Traveling in Morocco: an experience that leaves you speechless (and free from insect bites)
Do you want to spend a full 8 days in Morocco?
Are you crazy? 8 days away from the city smog, from your neighbor blasting cheesy music at full volume every morning, from the sadness of concrete and asphalt in urban areas?
And, above all, 8 days without the chance to enjoy the trashiness of our TV?
Well, if you have decided to make such a sacrifice, we want to share the burden with you and take you to Morocco on our tours.
Now, jokes aside, let’s talk seriously: Morocco is incredible, and once you see it they’ll need to call in the special forces to convince you to go back to everyday life. In this article, we want to show you just a tiny glimpse of the amazing things you’ll be able to see with your own eyes (because telling you everything would have taken an encyclopedia). We’ll show you the rest in person once we get there.
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Marrakech is absolute madness: and that’s exactly why we love it!
You can’t say you’ve truly seen Morocco without visiting Marrakech, perhaps the city that more than any other fully represents the soul of this beautiful country.
How can we describe it?
Picture an explosion of history, culture, colors, scents, and vendors trying to sell you every kind of local craft, ready to bargain to the very end: this is the Medina, the old city that welcomes you and overwhelms you with its souks and its maze of alleyways that could confuse even Bear Grylls.
Then there is the famous Djemaa el Fna Square, the beating heart of Marrakech.
By day, it’s total chaos, a bazaar where you can find products of every kind and endless local food to feast on without a shred of dignity. But it’s at sunset that the real magic begins. The square turns into an open-air theater where snake charmers, performers, and musicians bring an endless show to life.
And, of course, we can’t talk about Marrakech without mentioning its Riads—traditional Moroccan homes with inner gardens and fountains, offering an oasis of peace amid the city’s bustle. Sleeping in a Riad is like stepping back in time and enjoying the local culture to the fullest: and when we are in Morocco, we never miss that chance.
The city most hated by those damned mosquitoes? Maybe it’s this one
Chefchaouen is one of those places that you won’t believe until you see it...
The feature it is known for (and that will leave you speechless the moment you see it with your own eyes) is its streets and buildings painted in different shades of blue: basically, every wall and every little lane has been used like a canvas to turn the town into a kind of open-air art gallery.
“And why the heck did they use blue? Wouldn’t it have been easier to slap on a nice coat of concrete-gray paint like those ugly apartment blocks, the kind you can find discounted at any hardware store?”
Great question—and one without a certain answer.
Some say blue was used because this color has the special ability to keep insects away. And anyone who has ever lived in hot places like Morocco knows how annoying and relentless they can be there—especially those damn mosquitoes.
Others, however, argue that it all began in the 1940s, when the local Jewish population grew as many families fled Nazi persecution. Blue was supposedly chosen to represent the connection between the town and the kingdom of heaven, in the hope of somehow escaping the idea of the hell on earth they had experienced in Europe.
Which of these versions is true, we still don’t know, but when faced with such a spectacle, all we can say is: who cares why? Either way, it’s simply fantastic!
Between nature and UNESCO: two gems of southern Morocco
Ouarzazate and Ait Benhaddou are two little jewels in southern Morocco, as beautiful as they are hard to pronounce.
The area is scorching—literally!
The climate is desert-like and, since Mother Nature likes to be a little cruel, she decided that here in southern Morocco temperatures should range from the icy cold of the winter months to a level best described as “oh my God I want to tear my skin off” degrees Celsius.
The landscape is absolutely stunning, both from a natural and an architectural point of view. In fact, the Ouarzazate area has been used as a film set for several major movies, including Gladiator.
Ait Benhaddou, in particular, is extraordinary: a fortified village built of rammed earth that makes you feel as if you’ve been catapulted back in time as you walk through it. Or rather, this is the look of the ksar, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the oldest part of the town, built centuries ago to protect the caravan routes that crossed the Sahara.
Then, in the twentieth century, Ait Benhaddou expanded with the construction of rather dull modern houses, where most of the population now lives.
Bleh! We’re rooting for the ksar, and so is the Moroccan government, which in recent years has been investing in infrastructure to make the area easier to reach and encourage people to move back.
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In conclusion
And there you have it: the appetizer, a little taste of what awaits you on our Morocco itineraries. Because yes, since we like doing things properly, we have organized no fewer than 2 of them, one in the north of the country and one in the south.
We’re offering you both: take a look at the program and choose the one you prefer. But if you really want to discover the true spirit of Morocco, we recommend experiencing both.
Pack your backpack—we’re off!
