13 Things Nobody Told Us About Living in Cairo

This is a quick review of the reality of living in Cairo, for anyone who’s considering moving to Cairo: internet, finding apartments, all-powerful doormen, sandstorms, photography, the legality of drones, and money matters.

There’s a lot about living in Cairo that’s hard to figure out from the outside. And there are many things that nobody thinks to tell you.

Before deciding to go to Cairo to learn more about living in Egypt, there was a lot we didn’t know, despite a lot of googling and reading blogs.

We didn’t know what the bawaab does, how fast the internet is in Cairo or what it’s like to travel in Egypt as a woman.

We didn’t come to live in Cairo for the lifestyle; we came here to learn, and to share. So here goes!

Note: I’ll keep prices here in USD, as inflation means prices in Egyptian pounds become meaningless over time.

Internet Speeds in Cairo/Egypt: Data Sims, and No WiFi

If you’re living in Cairo for a while, a data sim is cheap, fast and your best bet; WiFi in Cairo/Egypt is patchy but fast enough… sometimes.

You should really rely on a local sim. But if you don’t want to, local internet access in Airbnbs and the like is fine — just patchy.

After having tried WiFi in a few places, we know it’s fast enough to work online, stream YouTube and do video calls… when it’s working. 

This was hard to figure out from the outside:

• NomadList rated Internet in Cairo as very slow, to the point where we thought it’d be unusable.
• TripAdvisor forum gremlins said it was fine, but they usually stay in hotels in the nice part of town.
• My friends said domestic internet is patchy but mobile internet is fast.

Internet is faster early in the morning. There are outages. We sometimes get downloads of several megabytes per second (good enough for 4K video), and usually around one megabyte per second (high-def video).

Google Fi speed and availability in Cairo

We also use Google Fi, which is only available to people who get it in the US. It costs us $20-30 a month each and gives us data in the critical few days between when we land and get a local SIM.

While Google Fi doesn’t work everywhere in the world, I’m happy to report Google Fi speed and coverage in Cairo is fine — it gets us reliable LTE speeds (1-3 Megabytes/s when I tested it).

How to Get a Cheap Data Sim in Cairo

Mobile data sims are cheap and easily available from stores like Vodafone and Orange. 

You can get 8GB sims for ~US$10, and 20GB sims for ~US$20. We opted for the smaller 8GB one because it’s a voice + data package and comes with easy recharge options; the bigger one can only be recharged by buying another of the same.

Our average cell phone data usage (both WiFi and cellular) on is about 200 MB/day each, most of which is Skype, social media and YouTube.

The biggest mobile network operator in Egypt is Vodafone (around half the population), so that’s who we used.

While we were keen to practise our Arabic, we were grateful (on day 2) that there is someone in every mobile phone store (Vodafone, Orange etc.) that speaks English.

There Are No WiFi Cafes in Cairo

Firstly the concept of a “cafe” is different. Basically it’s mostly men drinking Arabic coffee and smoking shisha pipes.

You can find international coffee chains like sparsely located instances of Costa Coffee, Starbucks (two of them!) and even Dunkin’ Donuts, but they don’t typically have WiFi.

We’ve seen WiFi advertised a couple of times but it either didn’t work or was unbearably slow.

Internet Security and Privacy in Egypt — Keep Safe Because Everyone is Watching

One note: you absolutely need a VPN and a way of communicating securely in Egypt. The government watches everyone. Our recommendations:

• VPN for your phone (even when using mobile data) or laptop:  NordVPN end-to-end security and encryption.
• Secure chat: Use Signal or WhatsApp, both of which have end to end encryption. Most people in Egypt don’t use Apple phones, so Apple Messages isn’t an option for everyone.

Yes, you technically don’t need secure chat if you’re using a VPN. But given sometimes errors happen and the VPN is off, it’s safer and easy to double up.

Apartments: Terrible on the Outside, but Nice on the Inside

Driving in from Cairo’s airport you see a city of stark contrasts, just as you’d expect from any large capital city.

But the contrasts between areas of Cairo are VERY stark, with beautiful architecture on some large mosques and churches, and decrepit buildings in dismal states of squalor.

It’s hard to take photographs in Cairo. Someone’s always watching. We try, and struggle, to maintain a low profile, even though we don’t look ‘white’ and dress conservatively. Occasionally, we are told photography here is not allowed.

A cursory glance through Airbnb shows that there are lots of apartments for under $20 a night in decent parts of town, like in Dokki or Mohandesiin, with nice interiors and furnishings.

We can confirm, after seeing a few apartments, that they’re as nice as they look. But you might have to walk past trash and through a dusty war zone of renovations in the entrance (as we did) just to get there.

See here for a broader guide on where to live in Cairo.

