Siwa Transportation

You have two options. The first option is coming to Alexandria by train (ca. 4 hours) and catch a bus to Siwa (7-9 hours). On the way you may like to stay in Alexandria. But remember the buses from Alexandria starts for Siwa either early morning or in the early afternoon. There is no overnight buses. Buses this way makes several rest-stops on the way.

If you want to skip Alexandria, you may take a direct bus to Marsa Matruh (longer distance but faster and more expensive and less frequent daily, makes almost no rest stops out of ca. 5 hours of journey) and then catch a bus to Siwa (4 hours, several services daily).

Try to be at Siwa by the day to check out the hotel room, etc. Late-night arrival is not to say dangerous but perhaps makes it difficult to find a good place to stay and sleep.

When the bus came out the loose sand, after flattening the tyres, it had to keep some speed.
So we had to walk a little, till we could get in again at a place where the bus could stop without any problem.
It was amazing to be in the empty desert all around, with only our bus and jeep.

The track through the desert from Siwa to Bahariya is 380 KM. You need a special permit to take this track.
The track from Siwa to Bahariya was most of the time rather good, but sometimes we had to cross a lot of loose sand.
Then we had to flatten the tyres of our bus by letting escape some air to solve the problem.
We were lucky: most of the time we didn't lose too much time in the sand.

To get in Siwa by public transport you have to come from Alexandria and pass Marsa Matruh at the coast.
If you want to go directly from Bahariya to Siwa ( or from Siwa to Bahariya) you need your own transport and a special permit.
We travelled with the bus from a travel agency in Cairo, accompanied by a jeep for possible problems.
We didn't see any car at the road Siwa-Bahariya, except one with problems waiting for help. Our bus dragged this car for three and half hours in the direction of Bahariya and then we saw the lights of an oncoming car comig for help. So we saved them all together 7 hours to reach Bahariya safely.

It is not easy to get over here.
From Cairo there are daily buses to Marsa Matruh or the Libyan Border stoping at Matruh and from there you have to wait for a bus or charter with some other travellers and locals a minibus to get down to Siwa.