Africa
Africa: Journeys Across a Continent of Many Worlds
Africa cannot be understood as a single destination. It is a continent of immense geographic, cultural and historical diversity, where landscapes, languages and ways of life can change dramatically from one region to another. Sarah Tours’ journeys across Africa are designed to reveal those differences while also exploring the connections that have linked its peoples for centuries.
Our routes stretch from Morocco and the great caravan roads of the Sahara through Mauritania and Senegal into West Africa, and across East and Southern Africa through countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Along the way, travellers encounter deserts and savannahs, mountains and great rivers, Atlantic and Indian Ocean coasts, ancient cities, wildlife landscapes and contemporary African communities.
Overland travel holds a special place in the Sarah Tours story. Long before air travel made it possible to jump quickly between destinations, travelling by road allowed the landscape itself to become part of the experience. Crossing from Morocco toward West Africa, for example, reveals the gradual transition from Maghreb to Sahara, Sahara to Sahel, and Sahel toward the greener landscapes farther south. In East and Southern Africa, roads connect wildlife ecosystems, rural communities, farms, mountains, rivers and cities that cannot be understood in isolation.
Our African journeys range from wildlife safaris and active expeditions to cultural, historical and heritage travel. Some travellers join a small group; others prefer a private tailor-made journey. Depending on the destination, days may include walking, wildlife viewing, desert travel, cultural encounters, historic sites, markets, music, local food and time simply observing everyday life.
We believe responsible travel requires more than visiting responsibly managed places. It begins with how we travel: respecting local communities, working with knowledgeable local partners, supporting the people who make each journey possible, protecting the environments through which we pass and approaching cultures with curiosity rather than judgement.
Africa does not need to be reduced to wildlife, poverty, adventure or exoticism. It deserves to be encountered in its complexity—as a continent of ancient civilizations and young societies, extraordinary natural environments and rapidly changing cities, deep traditions and constant creativity.
We invite you not simply to tour Africa, but to travel through it slowly enough to understand how one landscape, one community and one story leads to another.
Our Africa trips
Morocco Imperial Cities Tour
Discover Morocco's Imperial Cities on an Seven-day cultural journey through Casablanca, Rabat, Fez, Meknes, and Marrakech. Designed for travelers interested in Moroccan history, architecture, craftsmanship, cuisine, and living traditions, this classic Sarah Tours itinerary explores the country's royal heritage while revealing the everyday culture that continues around it. Begin in Casablanca with the Hassan II Mosque before traveling to Rabat, Morocco's present-day capital and one of the four historic Imperial Cities. Continue through Meknes and into Fez, whose ancient medina remains one of Morocco's great centers of scholarship, craftsmanship, spirituality, and urban life. The journey then leads south to Marrakech, where palaces, gardens, souks, neighborhoods, and the famous Jemaa el-Fna reveal another expression of Morocco's history and culture. This is not simply a journey from monument to monument. With knowledgeable local guides and time to experience the cities beyond their landmarks, travelers encounter Morocco through the people, traditions, crafts, architecture, food, and stories that give each place its character. Travel on a small-group departure, or personalize the itinerary as a private Morocco cultural tour designed around your own interests, pace, and travel style.
Morocco Atlas Mountains & Sahara Desert Tour
The existing introduction has the right ingredients, but phrases such as “unforgettable,” “breathtaking landscapes,” “authentic Sahara desert camp,” and “beyond the ordinary” are precisely the generic tourism vocabulary we decided to leave behind. I suggest replacing it with: Travel across the Atlas Mountains and into the Sahara on an eight-day journey through the landscapes and cultures of southern Morocco. Designed for active and culturally curious travelers, this Sarah Tours itinerary combines mountain roads, historic kasbahs, palm-filled valleys, desert communities, walking experiences, and time among the dunes of Merzouga and Erg Chebbi. The journey follows the changing geography of Morocco's Great South, where the High Atlas gives way to valleys, gorges, oases, fortified settlements, and eventually the open Sahara. Along the way, encounter Amazigh communities, traditional architecture, agricultural landscapes, historic caravan routes, and the ways people have adapted to some of Morocco's most dramatic environments. At Merzouga, travel into the dunes of Erg Chebbi and experience the Sahara at a slower rhythm. Spend time walking through the desert landscape and experience an overnight desert camp, where sunset, changing light, silence, and the night sky reveal a Morocco very different from its cities. This is more than a scenic journey through southern Morocco. It is an opportunity to understand how geography, water, trade, architecture, agriculture, and human adaptation have shaped life between the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara. Travel as part of a small-group Morocco adventure, or personalize the itinerary as a private Atlas Mountains and Sahara tour designed around your interests, pace, and travel style.
Morocco Cultural & Adventure Grand Tour
Experience Morocco on a 15-day cultural and adventure journey designed to reveal the country's extraordinary diversity of landscapes, communities, history, and ways of life. This comprehensive Sarah Tours itinerary combines historic cities with mountain country, rural communities, oasis valleys, fortified settlements, Saharan landscapes, and the routes that have connected them for centuries. Travel beyond Morocco's best-known monuments to encounter the relationships between people and place. Cross mountain landscapes and agricultural regions, visit local markets and traditional communities, explore historic medinas and ksour, and travel through oasis country where water, climate, architecture, and trade have shaped distinctive ways of living. The journey also explores an important dimension of Moroccan society: the historical relationship between settled and mobile ways of life. Farmers, craftspeople, merchants, pastoral communities, caravan routes, market towns, and cities have never existed in isolation from one another; together, they have contributed to the cultural complexity of Morocco. With fifteen days to travel overland, the journey allows Morocco to reveal itself gradually. Changes in landscape, architecture, food, language, livelihoods, and local traditions become part of the experience rather than simply scenery between destinations. Travel on a small-group Morocco departure, or personalize the itinerary as a private Morocco cultural and adventure tour designed around your interests, pace, and travel style.
