Hey all,
I’m considering a trip to Egypt for working remotely about a month but am concerned about the VPN restrictions there because some of my work requires me to be on a VPN. Has anyone had experience working from Egypt? I’m looking at staying in Dahab and Cairo mostly. I use Forticlient with my work if that matters.
Thanks!
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Internet and VPN restrictions are a pain in Egypt. I enjoyed my short vacations. But I’d never try to do a Digital Nomad trip in Egypt.
I would be more concerned about the internet speeds in general.
Saying what other’s had said but I did use a VPN in egypt but the speed was so slow that adding the VPN made it even worse. Even at a high end hotel the wifi was very spotty. The best internet I had was from my phone and a local sim card.
I had to work while in Egypt. Nord VPN worked for a lot of my personal stuff in 2021
I’m learning that some VPN services that used to work, don’t work anymore.
But if you head over to https://www.reddit.com/r/Egypt/ you might get more help.
In general, the Egyptian government blocks VPNs and various websites, including websites related to VPNs. The good news is that it looks like Forticlient would work if you can use it in SSL mode, as a local university uses it.
Internet will be reliable if your place has its own DSL router. Definitely inquire with your host about the type of router, whether it is 4G or DSL, and whether the internet connection is shared with anyone else. Most people’s bad experiences arise from a single router shared with multiple apartments/rooms (avoid this like the plague) and 4G routers (the reliability of which can go either way.)
Never assume someone will charge you a fairly. Always negotiate the price first. Write it down on paper before they provide the service.
Not sure how they are blocking VPNS. If anything they likely block all the known IP addresses of shared VPNS from services like nord.
You should be able to circumvent this by creating your own Private VPN server on using a GLI.Net Brume.
as salaam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
You’ll be fine, I survived in Dahab as a software engineer, the internet was a bit unstable for video calls and running water stopping / power outages were common but in every other respect it was fine. ExpressVPN worked without problems.
Forticlient is not blocked in Egypt.
Thanks, I appreciate the honesty. How about Turkey or Morocco?
I’d be more concerned that literally everyone I’ve met who’s been to Egypt says they would never go back.
Internet sucks, but you can make it work with a sim. If you need to do vídeocalls, you’re going to be stressed the entire time. The amount of data they sell you on the sim is actually half the data usage amount. Keep that in mind because you’ll think you have so much more data than you really do.
I was in dahab and cairo within the last year working. It was… Manageable but only because it was slow season for me.
Been to Egypt a few months ago, NordVPN works but you need it installed before you get there.
Then there obfuscated servers work. For this you need to switch to the open vpn protocol in their app.
Dahab is great, had a great Airbnb there from a Dutch couple, dm if interested.
I don’t know what forticlient is, but if it’s another von client you might have a problem because your computer can only run one VPN at a time.
The only solution would be to use a virtual machine and run your work vpn in this and then run the nordvpn in your normal windows, to tunnel one vpn through the other.
I was looking at going with WiFi tribe and they say they have 30mbps+ internet but it isn’t always reliable so I’m not sure how it would be. I’m not sure how to use it in SSL mode but I can check with IT.
Egypt blocks the VPN protocols that gl-inet devices support (OpenVPN and wireguard). It doesn’t matter if you have a private server. In addition many websites related to VPNs are blocked. This is why other commenters say you need to have the Nord client setup before you arrive. Nord has a special VPN protocol that apparently isn’t blocked in Egypt yet.
Thanks, I’m mostly concerned with the 4-5 video calls a day I normally have and working on our Forticlient VPN for the majority of the day. Since work gives me flexibility, I’d be concerned about feeling like I’m taking advantage if there’s connectivity issues.
Egypt was rough both with Internet and culturally. One month in Egypt and I never had steady wifi, always relied on hotspot. Turkey was great as a digital nomad. I only had Internet issues in more rural Southeastern Turkey.
I love Turkey! But you won’t find decent accommodations outside of the main tourist cities. I spent a night in a dormitory with a bunch of college students in Eskisehir.