The doorman (bawaab): Your friend, your protector, your watcher and sometimes, your enemy.

The doorman (بواب, bawaab), more a “gatekeeper”, is the person that manages the building and all its occupants. It’s their job to know everything that’s going on and to keep the peace.

This means that if you have a guest, the bawaab knows (obviously; they probably saw you). They keep tabs on when the guest comes and goes. Whether the same or different guest comes on different days.

The bawaab will see you from the outside if you poke your head outside the window. They know what packages you receive, from whom, and what’s in them.

You need to stay on the good side of the bawaab (for your landlord’s sake), but it’s not always totally clear how.

For example, one time I opened a window to take a photo of the blue sky. Later, got an apologetic message from our landlord that the bawaab had asked to not do that, to delete the photos and that he’d be up to check.

The bawaab is also the keeper of morality in the building. This can mean that if you are a single person with an entire apartment to yourself, even if the landlord doesn’t care, the bawaab might object to you having visitors of the opposite sex. Be warned.

Generally, a building with a bawaab is considered safer. But if you live in a nice (expat-y) area, they’re not needed, and you might feel more comfortable without one.

Living in Cairo Means Mad Max-like Sandstorms

This will sound naive to anyone who lives in a desert region, but sandstorms were relatively new to us.

Sandstorms happen often in Cairo and can be fatal due to high wind and poor vision on the roads — though this is partly because of poorly-enforced safety standards.

For example in the above photo, a poorly-secured construction site, there was a cleaner working on the top floor while the wind was blowing.

The photo above captures a newsworthy but still fairly common sandstorm.

Sandstorms are somewhat seasonal and happen year-round. They cause sudden temperature drops or increases, depending on the temperature of the wind.

The most serious sandstorms happening during khamsin, a period during the spring, particularly in April, during which a hot and dry wind blows across the entire region.

The khamsin wind gets its name from the Arabic word for fifty because the winds last for around 50 days. Khamsin affects Egypt in particular, but also affects other countries in the Levant (Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria).

Basically, don’t plan on visiting Cairo in April, and avoid it in March or May if you can. Beyond May it starts getting very hot, anyway.

This hand gesture means “wait” in Egypt

This gesture is from a Youtube video describing it as the “Egyptian Gesture for Wait“. It’s fun to do, and I encourage you to try it everywhere, especially in Italy, just to see what happens there. (PSA: Joking. Don’t do this.)

It might surprise a lot of Egyptians to learn that their neighbours in Israel (a state around half everyday Egyptians don’t even acknowledge) also use the same hand gesture to mean “wait”, just with a different accompanying word/phrase, rega (רגע).

A few ways of saying “Wait a second!” in Arabic in Egypt while using the “wait” hand gesture:

• sanya waHida (تانية واحدة): “one second”
• lahza (لحظة): “moment”
• istanna/istanni (استنى): “wait

All of those work. Combine them if you want, with min faDlak/ik afterwards for a tiny bit of politeness. But the hand gesture works alone too.

Egypt is Cheap for Foreigners and Expensive for Locals

Don’t go around saying Egypt is “cheap”. It’s a little insensitive.

Yes, foreigners think living in Cairo is cheap. But it’s more nuanced.

Egyptians consider the Egyptian Pound the same way Europeans think of the Euro or Americans think of the Dollar.

Cairo is in the midst of an economic crisis. Egypt was always somewhat cheap, being a less-developed country, but it’s particularly cheap now with the dismal valuation of the Egyptian Pound, at 18 LE to the US Dollar.

What’s important to remember is that the household income for many Cairo families is between 2,000 and 4,000 LE a month, and often towards the lower end. Egyptians consider the Egyptian Pound the same way Europeans, the British and Americans consider the Euro, Pound and Dollar.

Most Americans would take umbrage at paying more than $10 for a sandwich for lunch. In Cairo people are similar, and indeed rarely pay more than 10 LE for a couple of (smaller) sandwiches.

At the same time, prices for goods in LE have increased dramatically — severalfold — since the pound was floated and devalued in 2016. Life has become very expensive for Egyptians, and many families cannot afford more than the most basic life necessities.

Most westerners eat (or at least can eat) meat and fresh vegetables daily — often for more than one meal a day. It would be anathema for them to think otherwise. For many Egyptians, fresh vegetables are expensive and meat is a luxury, to be used in limited quantities in meals.

So bear that in mind when you think of living in Cairo as “cheap”.