Culture and Music Tour of Morocco
Culture and Music Tour of Morocco Morocco Heard: A Journey Through Rhythm, Memory and Community Morocco can be seen through its monuments, landscapes and cities. But it can also be heard. Music accompanies Moroccan life in ways that are difficult to separate from the life itself. It is present at weddings and pilgrimages, in celebration and mourning, in the courtyard of a home and the square of a village, in the rhythms of work, in poetry, in prayer, and in the remembrance of God. Sometimes music is entertainment; sometimes it carries memory. At other times, it becomes a path toward healing, devotion or transcendence. This cultural and music journey invites you to discover Morocco through these living traditions. Rather than presenting Moroccan music as a collection of performances, we explore the people, communities and histories from which the music emerged. Along the way, we encounter the popular sounds of Chaabi and regional traditions such as Rai and Reggada; the powerful ceremonial worlds of Gnawa, Issawa, Hmadcha and Jilala; and the devotional Samaa and chanting associated with Morocco's Sufi traditions and brotherhoods. In Fez, we enter another extraordinary musical inheritance: Andalusian classical music and Malhoune, where poetry, melody, craftsmanship and memory have travelled together across generations. These traditions carry echoes of the long relationship between Morocco and Al-Andalus and remain part of the living cultural identity of the old city. Beyond the great cities, the journey takes us toward Morocco's regional and Amazigh musical cultures, where landscape, language and community have shaped distinctive rhythms, instruments and forms of expression. In northern Morocco, we also explore the remarkable musical tradition associated with Jajouka, whose sound has travelled far beyond the villages where it was born and attracted generations of international musicians and artists. But this is not a tour in which music is placed on a stage simply for us to consume. Whenever possible, we meet the people who carry these traditions: musicians, singers, instrument makers, teachers and members of the communities in which the music still has meaning. We listen not only to how an instrument sounds, but to what it means, when it is played, who plays it, and why. That distinction is important. A Gnawa rhythm heard as entertainment is beautiful. Understood within its history, spirituality and community, it becomes something more. A Sufi chant can be appreciated for its melody, but its deeper meaning emerges when we understand remembrance, repetition and the spiritual intention behind the voice. Andalusian music becomes richer when we recognize within it centuries of movement between Iberia and North Africa. This is therefore not simply a music tour of Morocco. It is a journey into Moroccan culture through music. Designed for curious travelers as well as musicians, scholars and lovers of traditional music, the journey moves between historic cities such as Fez, Chefchaouen and Marrakech and the rural communities where other musical traditions continue to live. Join one of our small-group departures or ask us to create a private cultural and music journey around your particular interests. We come to listen, to learn, and to meet the people who keep these traditions alive. Why Music? Music tells us things that monuments cannot. A building can tell us how people built, a manuscript what they wrote, and an object what they made. But music brings us closer to what people felt. It carries longing and celebration, faith and memory, sorrow and belonging. It travels from grandmother to child, from village to city, from one generation to another, often preserving what history books forget. In Morocco, music is also a meeting place — between Arab and Amazigh, Africa and the Mediterranean, the sacred and the everyday. To listen carefully, therefore, is not simply to hear Morocco. It is to enter into conversation with its memory. Morocco Heard The musical traditions named in this itinerary are the threads around which our journey is woven, but they are by no means all that we may hear. Morocco does not perform according to an itinerary. Along the way, music may find us in a souk, at a wedding or village celebration, behind an open doorway, or somewhere along the road. These are moments we cannot schedule — and would not want to. When they arise naturally and we are welcome, we join respectfully, sharing for a little while in the life happening around us. Some of the music you remember most may therefore never appear in this itinerary. That is Morocco Heard.
Luxury Tour to Morocco
Luxury in Morocco is not only about where you stay. It is about having the time, comfort, access, and personal attention to experience the country well. This 10-day Luxury Morocco Tour brings together some of the country's most beautiful places, distinctive accommodations, refined cuisine, and carefully chosen cultural experiences in a journey designed to unfold at an unhurried pace. Travel by private chauffeured vehicle, stay in exceptional riads, historic residences, and luxury hotels, and explore Morocco with knowledgeable local guides who help reveal the history and living culture behind the places you visit. Along the way, the journey makes room for experiences that are difficult to appreciate when travel becomes a checklist: a traditional hammam, a private cooking experience, encounters with Moroccan art and craftsmanship, memorable meals, and time simply to enjoy the atmosphere of the places in which you are staying. The journey can be personalized around your interests, pace, preferred accommodations, and travel style. Whether your interests lie in architecture, gardens, gastronomy, art, craftsmanship, history, or simply traveling through Morocco with greater comfort and time, we can shape the experience accordingly. For Sarah Tours, luxury is not about separating the traveler from Morocco. It is about creating the comfort, time, and access that allow you to experience Morocco more deeply.
Marrakech express Tour
Some journeys are remembered not only for where they take us, but for everything we discover along the way. The 9-day Marrakech Express Tour crosses Morocco from Casablanca and the Atlantic coast through the imperial cities, the Rif Mountains and Tangier before boarding the overnight train south to Marrakech. Inspired by the spirit of the famous Marrakesh Express, this journey celebrates an older pleasure of travel: watching a country change as you move through it. From Casablanca, travel north to Rabat, then inland through Meknes, Volubilis and the sacred hill town of Moulay Idriss before reaching Fez, one of Morocco's great centers of history, craftsmanship, spirituality and learning. The journey then turns north again, crossing the countryside toward Chefchaouen and the Rif Mountains, where landscape, architecture and ways of life reveal another personality of Morocco. Continue to Tangier, the Mediterranean and Atlantic crossroads that for generations attracted travelers, writers, artists and musicians. And then comes the Marrakech Express. After dinner in Tangier, board the overnight train and travel south while Morocco passes beyond the window. Go to sleep in the north and wake the following morning in Marrakech, where gardens, palaces, souks and Jemaa el-Fna bring the journey to its final chapter. Along the way, travel by private vehicle, public coach, on foot and by overnight train. Explore celebrated monuments, but also markets, neighborhoods, landscapes, food, music and the everyday life that exists between them. Because Morocco is not simply a collection of destinations. The distance between them has a personality of its own. The Marrakech Express Tour is designed for travelers who still believe that how we travel can be as meaningful as where we arrive.
Customer reviews
Excellent
13 reviews
Guide
4.8Excellent
Transportation
4.8Excellent
Meals
4.4Very good
Accommodation
4.3Very good
Raymond Harry Barwick · Jun 04, 2025
Sufi Retreat and Healing Tour to Morocco
Excellent itinerary, new car, great driver, great guides who were always on time,spoke English and were very knowledgeable. Considering the accommodation was included it was very good.
