The Tour Egypt Blog Review

by Jimmy Dunn

This is Tour Egypt's first Blog Review, a feature we expect to do once each month. Future reviews will probably concentrate more on summarizing some of the important news within the blogs, as well as giving information about new ones, but this being our first review, we would like to simply tell our readers about the new blogs themselves.

We are very excited about our new blog system, and for good reason. It is adding some good information for our readers. At times, the information is even exclusive, and we expect much more such news. In fact, we expect the whole system to get better and better for several reasons, providing information that simply cannot be found elsewhere.

Of course, first of all, our bloggers are hand selected, and if they write about an area of Egypt, that is where they live. This is not a blog farm, which also means that we can work closely with them. They are more like independent Tour Egypt reporters, and one reason we expect this system to improve is that we are working with, and training those who need to be trained. Having operated Tour Egypt for just about ten years, we have a pretty good idea about what our readers would like to know about, and what interests them, and we are conveying this information to our bloggers. If you would like to join this team and believe that you have the resources to do so, please email me at jimdunn@interoz.com. Include in the subject header, the single word, blog. Keep in mind that we are also looking for blog operators on topics other than destinations. We will look favorably on any request dealing with ancient Egypt and modern travel to Egypt, as well as other Egyptian topics.

Admittedly, we currently have some blogs that are functioning very well, and others that need some help, which we are supplying. Our top two blogs at the moment, which are functioning very well, are the Egyptology News Blog run by Andie Byrnes, and our Luxor News Blog run by Jane Akshar, who lives in Luxor and operates, with her Egyptian husband, Mahmoud Jahlan, a small tourist company called Flats in Luxor.

At least several of our bloggers need no training. While Andie Byrnes' blog may be new to Tour Egypt, her Egyptology News blog is not new. She was, to our knowledge, the first person to start an Egyptology News Blog, which has been up and running for some time. Keep in mind that her blog on Tour Egypt can also be reached using http://www.egyptologynews.com.

Andie is a trained Prehistorian currently researching Neolithic Egypt. She is in the first year of a PhD, looking at early agricultural practices in Egypt and the Sinai. It was obviously these interests that led to her Egyptology News blog, which she has now been running for nearly two years.

When it comes to ancient Egypt, her blog is one of the best to be found. She is a meticulous researcher who scours the net and other resources for Egyptology news so our readers don't have to. However, we also hope that we can enhance her efforts by opening up our network of people in Egypt to her disposal.

Nefertari's tomb may not reopen to the general public, and there are three new balloon companies in Luxor, but watch out for quality and safety. Did you miss this in the main stream media? While these two news items have not much in common, other than a Luxor heritage, you heard it first here. This is Jane Akshar's Luxor News blog, and she is well connected in Luxor. While new to blogging, she has a natural talent for this that showed up the day she started the blog, and for those interested in the happenings of Luxor, her blog is an essential resource. Jane's Luxor news blog can also be reached at http://www.luxornews.net

We have a number of new blogs, including one just added today, that we are working with closely to improve. They include Diaa Khalil's Wedding blog, and News blogs for Taba and Nuweiba, two towns on the Egyptian Sinai's east coast. These are just getting started and there is not much here yet.

A lot of people email about weddings in Egypt. For one thing, many tourists witness these in the large hotels, and become curious about the process. We are hopeful that Diaa and his bride, Asmaa will lead our readers through the process. The Taba and Nuweiba blogs are both run by Gasser Riad of Nature Travel in the Sinai. They have offices in each of the towns. They are therefore located well for Taba and Nuweiba News, and have the connections, but we need to get them up to speed on what our readers want to hear about. Of course, these are new blogs, and they have just gotten through a Jewish holiday that was a busy time for them, but this coming week we will be working closely with them to improve their posts.

Otherwise, there is the Message Center Reporter blog which I personally am operating to relay summary information from our Message Center, and a Master blog that I am also running which is simply a menu system to the others.

If it seems like we are very much pushing the new blog system, that is correct. We see this as a way to better inform our readers about the news, events and other information in specific locations, as well as a way to provide more interaction and information on other topics related to travel and ancient Egypt. Its all for you, our readers.

Last Updated: June 9th, 2011