My trip to the Grand Canyon with my father began like road trips usually do in our family: a groggy wake-up before dawn, sweet coffee and greasy donuts at a gas station, and hours of talk radio as the sun came up and the city faded into desert highways. And though I'd grown up in …
Continue reading Arizona Road Trip: From Pine To The Grand Canyon
It was a dusty, smoggy afternoon in 2009 when our tour bus zipped down Salah Salem Street and passed the City of the Dead, Cairo's dense necropolis where thousands of Egyptian families live among the tombs. The streets were quiet and unpaved; the thin minarets rose through the yellowed haze like a dream. In that …
I'm having a dirty martini at 1897 bar, a darkened lounge in New Cairo filled with leather couches and rugs, when a friend asks about my trip to Italy. I've just returned to Egypt after four days in Venice and my memories of the floating city are fresh enough to light up my face. "It …
The city wakes up late on Fridays. There are leisurely breakfasts of baladi bread and cheese before the afternoon prayers, and the streets are blissfully deserted. It takes me twenty minutes to zip across town to Sayeda Zainab, a working-class neighbourhood with lines of workshops and kiosks that are still closed. My Uber driver asks …
Continue reading What To Do In Cairo: The Mosque Of Ibn Tulun
When travelling, sometimes it's best to leave the guidebooks at home. The 19th century Polish poet Stanislaw Jachowicz once wrote about his countrymen's tendency to praise whatever is foreign while not knowing what they have themselves. It sounds better in its original (and rhymes), but the quote simply means the grass is always greener on …
Downtown Cairo is full of hidden gems that are often bypassed by locals and unexplored by tourists - and it's probably nothing like you'd imagine. When you think of Cairo, you may picture tall oriental arches, minarets and alleys packed with people, noise and spices. This is indeed what Khan el Khalili looks like - …
Continue reading Discovering Downtown Cairo: 5 Must See Buildings
We often gather keepsakes from far-away travels, but the more familiar places in our lives are also well worth remembering. I have a collection of souvenirs that remind me of the exotic cities I've seen and the life-changing moments I've had on the road. There's the tin of fish spices from Kaohsiung that reminds me …
Continue reading The Value Of Souvenirs From Familiar Places, And 6 Ways To Find Them