Trip date: June 2025
Support Team
Jun 04, 2025
We are glad to hear that you had a wonderful experience in Morocco. We are eager to have you join us for the next trip. Many thanks for your kind words. Hamid Mernissi President,
Jasmine Boudreau · Jun 04, 2025
Three days Tour to Morocco from Spain
We cannot recommend this tour enough. We went into it knowing it would be a great experience, but unsure of exactly how everything would work – we were blown away by the excellent coordination, the amazing guides and the incredible places we saw. Our driver Youssef, was absolutely wonderful - he was friendly, attentive (making sure we were comfortable at all times) and kept us informed every step of the way. He also shared bits of information with us as we drove past places, which was amazing. The van he transported us in was spotless and had great air conditioning which he made sure was to our liking - he was very professional and made sure we were able to take breaks to eat or use the restroom. He also coordinated with the guides at each location so incredibly well - we literally never had to wait even 30 seconds to meet our guide or get picked up, which would have been understandable! The coordination was so seamless, we were very very impressed. Youssef really made this adventure that much more enjoyable and we could tell he puts a lot of care into his role - it was very much appreciated and noticed!! He even made sure to stop the car a few times at amazing viewpoints so we could take photos; the views he stopped at were breathtaking. Youssef also had great communication with us and would check in on what time we wanted to get started in the morning, etc - the activities were all planned but we still had a say in certain things, which was so nice as it gave us some flexibility. Our guides, Mjit and Mohammed, were amazing as well - they made sure not to go too fast and shared so much interesting information with us. Mjit was our guide at Volubilis and was so friendly and extremely well-informed; it was an amazing guided tour. He made sure we got beautiful pictures and answered all our questions. The site itself is incredible on its own, but having him as our guide made the experience so much better. Mohammed guided us through Fes and coordinated with Youssef to get us to and from different areas; our favourite part was getting guided by him through the medina, it was simply magical. It’s impossible to describe the amazing things we saw – the ceramics workshop, the tannery, the food and spices, the craftsmanship - you will see the most beautiful artisanal work of your life. Mohammed was also super friendly, answered all our questions and had an amazing knowledge of the city, country, and everything we saw. What made the experience even better was that we were never rushed and could choose what to see. The accommodations were great, we were very comfortable and had good meals and slept very well. The staff at the hotel were very friendly, professional and attentive and clearly had a great relationship with the tour/guides. We felt very well taken care of the entire tour and could not have asked for anything better. This was the experience of a lifetime and we are so grateful to everyone involved – we HIGHLY recommend this tour!!
Trip date: June 2025
Support Team
Jun 04, 2025
Thank you so very much for your kindness. We live to hear such great comments from our guests. Everyone at Morocco Discoveries, Inc. is grateful to you. You were a gracious guest. Thank you again. Hamid Mernissi Manager.
Judy Rufuerzo · Jun 04, 2025
Morocco Cultural & Adventure Grand Tour
Great trip to Morocco. Miloud our driver was the best and took great care of us. It was awesome to have wifi in the car on the long driving days. I was surprised by our tent in the desert, it had all the comforts: sink, shower, toilet, and beds. Miloud always found us great lunch stops and two of us didn't eat meat so he always made sure there were food options for us. There is no way I could have experienced all that we did in Morocco without this great tour. We had specialized guides in each location and they were also good and took care of us, especially on the mild hike day that was actually quite scary and hard for me. Wonderful experience, love Morocco and Miloud.
Trip date: May 2025
Support Team
Jun 04, 2025
I appreciate your kindness. You were great guests as well. You will always be welcome in Morocco. All of Morocco Discoveries staff are at your disposal. Many thanks, Hamid Mernissi
Penelope Foudoulis · Jun 04, 2025
Three days Tour to Morocco from Spain
Great service. We missed our flight into Tangier and had to change our plans last minute. They were very accommodating and adjusted the tour to meet us in Fes. All the guides were lovely and the driver took great care of us. Very grateful and a wonderful experience :)
Trip date: June 2025
Support Team
Jun 04, 2025
Thank you for your kind words. Morocco Discoveries will always be at your disposal. Gratefully, Hamid Mernissi
Africa articles
How Fez Governed Itself for Centuries
Before the French Came, Fez Already Knew How to Govern Itself Reflections on a city, its institutions, and the meaning of civilization When we speak of the history of Fez, we often speak of its magnificent monuments, its scholars, its mosques, its medersas, and its extraordinary architectural inheritance. We admire the beauty of its houses, the intricacy of its craftsmanship, and the maze of narrow streets that have survived the passage of centuries. But there is another Fez that deserves our attention. It is the Fez that knew how to organize itself. Long before the arrival of the French Protectorate in 1912, the city had developed institutions that governed the everyday lives of its inhabitants. They were not modern institutions in the European sense, nor were they free from injustice, corruption, or the abuse of power. But they belonged to a society that had spent centuries learning how to live together. And that, to me, is one of the most fascinating aspects of civilization. A City Is More Than Its Architecture When I walk through the old medina of Fez, I do not see only buildings. I see the remains of relationships. A marketplace was not merely a place where people bought and sold goods. It was also a place where reputation mattered, where professional conduct was regulated, and where craftsmen were expected to respect the standards of their trades. A neighborhood was not merely a collection of houses. It was a community whose inhabitants recognized obligations toward one another. A mosque was not merely a place of worship. It could also be a center of learning, public life, and communal identity. These relationships were supported by institutions that had evolved over generations. The Pasha represented the authority of the Sultan. The Muqaddam supervised the affairs of the neighborhood. The Muhtasib regulated commercial conduct, weights, measures, and market practices. The Amine, a respected master craftsman, represented the professional knowledge and standards of his guild. The Qadi administered justice, assisted by the Adoul, whose written documents preserved legal agreements. And through the Habous, charitable endowments helped sustain institutions that served the community. Each had a particular responsibility. Together, they formed part of the framework through which Fez conducted its affairs. The system was far from perfect. Authority could be harsh, social hierarchies could be rigid, and communal supervision could become interference. Yet its imperfections do not erase its achievements. Fez had developed an urban civilization long before European modernity arrived at its gates. The Marketplace Was a School of Responsibility I have always been fascinated by the role of the Amine. He was not simply an official appointed to supervise craftsmen. He was generally a man whose knowledge of his profession had earned him recognition among his peers. His authority rested partly upon the respect of those who understood his craft. When disputes arose between masters, workers, or apprentices, the Amine could intervene. He helped preserve professional standards and the reputation of the trade. Consider what this tells us about the society. The craftsman was not expected merely to produce something and sell it. His work carried a responsibility. The quality of his craftsmanship reflected not only upon himself but also upon the profession to which he belonged. The marketplace therefore possessed a moral dimension. Of course, dishonesty existed. Otherwise, there would have been little need for inspectors, regulations, and arbitration. But the very existence of these institutions reveals an understanding that commerce could not be separated entirely from responsibility. I find this particularly relevant today, when we often measure economic success almost exclusively through growth, profit, and consumption. The people of old Fez understood