9 Secrets of Marrakech

I can’t believe I haven’t written about our time in Marrakech more! The colorful souks, the thrill of bargaining, the sweet and lazy mint tea, the dusty air filled with sounds of Arabic and French, late night chats with our Riad host Yassine, the never ending road winding through the Atlas Mountains… Well I’m finally ready to let out the top 9 secrets of Marrakech that we learned in our time traveling there!

I promise, you won’t find Marrakech tips like this in any other blog post – from the best smoothies to the food stalls you won’t get food poisoning from to the cheapest place to exchange money, I’m spilling it all…

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.
1. Always pretend you know what you’re doing (AKA get a good map)

Definitely ask your hotel/Riad/hostel hosts for advice! We would’ve been lost (literally) without it. I’m including some of our best tips from the map in this post! 

If you get lost, KEEP WALKING. Find a side alley and stop and get your map or app out there. If you even slightly look lost, I guarantee a bunch of young boys will come up to you and try to “direct” you – to their stall where they will either expect to be paid or have you buy something.

Just take a deep breath, say no thank you (“la chokran” in Arabic!), and embrace that you will get lost (it’s not a bad thing!).

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

2. Price check at Ensemble Artisanal

If you want to buy anything in the souks (huge haggling shopping stalls – it’s a must) then you need to go to Ensemble Artisanal first (Google map location pin here). Ensemble Artisanal is a government sponsored artisan workshop with fixed prices.

The trick is to visit Ensemble Artisanal first to judge how much things should cost – that way when you shop in the souks you will know if someone is cheating you (20 dirhams for a bottle in Ensemble Artisanal and 120 dirhams for the same bottle in the souks is your cue to BARGAIN). Plus, L’ensemble Artisanal is right next to the Cyber Park, which has free wifi!

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

3. Find the best smoothies in the world

These smoothies from the souks made our time in Marrakech. (Is that weird?)  They were so good. I’m drooling. Right now.

We discovered this stall by fluke – after noticing a massive crowd of locals queuing for smoothies we thought it must be good! For just 5 dirhams (about 50p) these are the cheapest and BEST smoothies of my life…it’s really tucked away and the stall doesn’t have a name or location on Google Maps.

To help us find it again (and now to help you find it!) I took a screenshot of the stall’s location on my phone, (good thinking Sarah), and we went back almost every day for at least one smoothie!

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

^^Look for Riad Alkaderi and the stall is right there!

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.
Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.


 ^ pure bliss?!

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

  ^ you know it’s good when there’s a crowd of locals like this!!

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

^^guzzling.

4. Money exchange

Morocco has a closed currency – which means you cannot obtain Dirhams before your visit, and they do their best to stop you from taking Dirhams out of the country (so don’t exchange more money than you need!).

So where you exchange your money can be a conundrum. As per the advice of our Riad hosts, the best place in Marrakech to exchange currency (no commission, best rates) is Hotel Ali, near Jemaa el-Fnaa.

Address: Rue Moulay Ismail, Marrakech, Morocco

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

 

5. Day trips: Don’t buy them in the souks!

While in Marrakech, you’ve got to take some day trips! This thriving city can be claustrophobic so I recommend getting out of it when you can – but don’t be overwhelmed by the vendors trying to sell you day trips in the souk!

We booked ahead of time with I Go Morocco, a Moroccan company (not some European transplant – this is the real authentic experience!).

We visited both Ouzoud Waterfall and did an overnight trip in the Sahara desert. The people on our excursions who’d bought the trip in the souks paid a lot more than we did by booking online!

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

6. Best food stalls…(for not getting food poisoning)

Jemaa el-Fnaa is the hugely busy main square of Marrakech – it’s basically a collection of food stalls with a ring of craft stalls around that, and then of course a few dudes with giant snakes or chained monkeys who will definitely come after you if you look even slightly interested.

If you spend the day in this area of town it’s worth it to eat lunch or dinner at the food stalls – but the problem with street food is FOOD POISONING. Be careful!

Our Riad host recommended these stalls for their quality (non-poisoning quality…), and assured us that he wasn’t just recommending them because he knew them personally:

1, 14 (fish), 25, 74 (soup).

You can see the stall number on the tent above each stall!

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

7. Best restaurants

During the week we ate at a lot of restaurants. I’ve been traveling the world gluten free for almost a decade now, and I wrote an entire guide to gluten free Marrakech restaurants.

Not every restaurant we ate at was strictly gluten free, though. These restaurants were our favorites…most also recommended by our Riad hosts who live in Marrakech! They’re all reasonably priced.

