Hot Air Balloon

Hot air ballooning in Luxor began in the late 1980s, when pilots realized that this city of perhaps 50,000 at its ancient peak now sat atop one of the world’s most extraordinary archaeological landscapes. A British company started offering rides in early 1988, followed by the first Egyptian ballooning company in 1993.

Today, balloons launch at dawn from the West Bank, drifting over the Valley of the Kings, where more than sixty tombs have been discovered. They float past Karnak’s Hypostyle Hall with its 134 columns and the Nile itself, all bathed in that first blush of daylight. Ancient Thebes lies about 800 kilometers south of the Mediterranean, its ruins now within modern Luxor, a place that was the most powerful and wealthiest city in Egypt during its heyday. The balloons launch before sunrise because that’s when the air is calmest, and when you can catch a hot air balloon chasing the moon as dawn breaks.