something that modern economies sometimes struggle to remember: A market cannot survive on transactions alone. It also depends upon trust. The Neighborhood Was a Living Institution The Muqaddam offers another window into the organization of Fez. He was responsible for matters that affected the daily lives of the neighborhood's inhabitants. Cleanliness, security, night watchmen, neighborhood gates, and certain disputes all fell within his responsibilities. His authority was local. He knew the streets, the families, and the social circumstances of the people among whom he lived. This familiarity could make governance more responsive to everyday needs. It could also become intrusive. A neighborhood where everybody knows everybody may offer solidarity, but it may also leave little room for privacy. That is the complexity of communal life. The same relationships that protect us can sometimes constrain us. Still, the existence of the Muqaddam reminds us that urban administration did not begin with distant offices and impersonal regulations. It also grew from the immediate responsibilities of living beside other people. The Arrival of a Different Order When the French Protectorate was established in 1912, Fez was not an empty administrative landscape. It possessed its own traditions of government, legal authority, commercial regulation, and communal organization. The Protectorate introduced a new municipal council, combining Moroccan officials and representatives selected by the city's notables. The council discussed sanitation, public works, finances, education, and the regulation of urban life. But its decisions operated under French administrative supervision. This was a significant change. The city continued to possess Moroccan institutions, yet the location of ultimate political authority had shifted. The Protectorate also introduced European-style urban planning, developing a Ville Nouvelle alongside the historic medina. Elsewhere, the geography of Moroccan power was changing. Rabat became the political capital. Casablanca expanded dramatically as the kingdom's principal commercial and industrial center. Fez remained a great center of scholarship, religion, craftsmanship, and cultural memory, but it no longer occupied the same position within Morocco's political and economic life. These changes did not erase Fez. But they altered the relationships that had sustained its importance for centuries. When Cities Change, People Change With Them A city is not a fixed object. Its life depends upon the movement of people, goods, knowledge, and opportunity. As Casablanca expanded, commercial opportunities attracted merchants and families from other Moroccan cities, including Fez. Muslim and Jewish families participated in these transformations, although their experiences were not identical. The Jewish community of Fez had long maintained its own institutions while contributing to the commercial, professional, and cultural life of the wider city. Over the twentieth century, economic change, colonial policies, political developments, and migration transformed the relationships between Morocco's communities. The eventual departure of much of Morocco's Jewish population was a profound loss to the country's social and cultural fabric. Its causes were complex, and its history deserves to be told with care. But one consequence is unmistakable. When families leave a city, they take more than their possessions. They take their voices, their memories, their professions, their customs, and the relationships that connected them to their neighbors. The streets may remain. The houses may remain. But the human landscape changes. And sometimes, what disappears from a city cannot be restored by preserving its buildings. What Does It Mean to Preserve a Civilization? Today, Fez is celebrated as one of the world's great historic cities. Its medina is admired for its architecture, craftsmanship, and extraordinary continuity. Yet I often wonder whether we pay enough attention to the ideas that made such a city possible. We restore monuments. We preserve façades. We photograph doors, fountains, and courtyards. But do we always understand the relationships that once gave these places their meaning? A fountain was not merely a beautiful architectural feature. It served a community. A marketplace was not merely a picturesque collection of workshops. It sustained an economy of skills and relationships. A charitable endowment was not merely a legal arrangement. It expressed an understanding that wealth could carry responsibilities beyond the individual who possessed it. And a neighborhood was not merely a collection of buildings. It was a place where generations learned the difficult art of living together. I do not believe that preserving Moroccan identity means refusing change. Civilizations have always changed. Fez itself is the product of centuries of encounters, adaptations, inventions, and transformations. What matters is whether change allows a society to carry forward the wisdom it has accumulated. Modernity should not require a people to become strangers to themselves. Nor should respect for tradition prevent us from recognizing the injustices that traditions sometimes preserve. The challenge is to learn from the past without becoming its prisoner. The City and Its Civilization The history of Fez's governance teaches us something that extends far beyond Morocco. Institutions matter. Laws matter. Public administration matters. But no institution can replace the human relationships that make a society possible. A city may possess magnificent buildings and still lose its sense of community. It may enjoy economic prosperity while weakening the bonds of trust between its inhabitants. It may become administratively efficient while forgetting the responsibilities people owe one another. The Fez of earlier centuries was not a perfect society. But it reminds us that civilization is more than the accumulation of wealth, monuments, or political power. It is also the knowledge a people develops about how to live together. And perhaps this is what we should remember whenever we speak of preserving the heritage of Morocco. A government administers a city. Its people give it a civilization. The first can be reorganized by decree. The second must be cultivated across generations.
Before You Visit Morocco: Read The Boy from Fez
Before You Visit Morocco, Read The Boy from Fez: Discovering a Civilization from Within For centuries, Morocco has been visited, painted, photographed, studied, and described by people from around the world. Yet I have often wondered: how frequently have we listened to Morocco telling its own story? I was born in Fez, among craftsmen, storytellers, musicians, grandmothers, and ordinary people whose extraordinary wisdom shaped my childhood. Many years later, after studying anthropology and travelling across the world, I realized that my first and greatest classroom had been the streets, homes, and orchards of my own city. That realization inspired me to write The Boy from Fez. This book is not simply a memoir of my childhood. It is an invitation to discover Moroccan civilization from within, through the lives of the people who made it what it is. I wrote it for travellers who wish to understand Morocco before visiting, for Moroccans who wish to reconnect with their cultural inheritance, and for readers everywhere who recognize that our human experiences connect us across borders. Because I believe something deeply: Everyone has a Fez of their own. My Fez may be different from yours, but somewhere in our childhood memories, our families, our friendships, and the places we call home, we may discover how much humanity we share. Today, I invite you to read my new reflection: The Boy from Fez: Morocco, Told from Within Read the full article: [https://hamidmernissi.com/blog/the-boy-from-fez-morocco-told-from-within] With gratitude to everyone who has accompanied me on this journey. Hamid Mernissi
Chiadma Morocco: Amazigh Origins, Regraga & History
