Feluccas under sail on the Nile at Aswan, with granite islands and palms along the far bank.
Travel Planning

Best Time to Visit Egypt

Egypt has one decisive variable and it is heat. Everything else about when to come follows from how much of it you are willing to stand.
Aug 16, 2026 · 2 min read
A Nubian house painted blue and cream stands above flat roofs near Aswan.
Heritage

Egypt and Diaspora Reconnection

Egypt sits at the join of Africa and the Arab world, and the Nubian south carries a displacement story that the monuments above it are famous for.
Aug 16, 2026 · 2 min read
Two men in conversation beneath the colonnade of the Al-Azhar courtyard in Cairo.
Culture

Egypt Culture and Etiquette Guide

A conservative, hospitable and very sociable country where dress, photography and the word for tipping are the three things visitors most often get wrong.
Aug 16, 2026 · 2 min read
A seller in red reaches up among hanging Ramadan lanterns and painted decorations.
Events and Festivals

Egypt Festivals and Celebrations

A lunar calendar, a Coptic one, a pharaonic spring festival everybody still keeps, and a sunrise that reaches the back of a temple twice a year.
Aug 16, 2026 · 2 min read
A plate of koshari with bowls of sauce, chickpeas and fried onion on a wooden table.
Food

Egypt Food Guide

Bean breakfasts, a national dish assembled from three starches at once, and a food culture built on feeding a lot of people well and cheaply.
Aug 16, 2026 · 2 min read
The twin minarets of Bab Zuweila rise above the medieval gate at the end of a Cairo street.
Heritage

Historic Cairo: Visitor and Heritage Guide

One of the oldest Islamic cities in the world, founded in the tenth century and at its height in the fourteenth, inside a city of twenty million.
Aug 16, 2026 · 2 min read
Colossal seated figures flank the rock cut entrance of the temple of Nefertari at Abu Simbel.
Heritage

Nubian Monuments: Visitor and Heritage Guide

The World Heritage property at Aswan is ten places, not two temples. Five were cut apart and moved before the reservoir reached them, and five never left.

Aug 16, 2026 · 5 min read
Grass and rock on the escarpment above the Lowveld at the Blyde River Canyon.
Travel Planning

Best Time to Visit South Africa

The Cape and the rest of South Africa have opposite rainy seasons, which is the single most useful thing to know before choosing when to go.
Aug 16, 2026 · 2 min read
The floor map of District Six, annotated by former residents, with photographs around it.
Heritage

South Africa and Diaspora Reconnection

South Africa's diaspora story runs in two directions at once: people removed from their own neighborhoods, and a solidarity movement that circled the world.
Aug 16, 2026 · 2 min read