something we've forgotten: that the things worth building are the things that outlast you.
Walking through the Valley of the Kings, descending into tombs painted with vivid murals that look like they were completed yesterday, I found myself doing something unexpected: I was grieving. Grieving for the knowledge that was lost. Grieving for the narrative that was stolen—the lie that Africa contributed nothing to civilization, contradicted by every painted wall and carved column surrounding me.
At Caviar in the Air, we bring our travelers to these spaces not as tourists but as witnesses. Because bearing witness to what your ancestors built is not optional education. It's necessary medicine.
The Third Time: The Nile
The Nile cruise changed everything. I've written about this separately because it deserves its own space, but here's the short version: sailing the Nile is not a boat ride. It's a time machine.
You're floating on the same water that sustained one of humanity's greatest civilizations. The banks look almost exactly as they did in ancient paintings—farmers tending fields, children playing by the water, donkeys carrying goods along dirt paths. The temples appear around every bend, each one more extraordinary than the last.
I sat on the deck of our dahabiya (a traditional sailing vessel, far superior to the large cruise ships) watching the sunset turn the Nile into liquid gold, and I understood why every civilization in history fought to control this river. It's not just water. It's life itself.
The Fourth and Fifth Times: Home
By my fourth trip, Egypt felt like home. Not in the way Ghana feels like home—with its emotional homecoming energy. Egypt feels like home the way a library feels like home to a scholar. It's where the knowledge lives. It's where you go to remember what humanity is capable of when it builds with intention, beauty, and permanence.
The fifth trip was with our first Caviar in the Air group, and watching our travelers experience Egypt for the first time—watching a corporate attorney from Atlanta touch the wall of a 3,000-year-old tomb and whisper "we built this"—confirmed everything I'd felt on my solo trips. Egypt is mandatory. Especially for Black travelers.
Why Egypt Matters for Black Travelers
I need to be direct about this, because it's the reason I keep going back: Egypt is the antidote to the lie.
The lie that Africa is a continent without history. The lie that civilization began in Europe. The lie that Black people were only ever enslaved, colonized, and oppressed. Egypt—ancient Kemet—is proof that we were architects, astronomers, mathematicians, engineers, artists, and philosophers when Europe was still in its infancy.
Standing in front of the Sphinx, sailing the Nile, walking through temples that align with astronomical precision, you don't just learn this intellectually. You feel it in your body. And that feeling—that bone-deep knowledge of what your people built—is worth every hour of the flight.
Why I'm Going Again
Because Egypt keeps revealing itself. Because the Grand Egyptian Museum is now open, housing the largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts in the world. Because every trip teaches me something new about the relationship between power, beauty, and permanence. And because our travelers deserve to stand where pharaohs stood and know—not believe, know—that greatness is their inheritance.
Our Egypt Experience is one of our most requested trips. If Egypt is calling you, answer.
Claire B. Soares is a 5X Condé Nast Top Travel Specialist and the founder of Caviar in the Air. She has visited Egypt five times and considers it essential travel for every Black professional.