The Chiadma of Morocco: Where Genealogy Meets Memory Subtitle: Between Masmuda ancestry, Regraga spirituality, and the Atlantic plains of Essaouira, the story of Chiadma refuses to fit neatly into a single family tree. And I would rewrite it this way: The Chiadma of Morocco: Where Genealogy Meets Memory Travel north from Essaouira toward Safi and the landscape begins to tell a quieter story of Morocco. The Atlantic remains somewhere to the west. Inland stretch plains, villages, fields, and the sacred geography of the Regraga. This is Chiadma country, a land whose identity has been carried not only through written history, but through genealogy, pilgrimage, tribal memory and generations of belonging. But ask a seemingly simple question, Who are the Chiadma?, and history answers with several voices. Some old genealogical traditions place the Chiadma among the great Masmuda Amazigh confederation of western Morocco. Other writers associated them with Zenata or Butr ancestry. Still other accounts describe a population formed over centuries through the meeting and incorporation of Amazigh and Arab tribal elements. Perhaps the disagreement tells us something important about Morocco itself. A tribe is not always a branch that can be followed neatly back to a single trunk. Sometimes it is a river. An Old Amazigh Genealogy One tradition identifying Chiadma with the Masmuda is preserved by Abu Muhammad Abd al-Salam al-Qadiri, drawing on an older genealogical source attributed to Muhammad ibn Abi al-Majd al-Masmudi. In that genealogy, Chiadma appears among Masmuda groups alongside names such as Jazula, Haha, Regraga, Ourika, Hintata and Doukkala. Other Moroccan genealogical traditions followed a similar path. Al-Zammuri, cited by Al-Taqi al-Alawi in Usul al-Maghariba, associated Chiadma with Ourika and Ghigaya and described them as sharing an Amazigh ancestry. Yet medieval genealogy was rarely unanimous. Ibn Juzayy placed Chiadma differently, associating them with Zenata, or more broadly with the Butr Berbers, and tracing their ancestry through Satafur ibn Matmat. Other genealogical traditions ultimately linked this lineage to Madghis ibn Barr, one of the great ancestral figures in accounts of Amazigh origins. Such contradictions were hardly unique to Chiadma. Historians and genealogists also disagreed over how to classify other important North African peoples. The disagreement should therefore not be treated as a historical inconvenience. It is part of the history. Regraga: A Deeper Memory of the Land One element of the story is considerably clearer: the ancient presence of the Regraga. Modern linguistic scholarship notes that before Arab tribal migrations into the region, the territory itself was known as Regraga. The Regraga are identified as an Amazigh group belonging to the Masmuda and were subsequently incorporated into the wider Chiadma population. Their presence survives in something more powerful than genealogy: ritual. Every spring, the Regraga Daour carries pilgrims through a sacred landscape of shrines and communities in the Essaouira region. Whatever one makes of the legends surrounding its earliest origins, the pilgrimage remains a living expression of the region's religious memory. Contemporary historical discussion distinguishes the spiritual legend of the Seven Saints from demonstrable history while recognizing Regraga's deep importance in Chiadma's religious life. Here history is no longer merely something written in a manuscript. It walks. It visits. It remembers. When Tribes Become Landscapes By the sixteenth century, European observers were also attempting to describe the peoples inhabiting western Morocco. Luis del Mármol Carvajal wrote about Chiadma and the populations of the wider Doukkala and Haha regions, although interpreting these early European categories requires caution. Modern scholarship likewise complicates any simple declaration that today's Chiadma descend exclusively from one ancient confederation. Some Moroccan historical traditions describe Arab tribal components, including groups associated with Mudar, al-Harith and Maqil, alongside the Amazigh Regraga and Maskala. That does not erase Chiadma's Amazigh history. Nor does Amazigh ancestry erase centuries of later migration, intermarriage, alliance, Arabization, and cultural exchange. It reminds us instead that Moroccan identity was lived before it was classified. The historian wants a genealogy. The people inherit a landscape. Chiadma Beyond the Family Tree Perhaps this is why I find Chiadma more interesting when we stop asking only, Which branch did they belong to? Look instead at what survived. The sacred geography of Regraga. The villages between Essaouira and Safi. The pilgrimage routes. Agricultural life. Oral memory. Saints and sanctuaries. Amazigh inheritances alongside later Arab influences. Communities that absorbed newcomers without forgetting what came before. The modern Chiadma territory lies along Morocco's Atlantic side north of Essaouira, while scholarship places the older Regraga landscape in this same region. That landscape has witnessed dynasties rise and disappear, languages change, tribal alliances shift, and genealogists disagree. Yet the people remained. Perhaps that is the lesson Chiadma offers the traveler. Identity is not always a straight line drawn backward through blood. Sometimes it is a place where many memories learned to live together. And in Chiadma, Morocco has been remembering for a very long time.
A Tour or a Journey?
A Tour or a Journey? Two Ways of Discovering Morocco When I began designing travel programs to Morocco in the early 1990s, I rarely thought of them as tours. I called them journeys. Perhaps I did not fully understand at the time why that word felt so natural to me. I simply knew that I wanted travelers to encounter something beyond monuments, hotels and beautiful landscapes. Some of my earliest programs were spiritual journeys. We explored Morocco through Sufi traditions, sacred music, and encounters with communities for whom spirituality was still woven into everyday life. Later, we traveled into Morocco's Jewish heritage, including visits connected with Hiloulas and the memory of saints whose resting places continue to bring people together. The purpose was never simply to reach these places. I wanted to understand what they meant. More than thirty years later, I find myself returning to that word: journey. Not because there is anything wrong with a tour. There isn't. A well-designed tour can be a wonderful way to discover Morocco. A first-time visitor may wish to experience Fez, Marrakech, the Sahara, the Atlas Mountains and Morocco's great historic sites while travelling comfortably and in knowledgeable hands. We will continue designing such tours. But another kind of traveler asks another kind of question. They are not only asking: Where are we going? They are asking: Why are we going there? That small difference can change the entire travel experience. A Tour Organizes Places. A Journey Organizes Meaning. A tour needs an itinerary. So does a journey. Both require good hotels, reliable transportation, knowledgeable guides, thoughtful logistics and careful planning. The difference is not necessarily what appears on the map. The difference is what connects the places. A journey begins with an idea, a question, or sometimes simply a curiosity. Imagine travelling through the mountains of southern Morocco. We could visit villages because they are beautiful. We could photograph houses clinging dramatically to the slopes and continue along our road. Or we could stop and ask: Why was the village built there? Suddenly the landscape begins to open. Perhaps the flatter ground below was too valuable for agriculture to cover with houses. Perhaps water determined where people could settle. Perhaps building materials came directly from the mountain. Perhaps the architecture reflects climate, security, agriculture, and generations of accumulated knowledge. The village has not changed. We have. We are no longer simply looking at it. We are beginning to read it. That is the territory of the journey. Knowledge Gives the Journey Its Thread A journey cannot simply be assembled from attractive places. It must be conceived. The itinerary is not the journey. The idea running through it is. On one journey, we might follow music through Morocco and discover how rhythm, spirituality, migration and community have shaped different musical traditions. On another, we might follow water and discover how mountains, irrigation, agriculture, architecture and human cooperation are connected. We might travel through the green highlands following olive, fig and cedar, allowing vegetation and altitude to tell us where we are. Or we might enter the Anti-Atlas asking how Amazigh communities learned to make homes, farms and villages within an environment that does not give easily. This kind of travel requires knowledge. History matters. Geography matters. Anthropology matters. Agriculture, architecture, religion, music and ecology matter. But experience matters too. You have to spend time in a place. You have to listen. You have to know when something belongs in the journey and, equally importantly, when it does not. A journey has an author, but the traveler should never become a captive of the author's conclusions. Our responsibility is to create the road, provide context, open doors when they can be opened respectfully, and ask worthwhile questions. We design the road. We do not prescribe what you must find at the end of it. Walking Is Sometimes Our Way of Getting Closer This philosophy also changes the pace of travel. Sometimes we walk. Not because every journey must become a trekking expedition, and certainly not because a mountain is waiting to be conquered. We walk because the windshield separates us from