British archaeologist Amelia Edwards’ 1877 travel journal A Thousand Miles up the Nile documents the nineteenth-century craze for Egyptian fashion through the collecting of scarab beetle jewelry and artifacts. I argue that Edwards’ criticism of scarab consumption enables her to contest Europe’s Orientalist view of and imperial agenda in Egypt. Noting the beetle’s depopulation, she condemns the widespread demand from consumer tourism that has pushed it nearly to extinction. She also denounces the forgeries trade, which renders Egyptians dependent on tourism for their livelihoods. Although a participant in excavations, she shows how European museums and archaeologists destroy ancient burial sites in their contest for power. In contrast, she supports the Bulaq Museum in Cairo that aims to keep Egyptian objects in the country and allow Egyptians to forge a national identity separate from their colonial past. She further created the Egypt Exploration Fund to preserve Egyptian antiquities, and her own collection of Egyptian artifacts served to undermine imperial collecting. Her journal is significant for the way it employs the popular language of fashion and consumerism to engage political issues of European colonialism and encourage support for emerging Egyptian nationalism.