In order to escape from the hectic Christmas time, we decided to leave Germany behind to travel through Morocco for three weeks in 2014/2015. To avoid a huge post I will divide the trip into some smaller reports. This article is about Morocco in general and some advice when travelling through the country.

Travelling through Morocco by car

When we decided to travel through Morocco we did not do a lot of research in advance. We had a rough idea about what we wanted to see and we booked a car to pick up at the airport. If the country allows it we normally like to travel by car as it gives you a lot of independence. Of course what we missed is the experience you get from travelling with locals on public transports… In the end we heard from other travellers that travelling by bus is quite reasonable. However, as the car rental was very cheap it was our choice of transport.

The roads in Morocco are quite good for an African country. Nevertheless, you should always plan for a much longer travel time than what you are used to in a Western country. At least double the amount should do. Of course depending on the road (highway, inner country road or mountain pass) I would always plan two hours for 100 km. When travelling through the mountains even more.

Cars are by far not the only vehicle on Moroccan roads. We encountered biked, horses, donkeys etc. So driving by night is really not a good idea as donkeys usually are not equipped with a back light.

‘Visiting the old city centres’ or ‘How to get lost a lot’

Our first stop in Morocco was the city of Fés. We arrived at the airport in the early evening after a comfortable flight from Frankfurt. As mentioned we did not really get into all the details about the country before our trip. So when we arrived in the old city centre (also called medina) of Fés we were sure that we will find our accommodation with the help of the maps that we had downloaded before to our phones. However, we learned the hard way that maps are absolutely useless in the old medinas of ancient Moroccan cities! Read More