Expat Guide to Egypt: Best Neighborhoods in Cairo for Expats

Hello friends and welcome to Rashad goes outside Cairo Egypt is a wonderful City but it can be difficult to wrap your head around as an expat when I first moved to Cairo I was amazed by its size 25 million people hustle and bustle literally everywhere you looked having lived in Cairo as an expat and gone through the process myself I'm going to walk you through the best areas in Cairo to live as an expat let's get into it I'm gonna break down the best areas for expats into three categories and personally I have lived in all of these different category neighborhoods so I can really speak from personal experience the three categories are newer desert suburbs upscale urban areas and middle class urban areas I recommend watching the entire video even if you're not interested in the neighborhood type that I'm talking about just so that you get a sense of the city's layout especially from a Foreigner's perspective here's a side note traffic is something to really consider if you're moving to Cairo you should strongly consider living close to where you work now when I say traffic is bad you may think I'm from New York Pizza Yankees home of the Van Wyck backups from JFK to the FDR I'm telling you it's not the same unless you're used to traffic and massive developing cities I'm talking Jakarta Lagos Nigeria Cairo traffic will push you to the brink I worked in New Cairo and I lived near the Nile and sometimes my trip home from work would take literally three hours traffic aside let's Advance category number one desert suburbs now even though Cairo is centered around the Nile River it has continued to develop outward the areas that are the farthest away from the river are characterized by an American Suburban layout what I mean is gated communities large luxury apartment buildings and much more typical Western amenities such as malls big grocery stores and international restaurant chains if you want TGI Fridays you can have TGI Fridays [Music] places like Sheikh Zayed 6th of October and also Medina tea fit this description pretty much to a T and they would be great for individuals or families who are looking for a lifestyle most akin to the one you would find in a typical American city I've written the names of each neighborhood in Arabic in the description so that you can copy and paste these neighborhoods into your search engine to maybe give you a better idea of what's actually there these desert Suburban areas can be great for expats looking to avoid the hustle and bustle of Cairo also this is where many private schools will be located and for families with children this is very important additionally the atmosphere in general is much more relaxed traffic is overall less of a problem there is much more space Apartments will be newer and they'll often have more modern amenities thinking dishwashers laundries units in the actual apartment if you want to go to the mall catch the latest superhero movie and then go to Paul and have a nice French croissant you can absolutely do that everything is a little bit more sterile less excitement less activity but if that's not what you're looking to get out of your experience in Cairo then these areas would be something to consider a downside however is that in some of these newer areas you're very far from the rest of Cairo if you look at medinity for example you're almost a third of the way to the city of Suez by then and like the Suez Canal this is important if you want to frequently go into the center of Cairo a lot of people don't but a lot of people also very much do you will also not be mixing with a wide section of cairo's population in these areas what do I mean by this here you're going to get mostly expats and Egyptian Elites if you're looking to be near expats this would be a very good type of neighborhood to live in but it often doesn't feel like you're mixing much with the Egyptian culture when you live there before we go any further though please throw a like to the video and subscribe to the channel turn on notifications so that you won't miss any tips that I give you on living in the Middle East and Explorations into the Great Wide World in general neighborhood type number two we're going to call it upscale Urban and a lot of people moving to Cairo actually want to be close to a lot of the things that are in Cairo now these upscale Urban neighborhoods give you a great blend of a comfortable Lifestyle on the one hand and proximity to so much of what the city has to offer examples of these neighborhoods are zamalic Garden City which people refer to in Cairo as Garden City and mayadi are these areas expensive yes but it could be a great option obviously depending on your budget Garden City and zamalik are very centrally located they're both next to downtown and the higher square and they are historically the affluent areas of the older parts of Cairo I don't mean old as in like 12th century Fatimid period I mean like 19th and 20th Century Modern period zamalik is a neighborhood on the island in the middle of the Nile known as gazira which means Island in Arabic it boasts many many upscale restaurants art gallery freeze some nice bars and a good mix of expats and Egyptians the Malik can get very busy and its main road can get really crowded especially during rush hour but even just a street away you feel kind of transported out of the