My son just returned from a 6 week backpacking thru Egypt and Lebanon. He did have a few problems when he was picked up by Egyptian police and questioned about why he was traveling alone thru towns off the beaten tourist track. At one point they put him on the next train out of town, but when he got off at the next town, the police there were waiting for him. But, for the most part his trip thru Egypt which was 4 weeks long, passed peacefully, and he saw lots of historic sites, and took about 3,000 pictures.
During his two weeks in Lebanon, he found it to be relatively peaceful, and was surprised to see Christian churches broadcasting Christian hymns right across the street from the Hezbollah Headquarters in Sidon. He was confronted by two Hezbollah guards when he was taking a picture of a mosque in Beirut. He also spent a few days in the Chatilla Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, and heard automatic weapons fire about a block from the hostel he was staying in.
All in all, he found both places extremely interesting, and much more peaceful than he thought that they would be.
That sounds like an exciting trip. Was he traveling solo? You must have been a nervous wreck, though. You should post some of photos on FR. People would love to hear about his trip.
I started my career in field service engineering in power plants and, after three years in the western US, went international for two years. I was in quite a few hot-spot countries (China two weeks after Mao died; Chile a couple years after Allende; the Phillipines near the Marxists and Islamists in Mindanao) which scared my folks to death. Like your son found, I discovered things were nowhere near as bad as the US press had made them out to be. But it only takes a second to get snatched and held captive or get murdered. But, being young and carefree, it was a heck of an experience.
Six weeks in Egypt? I hope he was drinking bottled water and not eating any salad. It’s worse than Mexico.