Hi, we’re Ahmed and Sidney, better known to each other as Mido and Tolo. From the hippie beach town of Dahab to overlanding Saudi Arabia to remodelling a farmhouse in AlUla and other travels in between, it’s easy to say we're pretty adventurous. We've also recently added a tiny, new member to our travel gang.
Mido and Tolo is a chance for us to share our travels, a place to hold our photos, a creative outlet. We hope this digital diary can help the curious find adventure in more remote locations and realize that travel can be more accessible than you otherwise thought possible. Think of the blog section as extended advice from that travel friend, making sure you see the best of the places we’ve been to.
Don’t let the big hair fool you – Mido is brilliant. He’s the one who can turn a wild idea into a real plan, who can spot possibility before anyone else sees it. He’s spent his career in marketing, building campaigns that connect cultures and put places on the map, but at home he’s the one dreaming up our next road trip, making sure the playlist is ready, and reminding me that nothing is too big to figure out.
Sidney is the voice you’re hearing through these pages – the storyteller, the maker, the one who can turn a messy moment into a memory worth writing down. She’s been many things (humanitarian, teacher, copywriter, developer), but at her core she’s endlessly curious and endlessly willing to take the leap. This blog is her way of opening the door and inviting you along on our adventure.
Egyptians love a good nickname. Mido is a fairly common one for Ahmed, and Tolo is my family name. Apologies in advance for when you see Ahmed and Mido written in the same story – it’s just one person – I famously do it in real life too.
Ahmed comes from Alexandria, Egypt known for great fish, beautiful architecture and ‘ahsan nas’ or the best people. (I may be biased now, but it’s true.) I’m Sidney, from Minneapolis, Minnesota known for it’s cold weather, as America’s best biking city and ‘Minnesota Nice.’
While we’re working on the dream to never work again, we still have jobs – pretty cool ones actually, where we “have” to be at events and concerts and openings in a super luxe setting. But what really makes us happy is the little things. On weekends when we don’t have events, we hop in our car with our dog ZouZou and drive til we hit the coast and go wild camping. Recently, we truly haven’t been able to plan in advance, but that bodes well with my favorite phrase and answer to “What’s the plan?” – the no plan plan.
