With all the turmoil going on in the Middle East these days, I have been reminiscing on my travels in the region a lot, from the most distant (my arrival in Beirut nearly four years ago) until the most recent, last autumn in Israel. In particular, the two weeks I spent in Egypt back in late 2011 remain vivid in my mind, and not just because Egypt was a place I’d wanted to visit since I was a mummy-obsessed preschooler.
My trip to Egypt was everything I’d ever hoped it would be (well, maybe it wasn’t quite long enough), but what’s funny is that in spite of my having visited just months after the 2011 revolution, I didn’t encounter one situation where I felt unsafe. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Egyptians are some of the kindest, most peaceful people I’ve ever met. If anything I felt sad for them – many of the people I met had been financially decimated by the downturn in tourism, which I argued at the time was born more of media sensationalism than of actual facts.
I haven’t been to Egypt in nearly three years, so I can’t comment for sure one way or another about the safety of travel in Egypt right now. What I will say is that both in travel and in life, risk is always commensurate with reward – and few places in the world are more rewarding to visit than Egypt. I think you’ll feel the same way after scrolling through these photos.
Robert Schrader is a travel writer and photographer who’s been roaming the world independently since 2005, writing for publications such as “CNNGo” and “Shanghaiist” along the way. His blog, Leave Your Daily Hell, provides a mix of travel advice, destination guides and personal essays covering the more esoteric aspects of life as a traveler.
