A message during Ramadan, 2014

During Ramadan in 2014 I got a message on Couchsurfing from Nicki, an American who was coming to Egypt and wanted to see the real one. I showed her Giza the way I knew it, from the dunes, with tea at my mother's table. Two weeks later she asked if her family friend Jeremy could come too. I invited him to stay at our house.

Five months later my inbox was full of people asking for the same thing. I needed a name. My grandfather had been a government tour guide in 1964, and after he died I wanted to carry that on. Rami's Insight Tours was born on the rooftop.

Come as friends, leave as family

We are a Bedouin family from the desert, and hospitality is not a business model for us, it is how we were raised. You eat with us. You meet my mother. My sister Rania guides too, and many of our women guests ask for her. The house you sleep in is ours.

We work with a small team: Rania, Kelly, Ehab, drivers we have known for years, and Bedouin hosts at Abusir and in the White Desert. We know the guards and the camel owners by name, which is why nothing at the pyramids costs you extra.