Made up a two tour for me and the ex-flatmate in June 2008 - itinerary was:

Cairo-Luxor-Sharm-Aqaba (Jordan) - Petra (Jordan) - Tel Aviv - Jerusalem - Tel Aviv.

Cairo was a bit of a dump, although we were staying in the diplomatic quarter and that was a lot nicer, some good restaurants etc. We managed to acquire a taxi driver who took us round the Giza pyramids and others which were further out of Cairo with the minimal of "hard sell" - carpets, cafes etc. It only worked out about £20 each for an eight hour tour so it was well worth it.

Luxor was absolutely roasting at that time of year and was a lot more African. Some good sights though and a nice enough place to visit.

We then shot over to Sharm. Complete opposite! Total tourist resort. We had two days there and that was enough, although she really enjoyed the snorkelling and could have spent more time doing that.

It was interesting when we got outside the tourist areas - I took a taxi down to the bus station and my taxi driver ended up in a square go with some other drivers who pulled koshes on him! I legged it!

We took the bus from Sharm down to the Israeli border - it was pennies, but in retrospect we should have paid extra and negotiated a taxi - the journey too far too long. We could have also gone down to the hippy village of Nuweiba and then taken the ferry over to Aqaba, bypassing Israel, but the timings were relatively haphazard.

We hit Israel just as shabbat was approaching and thus had some difficulty getting a taxi, but eventually managed to get one and shot through Eilat to the Jordanian border.

We stayed in Aqaba, which was a nice enough town, before heading on an all day tour of Petra. If you get the opportunity to go there - do it - it really is one of the wonders of the world, an amazing place.

From there on it was back to Aqaba before heading to Eilat airport to take an internal flight to Tel Aviv, not before being held by the Israelis for over an hour and interrogated as to the purpose of our visit.

Tel Aviv was a great city, very cosmopolitan. If you go, make sure you go down to the old town of Jaffa as well. Wasn't as enamoured by Jerusalem and effectively got robbed at the Wailing Wall - I had no option but to hand cash over. Not nice.

Overall my pick out of the three was Jordan - amazing that the whole "bakeesh" culture of constant hassle in Egypt totally disappears as soon as you cross the border. I would have loved to spend more time there and to go up to Amman.

Egypt was alright, but I feel we saw a lot of it and I wouldn't rush back.