hustle and bustle and surrounded by Egyptian charm Garden City is definitely less popping but the area is very upscale and has some beautiful apartment buildings this would be a great option if you want nice accommodations and close proximity to the city center last in this category of upscale Urban my ID differs from the other two upscale Urban neighborhoods I mentioned because of its location it's easily reachable but relatively removed from the city center a ride down the Cornish or a direct shot of the Metro should get you from downtown to Miami relatively quickly mayadi is characterized by some smaller boutiques and restaurants similar to zamalik but it has a bit more openness to it it feels a little bit trendy there will be lots of restaurants with menus entirely in English a lot of English-speaking people will be there and it's actually home to an American Style Diner and a Mexican restaurant called Gringos believe it or not I do not recommend Gringo sucks my idea is also green this is a big point of emphasis because there are not a ton of places in Cairo that have much Greenery so this could be a really great Best of Both Worlds a quiet and tranquil neighborhood where you can walk with your kids on the street walk with them to school it's almost like the Yuppie gentrified parts of Brooklyn our last category Urban middle class areas these areas are perfect for people who want to really immerse themselves in cairo's culture and energy for many expats a work transfer is the thing that motivates their move to Egypt but for some Cairo in and of itself is the ultimate destination because it's just that it is the capital of Egypt the cultural capital of the Arab world they come to learn they come to walk its streets to connect with its inhabitants and to be amongst the energy and excitement that make Cairo one of the most dynamic and unique places in the world personally I for sure Fell in This category when I first moved to Egypt trust me if you're looking to immerse yourself in the city and the culture look for downtown agusa mohandasin and ducky I've put the names again to all these places in the description these areas are centrally located downtown is literally the center of the city and they let you live a pretty regular Egyptian lifestyle and at the same time they have relatively good accommodations at a reasonable price point downtown has a lot of bars and its cafes are some of the most iconic in all of Egypt also these are the cafes that women will feel probably the most comfortable in generally downtown also has some of cairo's most iconic restaurants Abu thought it for kosheri Pizzazz for Shawarma and so so so many others you can really never run out of things to do just in downtown and you'll often find yourself meeting friends in downtown so if you've already lived there you can save yourself the cost of an Uber or a horribly long time in traffic mohandasin and ducky they allow you to live in a pretty normal Egyptian Community popular cafes markets if you want to buy your produce outside of a grocery store and restaurants that are not really expensive in bougie these areas would be perfect for somebody who said as they don't want to live quite like a foreigner within this category I personally lived in mohandasin I went to work I played tennis at a local club that was maybe a two-minute walk from where I lived this club had absolutely no expats it was just Egyptian families I went to the market in the area of KitKat and met up mostly with my friends at a cafe where you sit outside and they're massive flat screen TVs and you play FIFA until as late as you want and when I say late I mean literally as late as you want I was living how a lot of Egyptian guys my age lived and to me that felt pretty cool there may be some of you out there who really want to live in the most quote-unquote Egyptian Place possible really rough it to get the most authentic experience you can possibly get I do not recommend living in these areas places like Islamic Cairo imbaba Hussein bullet all of these areas have so much going on and are really really interesting places but apartments are almost never rented to foreigners not to mention potential problems with utilities internet access and general quality of life differences that most westerners are just not used to enduring unless you are on a mission to live in a very poor area for some reason I would advise completely against it so to recap we have our desert suburbs our upscale Urban neighborhoods and our middle class Urban neighborhoods if you want space and Western amenities head to the desert if you want to be in the city but you want to be super comfortable and you have some money to throw around look to Zamalek Garden City and mayady and for a lifestyle closer to that of a typical Egyptian look to downtown or hostel Belair as it's called mohandasin and ducky if you're still here thanks for watching I hope you found it very helpful like this video and throw me a subscribe for more Middle East and specifically Egypt related content keep exploring have fun in Cairo and hope to see you soon [Music] I'm going out

Channel: Rashad Goes Outside

Views: 6,370

Keywords: Zamalek, Maadi, Agouza, Cairo, Egypt, Giza, Madinaty, Sheikh Zayed, Cairo Expats, Expatriates, Is Egypt Safe, Travel to Egypt

Id: 2bts0XBBBNg

Length: 10min 59sec (659 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 17 2023