things. A terrace looks different when you stand beside the wall somebody built to hold its soil. An irrigation channel becomes meaningful when you follow the water. A market becomes different after you have visited the farms and villages whose produce arrives there. A zawiya becomes more than architecture when you begin to understand why generations of people travelled to it. Walking slows the traveler sufficiently for relationships to become visible. Walking is how we get closer. People Are Not Attractions Another responsibility comes with journey travel. The people we encounter are not part of the scenery. A shepherd does not exist for our photograph. A musician does not become more authentic because we have paid for a performance. A rural family should not have to demonstrate its culture because an itinerary promised travelers an “authentic encounter.” Life has its own rhythm. Pastoral life follows grass, water, weather, and season—not our itinerary. If a conversation happens naturally, we welcome it. If a family opens its home, we enter gratefully. If music arises from an occasion to which we have genuinely been welcomed, we listen differently. A meaningful journey requires curiosity, but it also requires humility. We arrive as guests. The Mountains Meet the Market One of the pleasures of journey travel is discovering relationships where we previously saw separate things. A mountain village and a city souk may appear to belong to different worlds. They don't. The farmer needs the market. The artisan needs materials. The merchant depends upon producers. The city depends upon its countryside, while rural communities depend upon towns as places of exchange. Suddenly the souk is no longer merely colorful. It becomes a conversation between places. Follow those relationships far enough and even a great city begins to look different. After travelling through Amazigh villages, agricultural terraces, mountain passes and rural markets, we recently arrived at Marrakech with a simple realization: We had entered Morocco through the back door. Instead of beginning with the city and making excursions into the countryside, we travelled through the countryside until we began to understand the city. The mountains had entered Marrakech before us—in its food, materials, craftspeople, markets, water, histories and human relationships. Tour or Journey? The Choice Is Yours. I do not believe that one way of travelling is better than the other. They are two different invitations. A tour says: Come, let us show you Morocco. A journey says: Come, let us explore something about Morocco together. Perhaps you are visiting Morocco for the first time and want to discover its great cities, landscapes and historic places. A thoughtfully designed tour may be exactly what you need. Perhaps you have travelled extensively. You have seen many beautiful places already, and now you are looking for context, conversation, and a deeper understanding of the places through which you travel. Then perhaps you are ready for a journey We create our journeys especially for travelers who remain curious after seeing much of the world. They are not necessarily more difficult. They are not necessarily longer. They simply begin with a different intention. Returning to Journeys After more than three decades in travel, Sarah Tours is returning to what was there from the beginning. We are bringing journeys back to the heart of what we do. Not as a new marketing expression. Not as a replacement for our tours. And certainly not because we wish to tell travelers how they ought to travel. We simply want to offer a choice. Because I have come to believe that: A tour organizes places. A journey organizes meaning. A tour shows you where to go. A journey changes the way you see where you have been. And perhaps most importantly: A tour can end at the airport. A journey sometimes begins there. Long after the suitcase has been unpacked, a question may remain. A piece of music may sound different. A market may remind you of the farmer behind it. A glass of water may bring back a mountain spring. A cedar tree, a zawiya, an old Jewish cemetery or a village clinging to the rock may suddenly connect with something you did not understand while standing in front of it. The journey continues because something has travelled home with you. At Sarah Tours, we will continue to create both tours and journeys. The choice belongs to you. Would you like us to show you Morocco? Or would you like to explore something about Morocco with us? One may become a wonderful tour. The other may become a journey. Travel in peace — Ma'a Salama. By Hamid Mernissi
Before Sarah Tours, There Was a Boy from Fez
Long before there was Sarah Tours, there was a boy growing up in Fez. He learned about Morocco before he knew that one day he would spend his life explaining it to travelers. His classrooms were not always classrooms. They were the streets of the medina, family houses, the orchard at Ben Tato, the Fez River, neighborhood workshops, religious gatherings, markets and the company of people whose knowledge rarely appeared in books. More than thirty years ago, when I began taking travelers through Morocco, I thought I was introducing them to my country. Looking back, I understand that I was often introducing them to the Morocco that had introduced itself to me as a boy. On October 15, I will publish my first book, The Boy from Fez. Perhaps this book also explains something about Sarah Tours. I have never known how to separate a place from its people, its history from its daily life, or a monument from the civilization that produced it. When I design a journey, I still find myself looking at Morocco with some of the curiosity of that boy from Fez. Travel became my profession, but curiosity came first.
Travel Marketplace and Market
When the Marketplace Becomes the Market I have spent most of my professional life in travel. Long enough to remember when selling a journey depended largely upon relationships. A tour operator created a journey. A travel agent knew the client. A destination specialist knew the country. Hotels provided accommodation. Guides interpreted the destination. Drivers moved people safely through it. Restaurants fed them. Local suppliers provided countless services along the way. And somewhere between all these people stood a traveler who trusted us collectively with something precious: his money, certainly, but also his time, his safety, and his dreams. It was never a perfect system. Business never is. Everyone needed to earn something. Commissions, wholesalers, negotiations, preferred suppliers, and large companies with greater buying power than small ones. But a recognizable chain of professional responsibility existed. We knew who did what. The travel agent did not pretend to be the hotelier. The hotelier did not pretend to be the guide. The wholesaler did not drive the coach. The destination operator knew that when the traveler arrived, the responsibility became very real. Travel was a trade. And like every trade, it had its maâlems. Then technology arrived. I welcomed it. Why wouldn't I? Technology gave a small company access to the world. A tour operator in Morocco could present a journey directly to someone sitting in Sydney, Toronto or Chicago. Information that once required brochures, telephone calls, postage and international offices could suddenly cross the world in seconds. This was extraordinary. For the small operator, the promise seemed almost democratic: The distance between producer and consumer was disappearing. But something unexpected happened along the way. A new intermediary appeared between them. The platform. The New Marketplace There is nothing inherently wrong with a platform. A good marketplace performs a valuable function. It gathers choices. It makes products searchable. It facilitates comparison. It can provide reviews, payment systems, technological infrastructure, and consumer confidence. It can introduce a small operator to a traveler who otherwise might never have discovered them. For doing this work, it deserves to earn money. I have no quarrel with that. My question begins somewhere else. What happens when the marketplace becomes more powerful than the people who actually produce what is being sold there? That is not merely a question about travel. It is a question about the architecture of modern commerce. There was a time when an intermediary approached the producer and essentially said: I can bring you customers. What arrangement can we make? Increasingly, the relationship can feel reversed: I control access to customers. These are the conditions under which you may reach them. Something fundamental has changed. The marketplace has begun becoming the market. Visibility Is Not the Same as Quality Imagine a traditional souk. One maâlem has spent forty years mastering his craft. Another has been working for ten. A third has only recently opened his workshop. People