A Week in Marrakech, Morocco
Within the last two years I’ve grown so much by traveling and I felt ready to take on my first international trip. It was the first time someone had asked me on an international trip as well, so I quickly said yes to the opportunity. Thank you Alex from eccontessa.com! I researched that Morocco, specifically Marrakech, lays on the Northern part of Africa. I have not been to many other countries outside of the USA. Currently writing this post I have been to the Virginia Islands, Canada a few times on a cruise ship, and Bermuda also on a cruise ship trip. I was stoked and also started to quickly panic as I had no idea how to leave the country (besides knowing I needed to get a plane ticket and had to have a up to date passport) or what I needed to do to prepare for such a journey.
In this post I’ll lay out some tips and questions you will want to ask yourself before you travel anywhere. I also lay out where Alex and I stayed, what we ate, and what we did. Some of what we did may leave you saying “you’ve goat to me kidding me”, haha. In case you are wondering what time of year my trip was, I went from December 18th to December 25th, 2018 (I drove home after my 17-hour flight to still make the holidays with my family!). The only change I would make to this itinerary is to stay in the Sahara desert for 3 days, if you love nature!
INTERNATIONAL PREFLIGHT CHECK OFF LIST QUESTIONS
- Do you need a visa and/or just a passport?
- Do you need vaccinations?
- Have you researched the USA or emergency phone numbers for reaching your country?
- Do you need to do any currency exchanges?
- Did you notify your credit card companies that you will be traveling?
- Call your phone service provider to check into their international plans!
- Do you have transportation set up to go to the airport, transportation set up for traveling around the country you are visiting (very important!), getting to the departing flight, and once again when you have landed and are ready to go home from the airport?
- Bring a pen just in case you need to fill out a visa arriving and departing paper at the airport.
- Do you know what the emergency numbers are in the area to call for help, and what your country’s call for helpline is for travelers?
Seven Day Morocco Itinerary
Day One: In Flight
I few out of Dulles to Morocco with layovers in NYC and Casablanca. I don’t love losing a whole day to traveling on an airplane when I’m taking off time from work but when your flight is 17 hours and 2 minutes in total, it happens. I left Washington, DC (IAD) Airport at 2:00 PM and had a 5 hours and 5-minute layover in NYC and a 2 hours and 2 minutes layover in Casablanca
Day Two: Checked into Riad
I finally arrived in Morocco at 12:05 PM! From there I met up with my friend at the baggage claim area. We figured this would be a good way to meet up and not get lost in case I couldn’t figure out how to get my phone to work on Wi-Fi. Being my first international trip my main goal was to make sure meeting up with Alex would be easy!
From the airport, we took a cab ride that was arranged through our Riad ahead of time. I had wonderful experiences at all the Raids (which is the equivalent to a style of “hotels” in Morocco) that we stayed at. They were all unique and gorgeous!
At night we went to a restaurant called Ksar Es Saoussan which was a 10-minute walk from our Raid Hotel. We met up with a guide who helped us walk the tunnels at night to the restaurant. It’s not suggested to walk around alone at night. We ordered what I thought was going to be American salad, but was pleasantly surprised when a three-tier plate of hummus, Olives, pumpkin purée, along with some other foods arrived. A lot of the menu was in French and we didn’t have good cell phone service to google what we were reading so we decided to be adventurous which was great in order to try things we don’t normally get! Most of the other restaurants had both English and French on the menu.
As a side note, I suggest sticking to eating at restaurants, along with drinking bottled water, and not eating the street food as we overheard some people at one of the Riad’s we stayed at got sick. Alex and I did not get sick our entire time visiting and I highly suggest going to all of the places that we went to!
Day Three: Breakfast at Riad, Jamaa Lafna Square and Lunch at La Salama
The first morning in Morocco we had an amazing breakfast spread of croissants, fruits, yogurt, cinnamon buns, coffee, and delicious orange juice. After breakfast, we walked down the street to a mosaic. A “tour guide” approached us and said he would show us around for free. This is commonly a tourist trap, but we were not in any danger. These tour guides generally just make commission off of anything that you purchase at the stores that they bring you to. He brought us through a market to a government building to see how Argan oil is made where Alex and I bought skin cream, spices, and tea.
After learning about how Argon oil and some other commodities, we walked through the Jamaa Lafna Square. This was full of people everywhere selling items such as sunglasses, jewelry, handbags, teapots, and other trinkets. For a price, you can get henna tattoos put on you, take photographs with snake charmers or monkeys that are walked around on leashes. These photos typically cost about a US dollar or two.
