Let’s visit Morocco! Meet your Travel Buddies!

Morocco lies at the extreme northwest corner of Africa, with 500 km of Mediterranean Sea coastline and 2000 km of Atlantic Ocean coastline. Its northern point is at the Straits of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic. The Rif Mountains extend from southern Spain across the straits and continue along Morocco’s Med. coast, while the more famous Atlas Mountains dominate the center of the country, with fertile agricultural land north west of the Atlas on the coastal plain, and the Sahara Desert lapping at the base of the Atlas to the southeast.

This public domain map from the CIA website shows the former Western Sahara Territory as part of Morocco, as recognized by the United States in 2020. Excluding the Western Sahara territory, which is largely uninhabited desert, Morocco is slightly larger than California. Morocco’s coastline is 2500 km., 3500 km. in length including the Western Sahara.

We’ll be exploring this interesting country with four experienced Moroccan travelers. Let’s meet them!

I am so thrilled to have Dave Letts, Sonya Yassi, Sue Anderson and Kathy Good along as our tour guides and traveling companions! While all five of us have been to Morocco, our trips, itineraries and experiences were at different times and perhaps somewhat different places.

The idea of this series is to introduce the country, its history, geography, culture, sights, smells and sounds, both for those who plan to visit, and as a virtual travelogue for armchair travelers.

Kathy, tell us a bit about your experiences in Morocco! Your former husband is from Morocco! How did you meet him and how many trips have you made to Morocco?

Kathy: I met my ex-husband when I was studying in France in 1981. Over the years, I have made many trips to Morocco. One of my first trips was in 1982. I went to Morocco from Paris with 3 friends and my ex-husband over spring break. We took a train from Paris to Algeciras in southern Spain. Then we took a hovercraft to Tangier and a train to Fes. The whole trip took several days.

I realized very quickly that it is hard to be alone or be left alone in Morocco. Immediately, when we stepped off the train in Fes, a number of “guides” swarmed around us, trying to get us to sign up for a tour or offering to take us to our hotel. My ex-husband immediately announced that we were there with him as his guest and that we did not need their services. But they would not take no for an answer. They refused to believe him and thought he was trying to take away their business. They asked incredulously how 4 women would agree to accompany him from Paris to Morocco! He shrugged his shoulders and, after a lot of back and forth, the “guides” finally went away.

David Z: Great story! Based on your experience Kathy what destinations would you suggest for a visitor to Morocco?

Kathy: Most trips to Morocco will include Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakesh. Other places which merit a visit and are not as well known include Volubilis (beautiful Roman ruins), Tetuoun (white city that looks like Greece on the Mediterranean near Tangier), Essaouira, Chefchaouen (blue city), and Agadir (city on the Atlantic in Southern Morocco).

David Zoll: We’re in luck then! These are many of the same places our expert photographer has captured! Thanks so much Kathy!

Dave Letts, you and I and our Brilliant Wives first met on a Rick Steves’ Portugal tour back in 2012! That was so much fun! I learned a lot about photography on that trip from just watching you. What was it about Morocco that perked your interest?

Dave Letts: As my wife Linda often says, “Our favorite place” is where we haven’t been yet. There is something uplifting about exploring any place that is so different than our normal life in Dallas, Texas and so as fairly accomplished travelers, the buzz was to go to Morocco. We have explored over 30 countries and from a business perspective, I have personally traveled 6 million air miles with the predominant amount being international travel.

David Z: Wow! That’s a lot of miles!

Dave Letts: All continents except the South Pole but I’ve spent some time far north of the Arctic Circle for business reasons. And so, we planned our trip to see Morocco.

David Z: What Moroccan destinations did you visit?

Dave Letts: Our travel was a typical smorgasbord of places to experience across the country. Some decisions were made to maximize time and so the standard desert tour with the camel ride (3 days) was abandoned to spend a bit more time in the High Atlas mountains and the coastline by Essaouira. Many Morocco vacation trips start and end in Casablanca but the city usually just serves as an airport and not a destination. As our trip was customized, we opted to spend our first night in Casablanca to experience it for what it may be, make sure our luggage arrived with us, and to get a good sleep that night.We had a couple of false starts due to Covid.

Our first planned trip was to start the morning after the president shut down travel due to covid. Morocco was at the time a hot bed of covid cases (no vaccine existed yet) and we had tried to delay the trip but we were initially greeted with resistance from the travel agency that had planned the trip. Insurance had yet to deal with cancelling a trip due to the spread. As you may remember, covid back then was not understood and travel insurance did not at that time provide coverage for such an event. In the end, though, we got our money credited and arrived there a couple years later. Our trip started Sept. 6^th, 2022 and ended Sept. 22^nd.