walk through the market, examine their work, speak with them, ask questions, and eventually decide whom they trust. Now imagine that someone builds the only entrance to the souk. He does not make anything sold inside it. But he decides who stands nearest the entrance. He decides which workshop appears first. He decides the conditions under which craftsmen may participate. And perhaps those who contribute most to the cost of visibility become the easiest to find. Eventually the visitor may begin believing that the craftsmen nearest the entrance must be the best craftsmen. But they may simply be the most visible. Visibility and mastery are not the same thing. This distinction matters enormously in travel. A traveler searching online may reasonably assume that the tours appearing most prominently are among the best choices available. But digital visibility can depend upon many things besides destination knowledge: advertising budgets, commercial agreements, sales volume, conversion rates, rankings, algorithms, and the ability to participate economically in a platform's system. None of those things necessarily tells us who knows Morocco best. Or Kenya. Or Peru. Or India. The algorithm measures what it was designed to measure. It cannot automatically measure wisdom. Where Did the Professional Go? This is what troubles me most. Travel is not simply inventory. A hotel room can be described by square meters, facilities, and location. An airline seat can be identified by route, class, and departure time. But a journey is something else. A good journey is composed. Someone decides what belongs and what does not. Someone understands rhythm. Someone knows when three nights are necessary rather than two. Someone knows that the famous attraction may be less meaningful than the village thirty kilometers away. Someone understands that a road appearing shorter on a map may be the wrong road for the experience. Someone knows when to speak. And, perhaps more importantly, when to stop speaking and allow the traveler to experience the place. That knowledge takes years. I call it craftsmanship. The maâlem of travel does not merely assemble hotels, transportation, and excursions. He understands relationships. Geography and history. Water and settlement. Landscape and architecture. Food and agriculture. Religion and daily life. Trade and migration. People and place. That is what creates a journey. Yet the modern marketplace can reduce all this to another product card: 22 Days — Morocco — From $X — Book Now. The craft remains underneath. But the shelf becomes more visible than the craftsman. Apples Do Not Grow on Shelves In another reflection, I used the simplest analogy I could find. Apples do not grow in supermarkets. Somewhere there is an orchard. There is soil. Water. A tree. A farmer. Knowledge. Labor. Risk. Time. The supermarket performs an important function after all these things have produced the apple. Travel is no different. The platform did not create the mountain. It did not build the relationship with the village. It did not train the guide. It did not inspect the hotel. It did not drive the road. It did not sit with the family that welcomes travelers. It did not spend thirty years learning why one itinerary works and another merely looks good on paper. Someone else did those things. The platform provides access to the apple. We should not forget the orchard. The Economics of the Doorway This brings us to the uncomfortable question of economic power. Every intermediary deserves to be paid for the genuine value they contribute. But what determines that value? Is it the work performed? The expertise contributed? The risk carried? Or increasingly, the power that comes from controlling access to the customer? These are different things. The person controlling the doorway may eventually earn more from the transaction than some of the people producing what lies behind the door. Perhaps the market accepts this. But acceptance doesn't stop us from asking whether the relationship is healthy. Because the producer has expenses that cannot be virtualized. The guide must be paid. The driver must be paid. Fuel must be purchased. The hotel must be paid. Meals must be served. Staff must be employed. Insurance, offices, training, and administration remain. And when something goes wrong during the journey, somebody on the ground must solve it. The journey eventually leaves the screen. Travel becomes physical. That is the moment when the difference between selling travel and operating travel becomes unmistakable. Why Can't We All Be Strong? I am not interested in reversing the hierarchy. I do not want the small operator to become powerful by making the platform weak. That would reproduce the same mistake. My question is: Why can't we all be strong in a fair share? The platform can prosper. The travel agent can prosper. The tour operator can prosper. The hotel can prosper. The guide can prosper. The driver can prosper. The local community can prosper. And the traveler can receive genuine value for the money invested. Surely the purpose of a healthy economy is not to determine who can extract the most from everybody else. It is to create conditions in which useful contributions can coexist. The oasis taught me this better than any business school could. The person upstream needs water. So does the person downstream. The answer is not to deprive the person upstream. It is to prevent access from becoming absolute entitlement. Because if the first person takes everything simply because he can reach it first, eventually there is no garden downstream. Markets have downstream gardens too. The Consumer Has a Place in This The traveler is not responsible for repairing the economics of the travel industry. But travelers deserve to understand what they are buying. Booking through a marketplace is not wrong. Convenience has value. Security has value. Comparison has value. But consumers should also be able to ask: Who actually operates my journey? Who designed it? Where are they based? How long have they worked in the destination? Who employs the guides and drivers? Who carries responsibility when I arrive? Can I speak directly with the people who actually know the journey? And perhaps: How much of the money I spend stays with the people creating the experience? These questions are not anti-business. They are responsible consumption. We encourage people to ask where their food comes from. We ask who made our clothes. We increasingly want to know how products affect the environment. Why should travel be exempt? Responsible tourism should begin before the traveler reaches the destination. It begins with understanding the journey between the dollar and the destination. Technology Can Still Fulfill Its Promise I am not nostalgic for a world without technology. I do not want to return to telex machines, printed tariffs, and shelves of brochures. Technology has given us extraordinary possibilities. And perhaps the next stage can correct some of the imbalances created by the first. Search can become better at recognizing genuine expertise. Artificial intelligence may help travelers discover specialists who previously could not afford global marketing. Technology can make reputation portable. It can allow the smallest maâlem to present his knowledge directly to the world. Perhaps the future does not belong inevitably to bigger platforms. Perhaps it belongs to better connections. The internet's original promise was not that a handful of enormous marketplaces would own the road between human beings. Its promise was connection. I still believe in that promise. The Market Is a Relationship After decades of travel, I have reached a simple conclusion. A market is not a machine. It is a relationship. Someone produces. Someone distributes. Someone advises. Someone purchases. Someone delivers. Someone receives. Each depends upon the others. When one participant becomes so powerful that the others lose meaningful choices, the relationship changes. And eventually the profession changes with it. I have lived long enough in this trade to remember another way. I have also lived long enough to know that we cannot simply recreate the past. Nor should we. The answer lies ahead. But whatever future we build, I hope we remember four simple things: The apple teaches us source. The maâlem teaches us skill. The oasis teaches us fair share. The Amine teaches us responsibility. Perhaps my responsibility now, after a lifetime in the travel business, is simply to say what I have seen. Not to attack. Not to complain. Not to ask anyone to surrender what they have legitimately earned. But to give a voice to a profession I love. The marketplace has an important place in travel. So does the maâlem. Let us make sure that, as we build ever larger marketplaces, we do not accidentally build a world with no room left for the people who actually know how to make what the marketplace sells.
