AFAR Magazine

Since launching AFAR magazine in 2009, we’ve wondered how we might create events that bring the spirit of experiential travel to life. Immediately after the fall of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February, AFAR’s founders Greg Sullivan and Joe Diaz traveled to the country. In the midst of post-revolution euphoria, they realized that they wanted to bring together a group of travelers to experience this pivotal moment in the nation’s history.

AFAR Experiences Cairo

And so AFAR Experiences, a series of immersive travel events, was born, with Cairo as the premier destination. In late October, 35 travelers converged at the Marriott Cairo for three days of conversations, neighborhood tours, home dinners, and lectures from some of Egypt’s most influential thinkers and doers. Travel outfitter Abercrombie & Kent helped with our on-the-ground planning and logistics. The A&K guides who showed us around were warm and enthusiastic, and thrilled to share their city and their perspectives with us. Our group of attendees consisted of a diverse mix of AFAR readers from across North America and AFAR staffers—all passionate about experiential travel. Only one person in our group had previously traveled to Egypt. AFAR Editor-in-Chief Julia Cosgrove shares her impressions.

Day One: Mummies, Secret Doors, and the January 25 Revolution

Our first day kicked off at 7 a.m. in the cavernous Egyptian Museum. For two hours, we had the place to ourselves, with knowledgeable Abercrombie & Kent Egyptologists leading us through the eerie mummy-filled rooms and King Tut’s gilded tomb. Afterwards, we walked through Tahrir Square, site of the January 25^th Revolution. There were no protests taking place that morning, just salesmen hawking “I Love Egypt” T-shirts to the few passersby who stopped to look (namely members of our group). We haphazardly crossed Cairo’s busy streets as old Fiats and Peugeots honked at us.

At Café Riche, a historic restaurant and gathering place for such Egyptian luminaries as Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz, we listened as the political activist Jawad Nabulsi discussed his thoughts on the revolution and the country’s impending parliamentary elections. Downstairs, a longtime patron of the café showed us a secret exit that dissidents in the 1950s used when they needed to make a quick escape.

In the evening, the new Minister of Tourism, Mounir Fakhry Abd El Noor, spoke to our group about the need to encourage other Americans to return to Egypt, as tourism brings in $13 billion a year to the country.

Photo by Nina Dietzel.

We ended our day with dinner at the traditional restaurant Abou El Sid (above). Surrounded by tin lanterns and paintings of Egyptian movie stars from the 1960s, we sat at round tables with locals, tasting dishes like koshari—a mix of lentils, pasta, rice, and fried onions. Then we passed around the shisha pipe well into the wee hours. The Egyptians we met—many of whom worked in media, academia, and the non-profit world—all expressed gratitude to us for coming to their country, and they were unbelievably warm hosts. Discussions invariably turned to the revolution and the thorny questions about what comes next for the country, but there was one thing everyone agreed on: they were deeply relieved to be out from under Mubarak’s dictatorship. And they were hopeful about the long-term future of their country.

Next: Day Two