  • Souk Kafe – located in the north entrance to the Souks, cozy and pretty quiet. Really tasty food for a good price.  You need to get the specialty tangia here – they cook this for over 24 hours and you can’t find it elsewhere.
  • Marrakech Henna Art Cafe – a cute cafe south of Jemaa el’Fnaa. This is the best/safest place to get henna done as well! The women who do henna here are true artists and get fair pay, and the quality of the henna won’t burn or infect your skin.
  •  Cafe Arabe (sunset) – a great view of the sunset.
  •  Cafe des Epices – tall restaurant in a more open area of the souks – has really good sandwhiches if you’re getting sick of tagine!
  • Kozybar – a fancy-ish bar near the spice market. Good view from the top, we really liked the salad tasting plate.
  •  Taj’in Darna – truly underrated restaurant! We ate here three times. It’s incredibly cheap for how good the food is – right next to Jemaa el-Fnaa and a minaret so you can listen to the call to prayer while you eat dinner and people watch the busy square.
  •  Amal Women’s Training Center – so good it’s getting it’s own section! Best rated Marrakech restaurant on tripadvisor, this restaurant is also a charity training center for disadvantaged women. And the food is out of this world.
Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

8. Take a cooking class at Amal Women’s Training Center

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.
Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

After eating quadruple an elephant’s body weight in tagine this week (it’s naturally gluten free, what can I say), we both really wanted to take a cooking class!

We absolutely loved our morning at Amal’s – for 250 dirhams (about £20) you get to learn how to cook a Moroccan dish of your choice, which includes the ingredients, instruction, experience, and of course lunch!

This is way cheaper than you’ll find at a Riad or hotel – and all the proceeds go straight back to helping the Marrakech women’s community. Just book ahead of time on their website!

9. Get a traditional hammam body scrub

You’ve probably heard of hammam if you’re planning a trip to Marrakech. Basically, it involves eucalyptus black soap, steam rooms, and then being scrubbed down so all the soap/dead skin comes off. It’s incredible! Gross, but incredible!

There are lots of public baths in Marrakech where the locals go. However, this isn’t very relaxing and I have a thing with public bathrooms so I opted for the spa experience…Our Riad recommended Les Bains de l’Alhambra for the best quality/reasonably priced hammam treatment.

It’s definitely a step up from the local baths, but also a lot more expensive. Still, I had an amazing treatment (I did the hammam/massage duo treatment) and I do feel that I got my money’s worth.

If you don’t want to go to the public baths, this is probably the next most authentic place you can go. Les Bains de l’Alhambra is difficult to find…look around the corner at the start of the alley for the door!

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.
^^The Spa doorway…if you get lost!

Final Thoughts on Discovering Marrakech…

That’s it my darlings! I don’t know about you, but I’m saving this post for my next trip to Marrakech so I can bee-line it to the smoothies! These are my favorite off the beaten path tips from Marrakech – I hope you enjoyed!!

Have you ever been to Marrakech? What are your best travel tips?

Pin it for later…

Top 9 Secrets of Marrakech - best tips for Marrakech - off the beaten path Marrakech.

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16 Comments

  1. Mine are: Dar Yacout restaurant. I was dining alone and they couldn’t have been more gracious. Gorgeous, plus divine food, and if you’re early, there’s a fabulous antique shop next door that’s not to be missed.
    Hire a kid to be your guide. Then boss them around–sternly tell them where you want to go so they don’t just steer you to their uncle’s rug shop. Kids want to please and they respect adult authority, so they are actually good guides. And there is respect among the other would-be guides which means once you have yours, the others leave you in perfect peace. Plus it was fun to talk to this kid. It cost a pittance, which was more than worth it for the peace from other guides and also for not getting lost. I could follow my eyes, and when I was lost, my little guide wasn’t and would get me back to wherever we had been heading before my detour.
    Don’t miss going to a rug shop! It’s like an art gallery. You sit comfortably, sipping mint tea or strong coffee, and the shop’s assistants carry out one work of art after another for you to admire. You don’t have to buy, but you probably will at least get something small because it’s great quality at a tiny price. And if you can have a rug shipped home, that is the best souvenir!

    1. Wow! Thanks for ALL these recommendations! I definitely don’t think I was stern enough to have a kid guide, haha! We did ask for help a few times, but I totally get what you mean that it’s almost better to have a guide just so that other people stop trying to bother you! And I LOVED the rug shop…I think once I have a home of my own I need to plan another trip back to Marrakech just for interior design inspiration…

  2. Thanks for sharing your travel experience of Marrakech. Have bookmarked it for when I plan my travel to Morocco. #TravelLinkUp

  3. I love this post, thank you! Off to Morocco in October with the family, so these tips will definitely come in handy.

  4. Great tips! Loved the local smoothie place, it’s on my map now, I hope to find it! 😀 Question about the money. I usually pick up change at the ATM, the airport one is usually as good as any. But I never know how much to get. Can I pay with cards in restaurants and museums/palaces? I’m left with a lot of 1$ notes from a previous trip, do you think they would accept these for tips or even at the souk?

    1. Yay! I hope you find it. If you remember, please comment back here and let me know if it’s still there! Do you mean $1 Moroccan dirham? If so yes they accept cash at the souks. I’m not sure they will accept other currency. And, a lot of restaurants and museums only accepted cash when we visited. It’s a really cash based society. I think you would also be okay getting money out at an ATM!

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