Moulaoui Guery’s time with the Homeless World Cup—she worked as its director of international partner development for several years—took her around the world, from Paris to Mexico, Poland, and Chile, and beyond, and she witnessed firsthand how participation in the tournament transformed players’ confidence and sense of identity. “It sparked the idea that you can do something creative while supporting people,” she says. “It’s not about meeting immediate needs—you’re not providing food or shelter—but about giving people a sense of purpose.” Yet she also kept returning to a nagging question: how could that same kind of meaningful connection with people challenged with homelessness happen outside of an annual, structured event? How could everyday people, from locals to tourists, access those stories in a way that felt natural and respectful?
In 2014, Moulaoui Guery received a wrenching cancer diagnosis, pausing her career in events. “It made me realize how important travel was to me,” she says. “The first thing I thought was, does that mean I can’t travel anymore? And the doctors said, ‘Absolutely not, you have to rest and heal.’” Her experience with serious illness threw everything into sharp relief. “Like it does for a lot of people, it made me want to do my own thing and grow my own organization and no longer work for something else,” she continues. “It made me a little bit braver in that way.”
After successfully completing treatment, she asked herself what it was she truly loved. The answer was clear: travel, storytelling, and authentic human connection. She joined an incubator program to develop a spark of an idea, and by the summer of 2016, officially launched Invisible Cities.
From the outset, she designed Invisible Cities to work in close partnership with local homelessness organizations, which support guides with training, mentoring, and ongoing care. The assistance those organizations provide is essential, she explains. “Our guides may still be navigating health issues, mental health challenges, family situations, or housing instability. We always lead with partnership.”
A major turning point came after a BBC television feature spotlighted the work of Invisible Cities. By chance, someone at the Royal Foundation saw the segment and reached out. The foundation’s mission—to change the narrative around homelessness—aligned seamlessly with Invisible Cities’ ethos, and in March 2025, as part of the Aberdeen launch, Prince William joined a tour led by one of the guides and stood side-by-side with Moulaoui Guery for meetings with partner organizations and potential sponsors. “He asked a lot of questions,” Moulaoui Guery says, “but always came back to, ‘So how are we going to support what’s happening?’ He takes that responsibility very seriously. The team around him takes it very seriously. It was just, ‘We will support you. Don’t worry about the rest. We’ll do it.’”
Despite the high-profile recognition, the heart of Invisible Cities remains deeply personal. Guides choose the stories they want to tell and the routes they want to walk. For Gayle, my guide in Edinburgh, a tour about women was a natural fit. She first came to Invisible Cities through Sparkle Sisters, an event organized for homeless women that offered free bra fittings, haircuts, clothing, and toiletries. Guery was one of the participants, and spoke briefly about her own organization. “I was fascinated and wanted to get involved,” Gayle says. After interviewing and participating in a training program, she began writing her own tour about the women of Edinburgh. She’s been a guide now for three years, and like her colleagues, has found not only employment and independent living, but a way to give voice to untold female-centric stories. “It is completely different to anything I’ve done before,” she says. “It brings me independence and self-confidence.” Gayle was able to transition to living independently, but Moulaoui Guery is quick to point out that recruiting female guides remains a challenge.