What to pack for Egypt — by season and by trip type

Egypt is hot, dusty, bright and — in mosques and churches — modest. Almost everything else about packing follows from those four words. This is a list by trip type rather than one long list, because what a temple morning needs and what a boat day needs barely overlap.

The five things people most often wish they had brought

• A wide-brimmed hat. Not a cap. The back of the neck is what burns at a temple, and a cap does nothing for it.
• A scarf or light shawl. Shade at a site, a mosque head-covering, and something over the shoulders in a fiercely air-conditioned coach.
• Rehydration salts. You may never open them. If you need them, you will need them at three in the morning.
• Shoes you can get sand out of. Trainers fill up. Closed sandals with a back strap are the compromise that works at a temple and on a boat.
• A power bank. A day out is twelve hours, your phone is the camera, and the coach socket will be in use.

The Valley of the Kings, where there is no shade between the tombs

For temples and tombs

Light, loose, long. Linen or cotton, covering shoulders and knees for everyone — it is more comfortable in the sun than bare skin, quite apart from being what the sites and mosques expect.

• Sunglasses that actually block glare. Limestone at eleven in the morning is genuinely painful.
• A small torch. Several tombs are dimly lit and the paintwork in the side chambers is what you came for.
• Tissues and hand gel. Site lavatories often have neither.
• Small notes for tips and for the custodian who unlocks a chamber. Egyptian pounds, not euros.
• A refillable bottle. Every guide carries cold water, and having your own means you are not rationing it.

Leave the tripod at home unless you have arranged permissions; camera fees change by site and a tripod is the thing most often refused.

For the Red Sea

Shallows and reef at Giftun Island

• A rash vest. The single best thing on this list. It removes the sunscreen question entirely, it stops the burn across your back that every snorkeller gets, and it is warmer on a windy boat.
• Your own mask, if you have one. Boat masks are fine and boat masks leak; a mask that fits your face is the difference between an hour in the water and twenty minutes of irritation.
• Reef shoes if you are going anywhere you enter from a beach rather than a ladder.
• A dry bag, even a cheap one. Spray on an open boat gets everywhere.
• A towel of your own for the smaller boats, which may not carry them.

On "reef-safe" sunscreen: the phrase is not regulated and means nothing on its own. The two ingredients with the clearest evidence against them are oxybenzone and octinoxate, so read the back rather than the front. Better still, cover up — a rash vest and a hat need no ingredient list at all.