A New Way to Discover Morocco
Destinations, authentic experiences, local culture and practical knowledge — a premium guide to the real Morocco, from the medinas to the dunes.
The Guide
MOROCCONTACT is a modern travel guide built like a magazine and edited like a local’s notebook. We map the destinations, decode the culture, and hand you the practical knowledge — so you spend less time planning and more time inside the country.
Every recommendation comes from people who live it — riad owners, guides, artisans and cooks — not from a booking algorithm.
The famous squares matter, but so do the foundouks, the neighbourhood hammams and the villages one valley past the tour buses.
Real prices, real seasons, real transport. The kind of detail that turns a good trip into an effortless one.
Where to Go
From imperial medinas to Atlantic ramparts and the great dunes — each destination below is a doorway, with the season to go and the reason to stay longer.
The Red City
A thousand-year-old medina that wakes slowly and roars at dusk. Jemaa el-Fnaa fills with storytellers, grill smoke and drum circles while the souks behind it unfold into miles of dyers, metalworkers and spice merchants.
Best season — March – May, October – November
The Blue Pearl
A mountain town washed in fifty shades of blue, folded into the Rif Mountains. Come for slow mornings on stepped alleys, goat cheese from the valley, and the trail up to the Spanish Mosque for sunset over the rooftops.
Best season — April – June, September – October
The Spiritual Capital
The world’s largest car-free medina and Morocco’s craft heartland. Watch tanners work the Chouara dye pits as they have since the 11th century, then get deliberately lost among 9,000 lanes of madrasas, foundouks and brass workshops.
Best season — March – May, September – November
The Windy Coast
Atlantic air, whitewashed ramparts and blue fishing boats hauling in the morning catch. Essaouira moves at half the speed of Marrakech — surf, gnaoua music, grilled sardines at the port and argan cooperatives in the hills behind.
Best season — Year-round, windiest April – August
The Mountain Backbone
North Africa’s highest peaks rise two hours from Marrakech. Trek between mud-brick Berber villages, share mint tea in family gîtes, and stand on the 4,167 m summit of Jebel Toubkal above a sea of ridgelines.
Best season — April – June, September – October
The Great Dunes
Where the road ends, the Erg Chebbi dunes begin — 150-metre walls of sand glowing amber at dawn. Ride in by camel, sleep in a desert camp under a saturated sky, and wake to absolute silence.
Best season — October – April
Authentic Experiences
Skip the hotel buffet. Follow the grill smoke into Jemaa el-Fnaa’s night stalls, order harira and msemen at a counter in Fès, and learn why Friday is couscous day across the whole country.
Mint tea is Morocco’s handshake — poured high, sweet, and never rushed. Accept it in a weaver’s cooperative, a mountain gîte or a riad courtyard, and let the conversation set the pace.
Fès brass, Safi ceramics, Taznakht carpets, Essaouira thuya wood. Buy directly from the workshops where these crafts are still made by hand, and hear the story behind each piece.
Stay in a restored riad — a courtyard house hidden behind a plain door. Orange trees, zellige tilework, breakfast on the roof terrace, and the call to prayer drifting over the rooftops.
The hammam is a weekly ritual, not a spa treatment. Go to a neighbourhood bathhouse, bring black soap and a kessa glove, and leave with the softest skin of your life.
Gnaoua rhythms in Essaouira, Amazigh ahidous in the Atlas, Sufi chants in Fès. Morocco’s soundtrack is live, communal and centuries deep — ask locally who is playing tonight.
Suggested Routes
Tested routes that balance the famous with the hidden. Take them as they are, or treat them as a spine to improvise around.
7 days
The classic first week: two days inside the Marrakech medina, then over the Tizi n’Tichka pass to the kasbahs, gorges and finally a night in the Erg Chebbi dunes before looping back.
MarrakechAït BenhaddouDades ValleyMerzougaMarrakech
10 days
History in layers — Roman Volubilis, the blue lanes of Chefchaouen, the medieval university city of Fès, and a finale in Marrakech. All connected by train and short drives.
CasablancaRabatChefchaouenFèsMeknesMarrakech
14 days
Two weeks, four landscapes: Mediterranean north, medieval cities, Sahara dunes, Atlas villages and an Atlantic finish. The itinerary we would hand a friend with time to spare.
TangierChefchaouenFèsMerzougaHigh AtlasEssaouiraMarrakech
Travel Essentials
The practical layer of every great trip: seasons, trains, dirhams and the small courtesies that change how Morocco receives you.
MOROCCONTACT
Start with a destination, follow an itinerary, or simply learn how Morocco works before you land. This guide grows every week — new places, new voices, new ways in.