Next, the tour guide took us to look at rugs in the Centre Monetique Interbancaire at Palais Vizir Médina. However, you will find rugs at the souk for a fraction of the price but they may not be as good quality. You should do your own research on rugs if you are interested in purchasing one! The people at Palais Vizir Medina were very good salespeople, so knowing your facts beforehand is a great idea. I’m in love with the rugs that I got, and they packaged them up so well that I was able to fit three rugs into my suitcase (seriously a miracle).
One thing that I would never get used to in Marrakech, Morocco is that there people driving on mopeds going super fast down alleyways where we were shopping and sometimes near the Riads we were staying in. They gave me tremendous anxiety as we were told to keep our bags to the side of the wall so no one could grab it from us. There are also sometimes cars that try to drive down these already crowded with people streets and you can get stuck behind them in a large crowd.
We returned to our room to drop off our big purchases. Although nothing bad had happened, we were a little shocked at ourselves for walking around with a stranger for the afternoon. We were grateful to explore more of the city with a friendly person, but I suggest hiring someone instead.
Later that day, we asked our Riad manager to give us a ride to Le Salama Marrakech where he dropped us off at the end of the street and we walked through a market place. Yet again faced with a large crowd and hustle and bustle of city life, a young boy tried to pickpocket Alex’s bag. This can happen in any major city, so you should always be alert when traveling.
We arrived at Le Salama Marrakech and walked up three restaurant floors to the sky bar room. This room has hundreds of plants hanging from the ceiling and windows lining the walls that outlook the city. The views from this restaurant are breathtaking and outlook to the mountains. You can see more on their website, Instagram or my Instagram highlights.
We ordered and ate chicken skewers, meatballs and egg, fritas (French fries), and vegetarian couscous. We also got an amazing apple tart for dessert.
After dinner, we went back and hung out in the Raid.
Day Four: Tour of the city, lunch at Blackchich Cafe and checked into Villa Verde
On the fourth day in Marrakech, Alex and I were picked up by Private Morroco’s travel tour company. The travel company we worked with WAS FABULOUS. We walked pass Moulay El Yazid Mosque, they showed us where to take the most instagramable photos, and then we walked around the area learning about the culture and history of Morocco. You can check out their Instagram , website, and also our tour guide Mouksit Jhd and contact him directly on his Instagram.
I can seriously not say enough kind words about this company. They went above and beyond to help out two Morocco first timers. I recommend them fully with your trip to Morocco.
Blackchich Cafe
For lunch, we ventured over to Blackchich cafe which was a walk through the very busy square again. Blackchich Cafe has the cutest rooftop ever that overlooks Marrakech. When we first sat down we ordered Iced Coffee which was presented to us with the cutest bamboo straws. We ordered Home Made Fries, Fatayas, Rfissa, and Mafe Tappou Nague. For dessert, we ordered the prettiest Brownie a l’orange as well as Moroccan Pastries & Tea. The service at Blackchich Cafe was beyond amazing! The food here was the best of the trip in my opinion! We were going to go back for dinner, but Alex and I decided to not travel out at night as we didn’t feel comfortable walking around in case we got lost and we had read online about safety protocols.
Villa Verde
After eating an amazing meal at Blackchic Cafe, our tour guide helped us to walk back and check into Villa Verde. We settled into our super adorable and homey room. This Villa is on a open street with a lot of cabs outside of it which was helpful when we needed a ride to go to Dar Cherifa the next day.
Our room was amazing! When you first walk in, it has a colorful tiled bathroom to the right with a toilet, sink, mirror, and shower. When you take a few more steps in you will be in the living room (pictured below) which has a bookshelf that spans across the entire living room back wall. Walking pass that, you will come to the stairs that lead up to the loft bedroom. The bed in the loft was super comfortable and I passed out quickly. One other note to make is that the Wi-Fi worked great here! We were struggling with Wi-Fi the first few days of the trip because our other Riad had to keep resetting it for us so we could editing photos and upload content. We were super grateful for the internet at Villa Verde!
Directly outside of our room is a gorgeous open space with a water fountain filled with rose petals that are surrounded by tables to hang out at and a tiny kitchen area. This area also has doors to a few other rooms in the Raid.
When you walk upstairs you will find what I like to call a meditation room with a lot of colorful pillows on the floor. Walking around the second level you will find a few more areas to lounge and hang out.
Pictured above is ( Alex, me, and our Villa Verde Staff new friend Youssef !)
Traveling upward to the third floor you will find a rooftop that looks over the city! This was one of my favorite places to hang out during the vacation as we were relaxed and overlooking the busy streets below!
Youssef made us desert tea which is made by pouring the tea over and over to create a foam. We watched the sun go down on Marrakech as we made new friends with the Riad staff.
