Cairo Effect

You can fly to any country in the world and say you’ve been there, but can you say you’ve experienced it? To get its readers to know more about locations than just the pictures and stories they pump out, AFAR Magazine has birthed a new kind of international tour. AFAR Experiences is an organization created to aid travelers in receiving the full spiritual, emotional connection that a lot of travel agencies fail to provide.

AFAR Experiences Cairo from AFAR Media on Vimeo.

They place the group (comprised mainly of AFAR readers) right smack in the middle of civilization and say “Go play”. Individuals are encouraged to roam around and live as the people do, leaving interaction with the tour guides at a minimum and only for communication and other forms of help. Sure you can visit the Taj Mahal in India or the pyramids in Egypt but those aren’t what the countries are really about. Citizens of India don’t tend to walk through the same marble building everyday, yet this is where you expect to be sent when arranging a trip to the country.

It’s important to remember that there are two sides to a population’s culture – their history as a country and their interactions as a people. Sites and landmarks like the pyramids address only the former aspect of Egypt’s culture, so AFAR Experiences Cairo (the first in a branch of cities the group hopes to incorporate) is here to help its travelers experience the rest. At day’s end the group gathers and sits together to discuss what they did and how they personally experienced the city. In this way AFAR serves as the catalyst to transforming the way people perceive and experience a place, its culture, and its people.