A small office. A long obsession.

Manazel Egypt was founded in 2014, in a converted carriage house on the east side of Indianapolis. The name comes from the Arabic manāzil — the stations or stopping places along a long journey. It felt right. Egypt is a country built around journeys: the Nile flowing north, the pilgrims moving south, the dead carried west into the desert.

Gary Rutherford had been making the trip almost annually since 2003. He'd built up a small network of guides, drivers, dahabiya captains and family-run hotels — people he trusted, who treated his travelers well. When friends began asking him to plan their trips too, the studio took shape almost by accident.

A decade in, we still operate the same way. Gary writes every initial itinerary. Our office manager, Renee, handles logistics and ticketing. On the ground in Egypt, the same four or five guides have been working with us since the beginning. There is no franchising, no call center, no white-labeled software.

Gary Rutherford

Indiana University, B.A. in History (1998). Spent five years teaching middle-school social studies in Lafayette before his first trip to Egypt sent him in another direction entirely. Holds a USTOA-affiliated certification in tour operations and is a member of the American Society of Travel Advisors.

You can usually catch him on the phone between 9am and 4pm Eastern, except when he's in the field — which is roughly six weeks of every year.

• Independently owned.

  We are not part of a brand family or a private equity portfolio. The studio answers to no one but its travelers.

• Small by design.

  We cap at about 90 travelers a year. That keeps us close to each itinerary and to the people running them on the ground.

• Egyptian-led on the ground.

  Every guide we work with is Egyptian, lives in the country, and has been doing this work for at least fifteen years.

• Transparent pricing.

  No hidden "local payments," no upgrade arm-twisting. The price you see is what travels with you.