Day Five: Lunch at Dar Charifa, checked out it Villa Verde, and checked into Ksar Saad Riad
The next morning we woke up early and ran to the rooftop to checkout breakfast! We were greeted with huge smiles, coffee (with creamer and sugar) and out of this world tasty fresh pressed orange juice. They started making our breakfast and served us eggs, three different kinds of bread (croissants, loaf bread and a pancake style bread), jam for spreading on the pancake bread, butter , and yogurt.
Pictured above is ( Alex , me, Louis a fellow content creator, and our other new friend Olmir)
After breakfast, we went out to checkout Dar Charifa for lunch. On our way, we walked through tunnels but it was mostly, from what I could tell, residential places and doors that you had to open to go inside throughout these tunnels.
A man saw us walking to this restaurant and tried to guide us there without us asking and then awaited payment . Luckily nothing bad happened and he walked off annoyed at us, however, we heard these types of scenarios can end badly. I think it’s important to know about this type of scenery anywhere you travel.
Dar Cherifa is a gorgeous restaurant with beautiful relaxing music playing while you eat. There is this main room that you see pictured below and then there are also private rooms upstairs that you can request to eat in as well. This main dining room has an open ceiling so that you are breathing in fresh air and birds come down to play in the tiny water pool in the middle of the floor which you can see has roses floating in it. The restaurant was very clean and truly breath taking.
At Dar Cherifa we started off with Soupe Harira Traditionnelle which is called Traditional Harira soup. We also got Trio de Briouates or Trio of Briouates selection which is the dish that looks like egg rolls as appetizers. My favorite was the egg rolls! For main dishes we ordered the Tanjia Marrakchia au Jarret de boeuf or also called Shin of beef Tanjia Marrakchia which was my favorite Tanjia of the week. It melted in your mouth and you didn’t need a knife to cut it at all. Alex got the Seffa au volaille, sucre glace et cannelle or also called Seffa with chicken, sugar and cinnamon. For desserts, we had Crême brulée au Safran and Pannacotta. I was in love with the creme brûlée. To drink we had Café au lait or also known as Café latte and Thé au Safran or Saffron’s Tea. I was very glad to see this menu had both French and English descriptions!
From there we called to see if we could have our tour guide help us with our luggage because we were having to move it where cars were unable to travel to into the city. This next Riad was locked in an area where there were mostly narrow pebble roads lined with small store fronts such as fruit shops, meat shops where meat was hanging in the open, clothing and accessory stores. As mentioned before, these roads also had mopeds driving down them. Our tour guide was amazing and was able to meet us at villa verde to walk us to Ksar Saad Raid. Thank you so much for your help Mouksit!
Arriving at Ksar Saad they greeted us with tea, and cookies and asked us if we would like dinner. They prepared hummus pizza and salad for us to eat which was delicious. Everything that we ate at Ksar Saad was amazing. For dinner you need reservations. They also offer a spa that is located downstairs for massages and has a saunas. We did not get any spa services so I can’t describe an experience about the service but it was a very peaceful and relaxing looking area.
After a long day , we quickly settled into our room, got into bed and started to rest.
The rooms as you can see above are gorgeous! The bed was very comfortable and there were outlets on both sides of the bed which we desperately needed for plugging in our laptops and camera batteries. The details on the ceiling on our first room were breathtaking. This first room we stayed in also had a gorgeous bathtub.
Day Six: Tour of Essaouira
In the morning we had a quick breakfast at Ksar Saad before our all day tour to Essaouira. We walked through some of the tunnels to the first main street road where cars can pull up (about a 6 minute walk) where our Our tour guide company Atlas Sahara Explore (we used the same tour guide company for our entire trip, I highly suggest you do the same!) picked up and we began our 3 hour drive to Essaouira. Our drivers name was Khalid and he was the best! He asked us our music preferences and was a super amazing driver. On our way to Essaouira, we saw the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. A GOAT TREE! I’ve included a video incase you think this photo is photoshopped, haha.
As we started to get closer to our destination, we saw camels along side the highway where tourist were taking photos with them. They seemed pretty out of place to me here. We stopped and checked out the camels as I have never seen one up close, or ever, in person. Most of the photos are of Alex and I struggling to stay on the camel and we’re taken on our iPhones, so sorry those are for us to renounce and laugh at LOL.
Life in Essaouira has a completely different vibe from Marrakech. I think people who live by the ocean are a lot happier from the endorphins coming from the sea! There are also no mopeds or cars driving down the small market place alleyways which made it very relaxing.
Our guide at this place was beyond amazing and informative. He was very kind and I also highly recommend him as a walking guide , you can email Aitham at Aithammouchou@hotmail.com .
After we shopped and ate lunch by the ocean side, we drove back to Marrakech which took about 2 hours listening to local music that our driver kindly put on for us.
When we got back to Ksar Saad we got ready and headed downstairs for dinner. We were served tuna salad as an appetizer and a chicken sandwich entrée with a side of fries. It was the closest American meal I had the whole trip which made me feel at home! We of course had Moroccan mint tea!
