In addition to our new flight route maps, we are also producing a series of simple city maps. Rather than relying on highly complex street maps, or searches on Google maps / Earth which take you somewhere the other side of the planet, our maps will include the basic information visitors need, and no more.

For a taster, we’ve started with Cairo, which was at the centre of the original Chess Board Maps proposal. Searching Google maps for ‘Giza’ was certainly very confusing – and trying to scan around to see the Pyramids from a satellite image is also quite tricky, as they are so hazy at that height. A better idea might have been to search for ‘Pyramids’, rather than ‘Giza’, but there are numerous cases where searching for one person’s ‘obvious’ is totally different to the way a map might have been programmed.

Our Cairo map is on our Cairo flights page – we hope you can come back and tell us that these maps are useful, and that they enhance your travel research. Otherwise we can only expect users to come back to us saying “Just the basic facts, we can tell you why this hurts“. I hope we get it right!

A few notes about our Cairo map:

• From internal feedback, the Egyptian museum, citadel and bus station need to be added.
• Metro line 3 (green) is under construction, but we understand that some of this is already open – to be confirmed.
• We will add on popular train destinations outside Cairo ‘outside the box’ grid.