In early January 2019, I got the chance to visit two of the most beautiful, most historical, and very famous cities in Egypt: Luxor and Aswan. Known for their extremely rich Pharaonic monuments, temples, and holy places and considering the fact that I have a passion for history, my journey couldn’t turn any awesome than it was. While I was on the train back to Cairo, I realized I have received an email from Google Maps a couple of days earlier. When I opened it, it said: Congratulations on your 1 million photo views!
Right at this moment, I couldn’t help but think about how it all started!
It was some time in October 2015, my dad, my sister and I were trying a new restaurant in Heliopolis and I took a couple of photos of the place. While we were getting out of it, a notification popped up from Google Maps saying: Would you like to share a photo of this restaurant and earn 5 points? So I thought: yeah! Even if those points were virtual, it just made me somehow feel… what? Happy?
So I shared the photo, got 5 points, completely forgot about it and moved on with my life. It wasn’t until mid July 2017 when I decided to dedicate every Thursday, which is actually my day off, to visit a new museum in Cairo. I enjoyed my the first museum so much and wanted to tell my friends about it so I wrote a detailed review and posted it on Instagram. I remembered that photo of the restaurant I shared a couple of years earlier on Google Maps so I checked it and found that the photo was viewed more than 700 times! “Wow! This is cool!” I said to myself. So I posted the review and the pictures to Maps!
On my second Thursday, I wanted to go to a new museum which I didn’t know how to reach so when I googled it, a review popped up that explained where the place is, how I can go there and when the place shuts its doors. I followed the guide and it was all true and helpful!
As I was touring Cairo visiting its historic places, I realized 2 things: Cairo is incredibly rich with museums, old, and cool places that tell the stories of this city. Second: no one barely visits these places despite the fact that 90% of them were recently renewed following a new government project! So I wanted to promote these places. I wanted to tell people about them and push them to get to know the history of their city and country. I wanted to create a helpful guide for Cairo residents and the hundreds of people who flock to it every single day to easily explore the city. I also wanted to reach more people and promote Arabic content so I post my reviews in Arabic.
Doing this regularly, I myself started to get the urge to explore more places outside Cairo. It literally pushed me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to travel to 5 different amazing cities: Alexandria, Port Said, Rashid, Luxor, and Aswan. It even changed the way I walk! I now look around exploring the surroundings. I look up to see the sky and birds and trees! I also learned so much from the places I visited.
Almost two years active on Google Maps, I have +1.2M photo views and +18K review views. I helped many people through answering their questions and I can’t wait to contribute more and more on Google Maps.
Egypt local guides