The second night we moved rooms up one floor for us to checkout more of the hotel and take photos. This room had its own crystal chandelier, television, and an amazing bathroom with tub as well. There was also a towel warmer on the wall and a bidet which I regrettably did not try out. This was the first time I had ever seen a bidet in person so I really missed my chance. Next time I will YouTube how to use this and do so haha!! This trip had so many first times seeing things for the first time!
Day Seven: Ksar Saad Riad
When we woke up we had breakfast in the middle level right outside our bedroom. We had coffee, tea, orange juice, brownie, strawberries and these little tiny like pancake breads that were delicious. They are called Beghrir (Moroccan Pancakes) and I could have eaten a million of them!
After we ate breakfast we spent most of the day photo-shooting around the hotel and admiring the architecture and hand laid tiles that lined most of Ksar Saad. We then moved our luggage into our last room we stayed in which was upstairs on the rooftop. We also stayed up and recapped our trip together over face masks and girl time before going to bed at which you can see pictured below that had yet again an amazing tub and towel warmer! We did see a few rooms with showers in them, so if you prefer to stay in a room with a shower, I would just message them in Airbnb here and let them know!
Day Eight: Bye Marrakech, Morocco, Home Bound!
The night prior I had told the manager at the Riad (I actually told him twice, and Alex told him once) that we would need transportation to the airport in the morning. Being anxious, I told Alex we should make backup plans with the tour-guide company Atlas Sahara Explore if we were able to. Luckily we did because there was no transportation for us in the morning when we went down, that was the only complaint I had about this place that I feel is mentionable. The manager had told us he would take care of it and he didn’t. I was very disappointed at this and feel it necessary to let my readers know that you should make sure to have reliable transportation. We could have missed our flight! I would suggest making sure you have solid plans for transportation as there no cab numbers to call or apps to use in Marrakech (at the time of writing this blog post).
I highly suggest using the tour company that we did, they helped us out SO MANY TIMES! I can not say enough kind words about them! The waiter and hotel guest service was very polite and quickly served us breakfast at Riad Ksar Saad before we headed out to meet the tour company
We arrived at the airport and Alex and I got checked into our flights and waited at a café . Then after playing with a kitty that we found in the airport (cats are literally everywhere in Marrakech) we hugged and said our goodbyes as I flew out at 12:30PM. My flight landed at IAD at 7:30PM and I wasn’t as jet lagged as I thought!
I met so many good souls in Marrakech whom I will cherish for a lifetime. With every journey, there is a purpose. Every trip, I learn something more about myself and I thank you Marrakech so much for those moments where I can look inside myself and latch on to every new piece of me I have discovered. The good times are enjoyable and the challenging moments are even better because they teach me so much. Be sure to checkout a recap of my Marrakech, Morocco trip on my Instagram story highlights here.
Thinking of going to Morocco ?!? You NEED this travel guide company, called Atlas Sahara Explore (their Instagram is linked so go follow them). Also, check out the Atlast Sahara Explore Website. They made us feel so safe and helped us to get from point a to b everywhere around Marrakech, Morocco! (Alex and I love you guys so much, thank you for your kindness) Their number on wats app is + 212 661-691628. You should seriously save that number and contact them if you need transportation or a fun tour ! They are the best!
SLIMANI HAMZA says
Thank you very this very detailed Morocco Travel Guide! Very detailed and full of relevant and rich information.
Ryan Young says
What a great article Kitstan. Morocco is such an amazingly, unique place. I was there a few years ago and been dreaming of getting back soon. Thanks for inspiring me to beginning making that trip a reality with some really good recommendations and beautiful photography! This is my first time on your blog and cannot wait to read some more. Thanks so much.
morocco tours says
is very good this blog
Lauren says
you trip looks incredible-Morocco is somewhere I’ve always wanted to go! The goat tree is especially adorable 🙂
Fad says
Wow amazing and detailed article. And great pictures too haha I must agree with you on the bringing the pen on the pre-checklist part, I always overlooked at that small point. Anyway, keep it up! Morocco has always been my dream country which I’ve yet to explore.
kitstanwood@gmail.com says
Thank you so much Fad! I still need to go back and add even more details to give more background on the country haha! It had been two months already writing and editing for the places we stayed so I needed to push it out hehe. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you get to go to Morocco soon! If you decide to go to any of the places I mentioned please let me know.
andrea says
omg your photos look amazing! Morocco is definitely on my travel list!
xo, Andrea | http://www.elurbanstyle.com
kitstanwood@gmail.com says
Awe thank you so much!! We had a great time checking the city out and eating. Beef tagine is literally my second favorite food in the entire world now (under Korean bulgogi). Let me know if you end up going!