The land of Egypt, with its architectural wonders and pleasant climate, has attracted travellers for thousands of years.
The ancient Egyptians themselves were the first tourists in their own country, visiting the chapels and tombs of their gods and ancestors and leaving their names on many walls.
A thousand years later, Greek and Roman travellers also left their names on the statues and walls of temples and tombs.
After the Arab conquest of Egypt, travel to the country was restricted for Europeans, resulting in a decline in the quest for knowledge about Egypt and its ancient monuments south of Cairo.
From the early 18th century, a few adventurous travellers ventured further up the Nile Valley. Richard Pococke visited Thebes in January 1738. In his "A description of the East : and some other countries", published in London between 1743-1745, Pococke included a plan of the Ptolemaic temple at Deir el-Medina and described it, proving that he had visited the valley:

After visiting Memnon statues....
​"We went in between the hills to the north east, and came to
the temple in the 35th plate,which had been a convent: There are
nohieroglyphics on the outside; the cornices over the doors are fluted,
and adornedwith the winged globe; the capitals of the pillars are much
of the same sort as those of Assouan, in the plate of capitals.
After I had viewed all these things, I returned to the river."
 
Another early travel book by Charles Perry entitled "A view of the Levant, particularly
Constantinople, Syria, Egypt, and Greece: In which their antiquities, government, politics,
maxims, manners, and customs (with many other circumstances and contingencies)
are attempted to be described and treated", was published in London in 1743.
Perry visited Thebes (Karnak and Luxor temples and also the West bank) and this is
the passage (p. 350) which I think describes his visit to Deir el-Medina:

"Setting out again the next Morning early, we first bent our Course directly to the Mountain; and passing over the Skirts of one Mountain, that stands apart from, and before the great Mountain, we descended into a Vale, behind it, where we found another beautiful Temple, though small. This likewise contains several sumptuous Pillars, and is embellise'd with Hieroglyphics, and fine Figures in Basso Relievo. But as this exhibits nothing more than what we have already mentioned the Like, or at least the Equal of, so we will spend no more Time in speaking of it, than we did in viewing of it. From hence we passed over the other Skirt of the Mountain, and so came into the Plain again ; and after we had marched about 20 Minutes towards the River, we came to another Temple, which is inexpressibly grand and magnificent. This Temple is situate at about a Mile Distance from the Two Colossal Statues, to the North of them. Its grand Portal is to the Eastward. This Fabric  (at least what remains of it) is not above 50 Paces broad, and about 200 long....."
 
Champollion's deciphering of the hieroglyphs in 1822 opened the way for many individual travellers, scholars, artists, adventurers and scientific expeditions. Increasing numbers of visitors with a growing interest in antiquities created a demand for portable antiquities. Ancient cemeteries began to be excavated in the hope of finding buried treasures to supply this new market. Nineteenth-century collectors acquired objects by buying from dealers and at local markets.
The sand-filled village of Deir el-Medina began to reveal its secrets as early as the 1840s, when locals discovered a cache of papyri - a rich mixture of documents, including all the letters written by the scribe Dhutmose to his son Butehamun, the correspondence of the general Piankh sent from Nubia, and also records of the great tomb robberies of the late 20th dynasty. These papyri and various other finds were sold by the 19th-century collector and dealer Drovetti to various European collectors, and most of them eventually found their way into numerous museums (Romer, 1984, 203).
The second spectacular find made by the locals in the second half of the 19th century was the discovery of Sennedjem's tomb. Maspero supervised the excavation of the tomb. Its contents were distributed to museums as far afield as New York, Berlin and Cairo. Many objects that came to light during this period were completely unrecorded and, taken out of context, lost their provenance. Other objects were recorded by scholars such as Wilkinson, Lepsius or Champollion, who were passing through Deir el-Medina at the time. Some of their drawings are the only record we have today of some objects that have now disappeared (McDowell, 1999, 24).
Since Schiaparelli's first real archaeological excavation in 1905, objects from the area have been systematically recorded and excavation reports produced. Each campaign was followed by lists of the finds made. The most detailed reports were, and still are, published by the French Institute after almost 30 years of work by Bruyere.
Thousands of objects found in the Deir el-Medina area are now scattered around the world. While most have found their way into museum collections, many are in private hands. The richest Deir el-Medina collections are in the museums of Cairo, Paris, London, Turin, Florence, Berlin, Brooklyn, Prague and Brussels. Some of the artefacts are on display, some are in storage, but some objects have not yet been studied by curators or scholars due to time or financial constraints. Even in Deir el-Medina itself, there are around 20 magazines full of objects found at the site that are still awaiting detailed scholarly study.