Morocco receives more solo travelers than almost any country in Africa and the Mediterranean — and has for decades. The ancient medinas of Fes and Marrakech, the Sahara desert, the blue alleys of Chefchaouen, the windswept Atlantic coast of Essaouira: these are precisely the kind of deeply atmospheric, visually extraordinary places that draw people to...Read More

Morocco is one of the most diverse countries on earth to pack for. In a single 7-day trip, you might walk the medieval stone lanes of Fes in the morning, cross a 2,260-metre mountain pass in the afternoon, spend a night in a Sahara desert camp under stars so thick they look like spilled salt,...Read More

There is a specific moment on a Morocco road trip that happens to almost everyone, usually somewhere between the Tizi n’Tichka Pass and the first glimpse of pre-Saharan desert: you realise that no photograph you have seen of this country — and you have seen many — came close to preparing you for the actual...Read More

Jemaa el-Fna square is ringed by restaurants. Almost every one of them is overpriced, mediocre, and staffed by people outside pulling every passing tourist by the arm. Walk three streets in any direction from the square and the real food scene begins. This is the central truth about eating in Marrakech: the city has an...Read More

Morocco has something that no other African country has: a high-speed rail network. The Al Boraq — launched in 2018 as Africa’s first high-speed train — connects Tangier to Casablanca at up to 320 km/h, reducing a journey that once took 4.5 hours to just over 2 hours. Beyond the Al Boraq, the ONCF network...Read More

Morocco has a way of exceeding expectations that is almost unfair. You have seen the photographs of the blue streets of Chefchaouen — and then you arrive at dawn before the day-trippers and the light is doing something to the walls that no photograph has ever managed to capture, and you realise photographs are simply...Read More

There is a particular kind of travel magic that Morocco produces for couples that no other country in the Mediterranean or North Africa quite replicates. It is the combination of extremes that does it: the intimate courtyard of a centuries-old riad in the evening, then the vastness of the Sahara desert at dawn. The perfumed...Read More

When you announce you are going to Morocco alone as a woman, you will almost certainly hear two things: someone who had a terrible time and tells you not to go, and someone who had an extraordinary trip and cannot understand why you are hesitating. Both of these people are telling the truth. The difference...Read More

This is the most common question in Morocco travel planning. Marrakech vs Fes? Both cities are ancient imperial capitals with UNESCO-listed medinas. Both have extraordinary food, souks, riads, and the particular atmosphere of a Moroccan city that has been alive and complex for over a thousand years. Both are genuinely transformative places to spend several...Read More

Sixty-three kilometres south of Marrakech — ninety minutes by car — a completely different Morocco begins. The city’s heat, noise, and medina energy fall away as the road climbs into the High Atlas. Walnut trees line the river. Pink-red adobe villages appear on hillsides that look impossible to build on. Mules carry firewood. Children wave...Read More