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The Atlantic coast
Essaouira
Essaouira is where Moroccans go to breathe out. An eighteenth-century port laid out on a grid by a French engineer, walled against the Atlantic, and permanently cooled by a wind that makes summer here pleasant when Marrakech is at 45C.
The character of the place
What Essaouira is actually like
The Medina is small, flat and almost impossible to get lost in – a relief after Fes. Blue boats, white walls, gulls and the smell of grilling sardines are the whole of it, and that is enough for three unhurried days.
Gnaoua music is the town other identity: a Sufi tradition brought north by enslaved West Africans, now carried by families who still play it. The June festival is enormous; the rest of the year you can hear it properly, in rooms with twenty people in them.
When to go
Season by season
The honest version, including the months we would steer you away from.
April to June
Bright and breezy. June brings the Gnaoua festival and the town fills completely.
July and August
The coolest place in Morocco and busy with Moroccan holidaymakers. Lively rather than restful.
September to October
Our favourite window – warm, calm water, and the crowds gone.
November to March
Grey days and real Atlantic storms, which some travellers love. The wind never fully drops.
What we would do
Worth your time in Essaouira
Our picks
The fish auction at eight in the morning, conducted entirely by shouting
Thuya woodworkers in the arcades beneath the ramparts
The long beach south of town, best on horseback
A Gnaoua evening in a small room rather than a festival stage
Where to stay
The kinds of places we book
Riads in the ramparts
Small, bright, and a minute from everything. Some get wind noise, which we screen for.
Beach hotels
South of the Medina, with space and pools, a ten-minute walk or short taxi from the old town.
Journeys
Journeys that include Essaouira
Marrakech – Middle Atlas – Fes – Ziz Valley – Erg Chebbi
Imperial Cities & the Sahara
The journey most people picture when they imagine Morocco, slowed down until it becomes something else entirely. Two imperial cities, a cedar forest, a gorge, and three nights where the road simply ends.
9 days / 8 nights · 2-8 travellers · From 4,850 EUR per person
Marrakech – Ait Bouguemez – Tichka – Ait Benhaddou – Erg Chigaga
High Atlas & Desert Edge
For travellers who would rather walk than shop. Three days in the High Atlas staying with families in the Ait Bouguemez, then down the southern slope to a stretch of desert almost nobody visits.
7 days / 6 nights · 2-6 travellers · From 3,650 EUR per person
Essaouira – Haha Hills – Marrakech
Coast & Medina
Morocco at sea level. Three nights in Essaouira where the wind never stops and nothing is in a hurry, two in Marrakech, and an argan cooperative in between. The journey we send people on when they want to come back rested.
6 days / 5 nights · 2-8 travellers · From 2,980 EUR per person
Start a conversation
Tell us what you want from Morocco
Every journey we arrange begins with a conversation rather than a brochure. Tell us when you can travel, how you like to move, and what you would rather avoid – we will come back with a route, not a quote.