Five-star hotels for under $200, taxi rides for $3 and metro fares for six cents. Egypt is cheap, fun and the people are friendly.

My niece, Kelly, and I just returned from a week in Egypt and I gotta say — Egypt is on sale and it is safe and easy to get around. Here is what you need to know.

First, look for cheap airline tickets. Kelly and I got ours for free with our frequent flyer miles, but she originally found a Delta fare for $600 from Atlanta to Cairo. So getting there is a deal if you watch the airlines carefully.

I’ve learned that when traveling to a poorer country, I like to stay in a nice hotel to escape the craziness of the city. I found a rate at the Ritz Carlton for $150 per night – which was a steal! Use your government rate, AAA or senior rate and you can find a bargain. The people at the Ritz were kind, helpful and friendly. Food at a 5-star hotel is usually expensive – but not the case at the Ritz. We ate breakfast for free (included in the above rate) and lunch with drinks and dessert ran $25 for both of us. All was served in a beautiful setting overlooking the Nile River. It really doesn’t get any better than this.

Getting around was an even better bargain. It cost 20 to 30 Egyptian pounds to go just about anywhere in the city ($2 US). The most we paid for a taxi was $9 to get to the airport. And when we decided to ride the metro from the old city back to our hotel, it was a staggering 6 cents apiece. Yes, that is cents, not dollars. It was quite an experience to ride the metro and only when we got off did Kelly tell me they had women only cars. I would have loved to ride again and get in the women only car – just to people watch!

We walked a good bit, too. From our hotel it was an easy walk to see the Nile at night. We were never harassed or bothered and we were two obviously foreign women alone in the city. Never a problem.

If you are going to take taxis, be sure to have your bellman tell the taxi driver where you are going and have a map with you to point to locations you want to visit – or better yet, have your concierge write out your destinations in Arabic, so there is no confusion. If worse comes to worse, there is generally a person around who speaks English and can tell your driver where you want to go.

We spent a day seeing the pyramids and had a fabulous time. We hired a guide through the concierge at the hotel and requested a woman. (We always request women and have found them to be more in tune to social and women’s issues and better guides – except the one we had in Beirut – but that’s another story for another time.) We paid $140 for the day with a guide, driver and car. We paid our guide about $3 for the two of us to ride a camel to the pyramid overlook and it was well worth it. Our camel guide took pictures of us atop our camels with the pyramids in the background. Priceless.

For museums, see Kelly’s blog about all the museums we found. They were great and it was fun to find them, too! My favorite part of our museum trek was getting caught behind fences near one museum and being rescued by two workers – who drove us around the fences and to the museum entrance – all without them speaking English. Kelly gave me one of her “are you sure about this AT?” looks, but I knew they were well-intentioned, and off we went!

Get that schedule out and plan your trip. You’ll have a great time, you don’t have to be in a group to be safe and this trip will not break the bank. So go already!