Morocco Travel Guides — Choose Your Destination | Culture & Travel Guides

Marrakech rewards exactly one thing: slowing down. This guide is built so you don't spend three days circling the same four monuments and eating two mediocre rooftop tagines.

Inside

• The medina decoded souk by souk, plus the difference between the medina and Gueliz
• A bargaining script that actually works
• Every monument with the right arrival hour — Ben Youssef Madrasa, Bahia Palace, Jardin Majorelle, Jemaa el-Fna at dusk
• Where to stay: how to choose a riad
• Your first hammam, done properly
• Ready-made itineraries
• The full Marrakech wedding sequence

Fes el-Bali has around nine thousand lanes, no grid and no cars. You will get lost — this guide is built for that first afternoon.

Inside

• How to find your way in the largest car-free medina in the world
• Al-Qarawiyyin, Bou Inania and Al-Attarine madrasas — what you can see and when
• The tannery without the argument
• The craft quarters and what to buy
• Ready-made itineraries
• The Fassi wedding and its seven takchitas

The antidote to Marrakech: whitewash and cobalt, a designed 18th-century port and a wind that never fully stops. Most people wish they had booked two nights.

Inside

• The wind season month by month — when to go
• The Skala ramparts and the port between 8 and 11am
• How to judge real thuya marquetry
• The port-grill price rule
• The Mellah and Bayt Dakira
• Where to sleep and ready-made itineraries
• Gnawa music and its place at weddings

The most photographed town in Morocco and one of the least understood. Part One is the town; Part Two is a Chefchaouen wedding, scene by scene.

Inside

• Founded in 1471, filled by refugees from Granada — and why it is blue
• The blue lanes at 7:30am, before the day-trippers
• The bridal hammam procession in white haiks
• The henna day
• Al-Hadra Chaouniya — the women's music you will hear nowhere else
• The farewell song sung to make the bride cry

The city at the top of Africa, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic — and a cliff-top wedding above both seas.

Inside

• Roman Tingis, an English royal dowry, the International Zone and its writers
• Breakfast in the medina: sfenj, baghrir and mint tea
• The Kasbah, Bab Bhar and the American Legation
• A day in the medina with a local friend — the carpet shop and the bocadillo
• A wedding where Andalusian strings, Jebli drums and Rifian songs share one night

Forty minutes from Europe, and the city almost everyone drives past on the way to Chefchaouen. A city guide and a complete wedding guide in one book.

Inside

• The whitewashed Andalusian medina (UNESCO since 1997) and the Granada refugees who rebuilt it
• The Spanish Art Deco quarter beside it
• The groom's gift carried through the medina at night
• The bride's seven changes of takchita and the amariya lifted shoulder-high
• The orchestra and the table at midnight
• Ten rules for being a good wedding guest

The most oversold and under-planned leg of a Moroccan trip. This guide exists to stop you buying the minibus version.

Inside

• Erg Chebbi or Erg Chigaga — which dunes are right for you
• Honest drive times
• Three camp tiers with real prices
• How to time your night for the sky
• A wedding in the dunes, from the arrival over the sand to the circle around the fire
• Camel welfare, three scams by name, and the full cost table

You have already seen it on screen. This guide separates the film set from the village people still live in.

Inside

• How to read an earthen wall — and why it needs rebuilding
• What is real and what was built for the camera
• Four routes in, with honest drive times
• The two hours of light worth staying the night for
• The agadir granary at the summit
• How to be a good guest at a Moroccan wedding

Imilchil's September moussem is one of the most misdescribed events in Morocco. This guide sets the record straight — and gets you there.

Inside

• What really happens at the September moussem (it is not a 'bride market')
• How the dates are actually set
• The legend of the two lakes, Isli and Tislit
• Four approach roads with honest drive times
• Room prices at 2,200 metres
• How to read a handira, and three full itineraries