The mistake most people make when first visiting Morocco is to try to do too much. They read the guide books, make a tick list of all the places to see, then look at the map and join the dots. This invariably means they are spending most of their time pounding tarmac, mostly on busy main roads vying with mad-cow taxi drivers and truckers trying to make progress. So my main tips are
1) Unless you are really wanting a long road trip, try to concentrate on a smaller area of the country (some suggestions below) rather than trying to tick all the boxes in the guide books.
2) The speed limits are similar to the UK, though drop to 40 kph (25 mph) in towns. Radar guns are commonplace, so avoid speeding unless you want a 400dh fine.
3) Don’t visit major cities like Marrakech or Fez unless you are planning to spend a day there sightseeing. Otherwise you will be fighting your way through the evening traffic just to kip overnight and leave the next morning. Instead come back on a weekend fly break some other time to properly see these places.
4) Avoid main roads where possible. Try to keep off the ‘N’ roads and concentrate on the ‘R’ and ‘P’ secondary roads. You will see more of the country, have much less traffic and a far more relaxing holiday.
5) When negotiating or evaluating prices, bear in mind that the typical wage for an unskilled person is 80-100dh per day. So ask yourself whether the prices are realistic. A tea or coffee should be around 5dh, a tagine midday meal around 20-30dh, 1.5-litre bottles of water are 5-6dh.
My favourite places
I love wilderness places and mountains so here’s some suggestions of places you could base a trip around. In more remote places I try to stay in Gites d’Etape where possible which are ‘staging posts’ run by locals where dinner, bed and breakfast is often just 120-150dh per person (£10-£12).
Middle Atlas: Azrou is a friendly small town 80km south of Fez in the Middle Atlas mountains. Close to Ifrane where the King has his summer palace, Azrou is surrounded by ancient volcanoes, many of which are used for skiing in the winter, and has wild monkeys, springs, lakes, and cedar forests within a few kilometres. You could use Azrou as a base for several days with places to visit in the vicinity including Mischliffen (ski resort inside the caldera of an extinct volcano), Jbel Tazzeka to the east near Taza, Ain Leuh to the south and Oulmes to the west. Some pictures of the Azrou area can be seen at
http://www.tinyurl.com/d6eqesr .
Central High Atlas: now tarmac, the route through the High Atlas from El Kebab or El Ksiba to Imilchil, and then on to the Todra Gorge is a classic traverse of the High Atlas range reaching 2400m. Check out
http://www.tinyurl.com/d69kxvh for photos of the latter part of this route.
Anti Atlas: the town of Tafraoute is set amongst pink quartzite and the sheer beauty of this area, especially approaching in the evening with the mountains lit by the setting sun will put a shiver down your spine. Some of the rock formations were painted in the 1980s by a Belgian artist, see
http://www.tinyurl.com/cstlt9x . The area features many hill top agadirs (ancient warehouses) which are great to explore.
Coastline: Asilah and Larache in the north are pleasant places to visit but my favourite stretch of coastline is in the south and covers the are Sidi Ifni to Legzira and then on to Mirleft. In some ways it is reminiscent of the Big Sur in southern California where the road runs in a narrow stretch between the sea and the mountains. You can see photos at
www.tinyurl.com/cy73etu .
Happy to offer more specific advice.
Tim
I was just composing my extremely sarcastic reply to your thread about time travellers posting on UKGSer about a trip in the autumn when it all moved.
