Ready for Your Next Great Travel Adventure?
To help get you started, and to set the scene, below are descriptions from my books of some of the world’s most amazing destinations. These clips are to help you learn about the location, prep for your travels and drive up your excitement about a specific place.
After the quotes, you’ll find a brief overview, with guidance for rising entrepreneurs. These destination pages are being continuously updated so check back before each trip.
EGYPT
Alexandria
They rose and began walking the pathways where the land had been raised and reconfigured to fight the rising advance of the sea. Alexandria had the most romantic name on the Mediterranean, attached to the most unattractive of cities. Functional, but as undefined as any overbuilt metropolis on the continent, authorities desperate to manage the demands of population growth, had permitted highways to cut through the waterfront views. Rows of jostling apartment buildings gave up their facades to a layer of soot-soaked pollution affixing to the exterior walls with the desert sands. Attempts to reclaim the seafront as a public haven had failed. The flawed pearl clung desperately to her harbor while a frayed straw broom racked with the dust of truth swept at her back. But as the first and final illustrious outpost of the African Mediterranean, its history pulled Dominique and Branson beneath a spell. Traveling the outline of the majesty of ancient moors, they drifted in placated silence towards their hotel…
This was panting Alexandria after all. This was not a city for half measures. Egypt was no land for virgins. Out of step with all time, the timeless desert was an exemplar of the collective memory of humankind, a reminder of the defining contours of a spectacular civilization…
– Describing Alexandria in The Motion Clue by Case Lane
Cairo
The capital of Egypt was really called Al Qahirah. But since the British had voyaged around the world Anglicizing local names, wherever they encountered what they considered unpronounceable, today we would all say Cairo. It was among the world’s megacities, full of the noise, pollution, trash, crowding and perfume to bodily smells that one accepted in all corners of great nations while journeying around the world. Still on the banks of the Nile River, there was no denying the city’s majesty, its soul as a determined marker of world history and civilization, its true sense of a tight lunar existence.
Cairo from the air was no less a sprawling, dust-covered puzzle box of low-lying beige and brown, than it was from ground level, but the scope and scale was overwhelming from above. The mighty Nile River cut its way through the streets as we followed the east bank first moving inland to see the domes of the Mohammad Ali mosque on the edge of the ancient Citadel before traversing the city to cross over the water. Passing over the Pyramids and the Sphinx, once standing alone for 5,000 years, the last of the ancient wonders were now facing the dominating edge of suburban sprawl on one side against the mono-color fade of the Sahara desert on the other. This was North Africa, the eastern tip of the continent, the edge of human kind’s beginnings of itself. This crescent shaped section of the Mediterranean was our very life history and no less so when one floats over it. I would have wanted to love Egypt, but this 300th generation of the locals did not make it easy. The streets of Cairo could be hostile to a foreigner, to a woman, to anyone who did not look the part. And despite having ruled, conquered and civilized so many others, the state of the nation reflected little of the amenities and casualness of modern life. Most Egyptians struggled with any level of unrelenting African poverty, not always as obviously abject as their southern neighbors, but a defined torment nonetheless.
– Describing Cairo in Walking with J by Karsten Quarters
When a visitor stands at the base of the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt and looks up, the view travels 455 feet along the edge of millions of limestone blocks, rising to a point touching the sky above. A construction site 4,500 years old, and still standing. Think of the thought and production process that went into achieving such an incredible feat.
– Describing Giza in Life Dream: 7 Universal Moves to Get the Life You Really Want through Entrepreneurship by Case Lane
Place: Junhuriyah Misr al-Arabiyah, Arab Republic of Egypt, Northeast Africa, home to one of the great civilizations of the ancient world
Visited: Once
Most Recent Visit: TBD
Original sites: Overwhelming – begin at the last surviving wonder of the ancient world, the Great Pyramids at Giza, and work your way down the Nile River to the extraordinary treasures of a lost Empire.
Familiarity: Low. Women are especially cautioned against walking alone even in daylight
English usage: Rare
For Rising Entrepreneurs Expanding to Global Markets: Consider a rising middle class, youthful population, and the construction of “New Cairo,” a modern capital city, but ongoing violence, unrest remain an issue in the region.
Country Details: U.N. Country Data Stats for Egypt
Reading Recommendations (click the book cover to learn more)
Fiction fans: try Wilbur Smith’s sweeping series, the novels of Ancient Egypt, to take you through the grand history before you embark on your visit.
Want more details about visiting Egypt: contactcase(at)readyentrepreneur(dot)com
Disclosure: Book links are affiliate links to the Amazon.com bookstore meaning as an Amazon Associate Case Lane or Ready Entrepreneur may earn compensation from qualifying purchases. Advertising may support the maintenance of this website and the information you are receiving.