What Things Cost in Cairo

These are some prices of typical things from a visitor’s perspective, in approximate USD/Euro cents:

• A breakfast sandwich of ful (spiced fava beans), egg and ta’meyya (like falafel): 10 LE, or $0.25 (we’d usually get two each, and felt greedy doing so)
• Syrian style shawerma (like a doner kebab): 40 LE ($1) — a definite luxury for a local, but an affordable dinner for us
• Pack of chewing gum: 2 LE (basically nothing)
• Bag of 5-10 pieces of baladi bread from a street-side vendor: 10 LE ($0.25)
• 30 minute ride in an uber across a couple of inner-city suburbs (5-10KM, 3-7 miles): 40 LE ($1)
• 1 month membership at a good gym: 600 LE ($15)
• Metro ride halfway across the city: 6 LE (15c)
• Local private bus (microbus): 2-4 LE (5-10c)

The exception to these low prices (for foreigners) this is how expensive tourist stuff is. There is a local price and a foreign price, and the difference is large.

Prices to visit the Pyramids, the Cairo Tower, and so on, are usually 10-20x the price for foreigners than locals.

It makes sense — make the attractions available to locals. However, the local prices for many of these things are still large for many of those trying to survive, especially considering the transport required to get out of town to the nearby attractions.

Cash in Cairo is King, and you Need the Black Market

When we first wrote this post, in 2019, it was still possible to get a fair price from currency traders.

These days, you have to go to the black market. The difference can be large — you can get around 20-30% more for your dollar.

Check current black market as well as bank rates at realegp.com.

Egypt is an extremely cash-based society. If you’re living in Cairo, expect to use cash in the vast majority of transactions, other than the few that you can do online. Even when you order an Uber or get food delivery, you’ll pay cash on delivery.

While some higher-end restaurants and hotels accept credit cards, Egypt is not the kind of place where you go and split the bill among several cards.

By “higher-end” we don’t mean busy, either; we mean the kind of place that is more upper crust, and costs an order of magnitude more than most eateries. It might be a cafe that offers cappuccinos or a restaurant that offers wine, for example.

In the past, it was possible to a bank or any teller and get a good rate. While this is still true — they won’t rip you off — the demand for dollars means you get a much better rate on the black market.

If you’re looking for a good place to change money, ask your Airbnb host, or a friend. It’s good to have a local recommendation to a trusted location.

However, bear in mind of course that changing on the black market is not just illegal, but also dangerous. You might agree to meet someone, show up, and get mugged, or worse.

A few good Egyptian money terms to use while living in Cairo:

• filoos (فلوس): money. “ma3leish, ma3indish filoos” means “Sorry, I don’t have any money.
• fakkah (فـكّـة): change. “ma3ak fakka?” means “Do you have change?
• gineeh (جـنيه): Egyptian Pound. “khamsa ginee” means “5 Egyptian pounds”.

See here for our general guide to useful phrases and words in Egyptian Arabic.

It’s Almost Impossible to Buy EgyptAir Flights Online

Our credit cards almost never worked online when buying flights online from EgyptAir.

It didn’t matter what we did. We tried using different credit cards, buying when physically in different countries, using a VPN, buying direct from the airline, calling phone numbers on the website (they didn’t work), calling local offices… nothing worked.

It was just impossible. EgyptAir’s online/remote customer service is completely non-existent. None of the phones worked!

We scoured TripAdvisor for solutions and found many people with the same problem, with no solution.

After entering all our details into the annoying EgyptAir website eight times we had to fly to Egypt using a different airline (Emirates).

The only way to buy EgyptAir flights reliably is in person. In Egypt, when we had to fly from Aswan to Sharm el-Sheikh, the only way we could buy tickets from EgyptAir was to go to a customer service desk in the city of Aswan, which was, surprisingly, a great customer service experience. Just very inconvenient.

Of course, you can solve this with a local credit card, if you’re a resident. Regional cards might work too. If anyone else solved this, please tell us!

All Egyptian Food is Amazing and All Restaurants Deliver

We knew middle-eastern food was great, but we didn’t expect every single thing we ate to be this good.

We’re lucky to think in US Dollars and thus able to afford the many varied foods that Egypt has to offer. Kebab and Kofta are staples here, and we consider ourselves very fortunate to be able to eat them every few days (more than that isn’t really good for your stomach).

Our favourite thing while living in Cairo on cold days became how much we could order over the phone. Yes, we did try to get out there and speak to people in local eateries on most days. But because of the difficult transport situation in Cairo, it’s not practical to get to most parts of the city.

You can order food in Cairo using Talabat, which acquired Otlob. You can no longer use Uber Eats, as they shut down in Egypt in 2020 and are no longer available there.

But you can order so much more in Egypt simply by calling any restaurant and asking them to deliver. They don’t even charge a delivery fee (but tips are appreciated!)

Unfortunately, to order food directly, you absolutely have to call restaurants on the phone — you can’t text them. It took me about a month of living in Cairo and learning Arabic to work up the courage. When the food arrived, it was like magic.

