Morocco - The Trip of a Lifetime

Guest blog by one of our customers - Graham Pretty

I've recently returned home from a ten-day trip to Morocco, and what a fantastic adventure it proved to be.

Every Easter, my wife Claire and I target somewhere new in the world we'd not visited or experienced. Morocco was high up on our bucket list, and we'd heard such good things from friends that we knew we had to go. We'd initially found an itinerary from another travel agency, but it didn't tick all the boxes – we wanted more flexibility to do the things we wanted rather than be routed to places we didn't really want to visit.

So initial discussions with James from Tailormade Escapes were about getting the itinerary right. We came up with a four-stop vacation: Marrakesh for three nights, onto Agafay in the Desert for a night, two nights in a mountain lodge up in the Atlas Mountains, and the remainder of our trip on the coast in Essaouira. Tailormade Escapes devised an itinerary including return flights and transfers between destinations. It had everything we wanted; the cost was on budget, and after reviewing the hotels, we booked and paid the deposit.



Easter is a great time to visit Marrakesh – busy and bustling but importantly not too hot. And what an assault on the senses it proved to be. The Medina was chaotic, fragrant and an absolute must; markets and souks that I doubt have changed much in centuries. In the main square you can find snake charmers to spice merchants and literally everything in between.



Our Hotel - The Beautiful Riad Anika

Our hotel was well within the Medina of the old town – the simply stunning Riad Anika. Hotel management went over and above, the staff made us feel like royalty. The food was local cuisine, fresh and plentiful, particularly the three-course breakfast – fruit with organic yoghurt, honey, jam, omelette, pancakes, sweet bread. Truly a breakfast for champions. We booked in for the hammam and massage – everyone should do this once. After which, we were both so relaxed we almost floated away!

Onto the desert, an hour away. Unbeknownst to us, Morocco had experienced the wettest winter in 20 years, which turned the normally arid Agafay Desert green! An overnight stay in a fantastically equipped Bedouin tent, a swim in the infinity pool with the Atlas Mountains as our backdrop, and a camel ride later – Moroccan camels are Dromedary, one hump, not two! – we were entertained over dinner by local Berber tribesmen playing and singing traditional music. The next morning, it was quad biking after breakfast, before moving onwards and upwards into the snow-capped Atlas Mountains that had been our permanent backdrop since arriving in Marrakesh.

Our driver Mustafa arrived – a jolly chap. Didn't speak much English, but we conversed freely in a mix of franglais. Relaxed, chatty, always laughing, he found photo stops and a caffeine break en route during the 90-minute transfer to Imlil, in the valley of the Atlas Mountains, overshadowed by the enormous Mount Toubkal standing at 4,180m.



A Man and a Mule

We were greeted by a man and a mule in Imlil. Mustafa loaded our cases into the saddlebags and we followed the mule up a steep mountain path for a fifteen-minute hike to the Kasbah Toubkal – another gem. This family business, partially rebuilt after the 2023 earthquake, has added a swimming pool and sun terrace. The staff are all family or friends of family, and it's clear they put enormous energy and pride into how they treat their guests.



The following day we were met by our guide Mohammed, a local Berber mountaineer who knew the Toubkal valley like the back of his hand. Aged 35, he has spent every day of his life in his village or in the mountains. A five-hour hike around the foothills gave us a true appreciation of the scale and beauty of this place. It's special. Mohammed invited us to his home for a late lunch cooked by his lovely wife – a delicious egg-and-olive tagine with local bread and dates – and we got to meet his baby son, goats, and chickens.

We booked in for another hammam, enjoyed another fabulous home-cooked evening meal with fellow hotel residents, then watched the sun go down over Mount Toubkal. I promised that mountain I'd be back to see the valley from the summit.



The Ancient City of Essaouira

After breakfast, Mustafa was waiting for us for the four-hour transfer to Essaouira – an ancient port grown into a city on the west coast of Morocco. Known as the windy city, with its wonderful Medina walls, long sandy beach and a Mecca for kite surfers. En route, Mustafa stopped to visit an Argan factory – Argan trees are native only to Morocco and the oil is used for cooking, pharmaceutical and beauty products. It wasn't on my to-do list, but Claire never passes up an opportunity for retail therapy. So the tour we did!

We really liked Essaouira – the markets were just as good as Marrakesh with less hard sell, and in fact, we thought there was more to buy, more things of interest. The next day, we had booked a cooking course at a local Riad. Our chef and teacher Fatima took us to the markets to choose ingredients. We selected monkfish, squid and prawns, then watched in awe as the filo pastry man spread the pastry mixture over a hot plate with his bare hands. He must have asbestos hands. That job surely came with free heat blisters!

Back in the kitchen, Fatima and her two sous chefs got busy. She did the tricky bits but left us feeling we'd done the hard work. Afterwards, she showed us to a delightful private dining room where she served our food. The seafood pastilla and the orange cake were simply incredible – so much layered flavour, texture and beautifully cooked. It was a highlight.



The return flight was from the tiny Essaouira airport – the second smallest I've visited. One runway, no crowds. We left on time and arrived back in the UK 15 minutes early, optimising everything about our Moroccan adventure – well organised, stress free and fundamentally enjoyable.

Two weeks on, it was Moroccan samosas and upside-down orange cake for dinner last night, and the pastilla is on the menu for next weekend. We look back with much fondness for Morocco – the call to prayer five times a day, the stunning scenery, the warm sunshine, and most of all the warm and friendly Moroccan people that made our visit so special.



None of this, of course, happens by accident. Behind every seamless transfer, every perfectly chosen hotel, every well-timed experience was the groundwork laid by James at Tailormade Escapes. From that first conversation about getting the itinerary right, James listened, understood exactly what we wanted and delivered it without fuss. A holiday like this has so many moving parts – flights, transfers, four different hotels across four very different destinations, guides, experiences and a budget to respect – and every single element landed exactly as promised. There were no surprises, no stresses, no compromises. Just an extraordinary ten days that Claire and I will talk about for years to come. If Morocco is on your bucket list, do yourself a favour and let James at Tailormade Escapes take care of it. You won't regret a single moment.