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Having fulfilled their Jewish legal and ceremonial obligations to be obedient to God, Joseph was warned in a dream of danger the newborn king faced from the Romanized Jewish King Herod (Matthew 2:13-14). The Holy Family hastily took flight during the night, and they traveled until they were outside of the domain and jurisdiction of the King and they traveled away to Egypt.
Flight into Egypt by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1923):
There were several long-standing routine trade routes from the Sumerian region of the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley to Egypt. By the time of Christ these routes had been traveled for at least five millennia. The route through the Jordan River Valley passed near to Jerusalem and it was the second most traveled of these trade routes. Joseph, Mary and Jesus most likely took this route to travel to Egypt, and their presence along the route would not have seamed unusual to any of the traders journeying along the route.
Back in Bethlehem a terrible tragedy occurred. The soon to died, King Herod continued to be troubled about the newborn king the wise men had mentioned. Herod thought the newborn King could be a threat to his reign in Judea and Iudaea (the region south of Judea). When the wise men did not comeback to tell him about Jesus, Herod decided to act decisively.
Evil Herod, not knowing which male child of Bethlehem was the newborn Messiah, decided to have all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding districts, who were from two years old or younger put to death (Matthew 2:16).
Massacre of the Holy Innocents by Sebastian Bourdon (mid 1600s):
The Holy Family stayed in Egypt until they heard that Herod was dead, which also happened in the year 4 BC, so they did not have to stay there for very long.