David Z: OK, thanks Dave! Let’s check in with our experienced travel agent. Sonya, could you chip in here for a minute on the value of Travel Insurance?

Sonya: Of course! Travel Insurance is definitely something I encourage whenever I know people are going out of the country – and particularly to more rugged destinations. I think when people think of Travel Insurance, they only think about the “cancellation” aspect, but they overlook the medical coverage that you have when you are out of the US. Most people’s health insurance will not cover them in the event they are sick or hospitalized while out of the country and when disaster strikes, these bills can be astronomical. Travel Insurance can cover you for all of your medical coverage and even repatriation in the event of a truly difficult medical emergency. I’ve even used medical coverage myself when I tore my ACL while traveling in Iran. Luckily, my Travel Insurance covered all of my surgery and follow ups when I returned back to the US. It also covers things such as lost/stolen baggage, delayed flights and trip interruption. It really can help in so many situations – we just always hope those situations never happen!

David Z: Thanks Sonya! It was so helpful for Myra and I when we got sick in the heart of the Amazon several years ago! I strongly agree!

Sonya, where and when did you travel in Morocco, and what prompted you to visit that country? And I should note that you have been our Brilliant Travel Agent for many years, and that I have known you your whole life since your Dad and the Brilliant Wife are brother and sister! Give us some quick background!

Sonya: Hi all! Yes, so I’ve known you and the Brilliant Wife my entire life! And I’ve always loved you (after all, we’re family right?) but getting to know you both as an adult has been even better and more rewarding! Your curiosity and zest for life and exploration is inspiring! We’ve even had the opportunity to travel together and I loved every moment of it – I look forward to more!

As for my trip to Morocco, I was actually living in Cote d’Ivoire at the time of my trip, and was on a bit of a tight schedule meeting some of my girlfriends who were flying in from Hong Kong during their Chinese New Year holiday! So it was a whirlwind trip and I would absolutely love to go back and spend a much longer time exploring this amazing country! That said, we really packed in everything we could with a private driver/van throughout our trip. We had a fully planned itinerary (done by myself through a local agency) and we did Casablanca, Rabat, Fes and Marrakech. We also stopped in Ouarzazate, Dades, Tinghir (Todra Gorge), Merzouga (desert camp in the dunes) and Ifrane.

David Z: Thanks Sonya!

Finally, let’s meet Sue Anderson! Sue we met you and your Brilliant Husband Leo on an unusual trek with David Willet in 2016, starting in Thessaloniki, traveling up through northern Greece and Macedonia, Albania, and ending in Corfu, partially described in the post Albanian Bomb Shelter. That was some trip! And we were lucky enough to stay in touch over the years. Tell us a bit about your travels and your Moroccan adventure itinerary. Where did you start and end your visit to Morocco?

Sue: We essentially circumnavigated the northern half of Morocco in 23 days. Including the flight days, the trip was April 5 through April 29, 2023 (during Ramadan!!!). We planned this trip with Journey Beyond Travel, a Tangier-based company that creates custom private experiences. We spent 7 months crafting an itinerary, mostly around my interests (I will say much more about this later).

The map above shows our clockwise route plan without details and side trips. We landed in Casablanca and immediately went up the road to Rabat with our driver. The plan was to spend 2-4 days at each stop (except Erfoud and El Jadida) which included Rabat, Tangier, Chefchaouen, Fez, Erfoud, an Erg Chebbi desert camp outside Merzouga, Skoura, Imlil, Marrakesh, Essaouria, El Jadida. Our last night in El Jadida gave us a convenient stop to easily get to Casablanca next day for the flight back home.

We stayed in riads and casbahs, most hidden deep in the city medinas (old towns). Here we are right after arrival in the center courtyard of Riad Laaroussa in Fez.

Above: Intrepid World Travelers Sue and Leo at their riad in Fez.

David Z: Sounds like an incredible trip. Can’t wait to hear more details, including an explanation for what you mean by “riads and casbahs.”

I am so happy to have the four of you here! We will keep the format flexible. Myra and I visited Northern Morocco as part of a Rick Steves’ Spain trip in 2012, taking the ferry and spending two nights in Tangiers, so I have only seen a very small piece of the country. I’ll be chipping in primarily on the history and geography.

The plan is that we will use Dave’s brilliant photos to anchor our trip, with commentary along the way from Sue, Sonya, and Kathy. Plus I hope some of our Brilliant Readers will have something to add or ask as well! We want to hear from all of you out there, whether or not you’ve been to Morocco, so please chime in with your questions and comments!

Thanks so much for traveling along~!

Morocco here we come~!

Editor’s note: Because of the complexity of these posts, with multiple people contributing, we won’t be able to post them consecutively each day. But we will provide an index once completed to assist in navigating the series.

So glad you’re here!