Photography in Cairo is Sometimes illegal

We have gotten in trouble just a couple of times, but have heard of other people being nearly arrested for taking a photo of the wing thing.

The summary is: In tourist places in Cairo make sure photography is permitted. Buy a permit if you need to. Don’t try to cheat, because you’ll be asked to leave. And if you’re not sure, be clandestine or just don’t take photos.

Here is a more detailed list of things we’ve been told you can’t do:

• Don’t take photographs from windows, for arbitrarily enforced security reasons by bawaab.
• Don’t take photographs of random buildings as many are political, underground political or military installations. (You may not have seen or been able to read the signs saying what the building is.) You will be approached quickly by a guard and told to delete the photos.
• Don’t let any guard at any site smile and hold your camera for you unless you have small change on hand for a tip (5 LE is fine). You don’t have to do it.
• Don’t take photographs of people without their express permission as they may believe you will use the photographs against them, and might cause a scene. Women, especially, don’t like being photographed. Keep 5 LE notes on hand for sometimes-expected tips (we haven’t done this, although have been offered tips for photos of us!).
• Don’t take photographs of places of strategic significance, like airports or military facilities.
• Don’t take photos in the museums, tombs or pyramids. It’s mostly not allowed.
• In places where photography is allowed, expect pay a huge price (usually 300 LE, sometimes more than 10x the entry fee) for a permit. If you don’t have this permit, expect to be spotted taking illegal photos and escorted out with your camera, and for all your photos to be inspected by strict guards. We saw it happen several times in the Valley of the Kings.
• Don’t take photographs of — or even near — police. They can and will ask you to delete all your photos.
• Don’t use a big camera, a tripod or other equipment in the street.
• Don’t bribe anyone to let you take photos (it’s not going to end well for you)
• Don’t take photos of public demonstrations, protests, riots and the like if you’re an Egyptian. That’s definitely not going to end well.

Just get a permit. And by the way, don’t bring your drone to Egypt.

Definitely Don’t Bring Drones to Egypt

Do not bring drones into Egypt. Drones are basically illegal in Egypt. They’re a security risk. You can get a permit in theory, but they’re hard to obtain. Think: you can get a drone permit if you’re a major media production agency or film studio.

If you try to bring a drone into Egypt and they catch it, they might confiscate it (it has happened, from what we’ve heard). We were lucky when we arrived; the scanner was very crowded so we were waved through. We still don’t dare to use it, obviously.

If you’re bringing a drone, keep it in your checked luggage. The remote, too. We’ve read about some cases where on the way out, guards found a drone in hand luggage. They asked to see the memory card. After confirming the drone hadn’t been used, they asked for it to be put into checked luggage.

When we exited Egypt, they found our drone, but on request, we “gifted” them something else from our luggage and they waived us through. They were happy and surprised we spoke Arabic, so that helped!

Men Hold Hands in Cairo More Often than Man/Woman Couples Do

Man/woman couples usually don’t hold hands in public in Cairo. It’s not illegal to hold hands; in fact, I doubt it would be frowned upon. But we saw few people doing it.

For male/female couples, the traditional form of men and women interacting (apart from no touching at all) is for the woman to thread her arm through the man’s, or to hold on to it.

However, we do see some unusual ways in which people touch in public or display affection in Cairo. Here are some of them:

• Men kiss each other on the cheek twice. This is common in the region. Similarly, but differently to Europe, men and women never kiss each other at all in public — definitely not on the mouth. (Again, a married couple kissing would not be illegal, but may be frowned upon and attract unwanted attention from bawaab, police and so on).
• Men may embrace each other, but men and women don’t often embrace unless the woman is a foreigner. It’s not bad or embarrassing when they do, but a local man sometimes feels uncomfortable.
• Men often hold hands, but it’s nowhere near as common as India or Pakistan. Women hold hands too obviously.
• When joking around, there’s a lot of hand slapping, like high-fiving. Kind of like an aggressive handshake where you slap hands and laugh. “Yeah man! Woo!”
• When greeting a woman, let her initiate any physical contact, such as extending a hand to shake it. This applies whether you’re a man or a woman.
• All handshakes are extremely limp, whether with men or women. They’re basically just holding hands and moving them slightly.

Go See the City Before Prayer Time on Friday

Friday is the first day of rest in Islamic countries. And in Islam, the Friday noon prayer is the most important prayer of the week. Before the noon prayer, the city of Cairo is basically a ghost town.

If you’re looking for that perfect Instagram shot with empty streets, go at dawn on a Friday. No matter how busy the place you’re going to (except for the caveat below), you’ll have it to yourself.

One caveat: Mosques are busier on Friday. If you want to visit a famous mosque, better to go on any day but Friday.