Private Travel in Morocco
What 30 Years of Customized Morocco Tours Have Taught Me I have been designing private and customized journeys through Morocco for more than thirty years. During that time, I have probably created more than a thousand individual itineraries. Some I barely remember. Others have never left me. What I remember most is rarely the hotel we used or how many nights we spent in Marrakech. I remember the people: families travelling across three generations, couples celebrating important moments in their lives, travelers tracing their heritage, people fascinated by architecture or music, adventurous travelers wanting mountains and desert, and others who simply wanted enough time to sit somewhere and understand where they were. After all these years, I have learned something very simple: A customized tour does not begin with the itinerary. It begins with the traveler. Fourteen People, One Family, Fourteen Different Travelers One of my earliest lessons came in 1994, when Sarah Tours was still a young and largely unknown company. Mr. Johnson asked me to design a grand tour of Morocco for his family. Fourteen participants ranged in age from nine to seventy-three. At first glance, this was one private group requiring one itinerary. It wasn't. It was fourteen people experiencing Morocco differently. Children can become fascinated very quickly, but they can also become bored just as quickly. A long historical explanation that captivates a grandfather may mean very little to his nine-year-old granddaughter. Teenagers present another challenge. You cannot simply drag them through monuments and expect enthusiasm because the adults have declared the places important. They need opportunities to participate, discover, move and develop their own relationship with the destination. Adults may happily endure longer driving days, extensive walking and detailed cultural visits. Older travelers often still possess the curiosity and adventurous spirit they had decades earlier, while their bodies may quietly ask for a different pace. My responsibility was not to decide which generation should compromise. It was to create a journey where everyone belonged. For fifteen days, we travelled through Morocco's imperial cities, mountains and Sahara. I sometimes felt I had to become three guides in one, changing pace, changing language, changing how I introduced a place, letting some people rest while keeping others engaged, and constantly watching whether the journey was working for the family rather than simply whether we were following the itinerary. At the end of the tour in Essaouira, the family thanked me warmly. I was delighted that the journey had worked. I could not have imagined the real answer would come almost thirty years later. The Nine-Year-Old Traveler Came Back The youngest granddaughter on that journey grew up. Nearly thirty years later, at thirty-nine, she contacted Sarah Tours. She remembered my name. She remembered Sarah Tours. Most remarkably, she remembered details of the Morocco journey she had taken as a child. Now she had a family of her own, a husband and three children, and she wanted to bring them to Morocco. She asked me to recreate the journey her grandfather gave his family, with one addition of her own: a night in Chefchaouen. So I found myself customizing the journey again, this time for the next generation. That experience changed the way I think about family travel. A child should never be treated as an additional passenger on an adult itinerary. The nine-year-old may remember the journey longer than anyone else. Customization Is Not Adding and Removing Destinations Today, the word customized is used very easily in tourism. Choose your hotel. Add another night. Remove a city. Upgrade the room. Select some optional activities. These are certainly forms of customization. But after decades of designing private tours, I believe genuine customization goes much deeper. Before deciding where someone should travel, I want to understand who is travelling. What interests them? How old are the travelers? How active are they? Is this their first visit to Morocco? Do they prefer history, food, architecture, music, hiking, photography, Jewish heritage, Islamic civilization, contemporary life, rural communities, the Sahara, or some combination of these? How much driving are they comfortable with? Do they enjoy full days, or do they need time simply to wander? And perhaps most importantly: Why are they coming to Morocco? The answers change the journey. Sometimes Eight Friends Need Eight Different Moroccos In 2019, Michael Epstein from Maryland contacted me. He told me that Sarah Tours had been highly recommended by friends I had taken through Morocco several years earlier. Michael and three other couples, all close friends, wanted to make a seventeen-day journey through Morocco. Jewish heritage mattered to them, but it wasn't their only interest. They were deeply curious about Moroccan history, anthropology, and culture. Michael asked me to lead the journey personally. By then I had largely retired from tour leading. Over the years, I had trained excellent Moroccan guides to accompany Sarah Tours travelers. But Michael told me that he had always wanted to see Morocco and believed this might be his last major journey. I decided to go. Again, customization meant more than designing a route. Eight friends did not necessarily have eight identical interests simply because they were travelling together. We explored Morocco's Jewish heritage, but we also talked about Islam, history, architecture, anthropology, contemporary Morocco, and the complicated relationships between cultures. We sometimes disagreed, even about politics. That was fine. Travel should not require people to agree with one another. It should give them enough trust and curiosity to listen to one another. During seventeen days together, something changed. We stopped feeling like a tour leader and eight clients. We became friends travelling through Morocco together. That friendship continued long after the journey ended. The Most Important Tool in Customized Travel Is Attention After more than a thousand tailor-made journeys, people sometimes expect me to have discovered a complicated formula for designing the perfect Morocco itinerary. I haven't. I have learned something much more useful: Pay attention. Watch the child who has stopped listening. Notice when an older traveler is becoming tired before they have to announce it to everyone. Recognize when someone is fascinated by something that was supposed to be a ten-minute stop. Don't drag them away just because the itinerary says it is time to leave. Listen when a traveler keeps asking questions about music, agriculture, architecture, religion, or everyday life. They are telling you what their Morocco journey should become. And leave room for surprise. Some of the most memorable experiences I have helped create were never written in the original itinerary. That is why I have never believed that a customized journey should become a rigid contract with the road. The itinerary gives us direction. The traveler gives it meaning. What Sarah Tours Means by a Customized Morocco Tour When we design a private journey through Morocco today, thirty years of experience sit quietly behind it. Not because we know every hotel. Not because we have discovered some secret list of attractions. And not because we believe there is one perfect Morocco itinerary. Quite the opposite. After all these years, I know that there isn't one. There is a Morocco for the family travelling with children. There is another for the seventy-year-old who still wants adventure but needs a gentler walking pace. There is a Morocco for the historian, the photographer, the hiker, the musician, the food lover and the traveler tracing family heritage. There is a Morocco for someone visiting for three days from Spain and another for someone willing to spend three weeks crossing mountains, oases and desert. Our job is not to fit all of them into the same Morocco. Our job is to listen carefully enough to discover which Morocco belongs to their journey. Perhaps that is what thirty years of customized travel has taught me. I once thought I was designing itineraries. I now understand that I was designing relationships between people and places. And when that relationship is right, something remarkable can happen. Sometimes a nine-year-old girl remembers it for thirty years. And one day, she brings her own children back.
Whatever Happened to Overland Travel
Whatever Happened to Overland Travel? There was a time when reaching a place was part of understanding it. We traveled by road because the road let us see what lay between the names printed on the map. Cities did not simply follow one another on an itinerary. Between them were mountains, farms, villages, forests, rivers, roadside cafés, markets, breakdowns, conversations, uncomfortable nights and unexpected friendships. We called it overland travel. It was not always comfortable. Sometimes it was dusty, slow and unpredictable. But perhaps that was part of its education. Today we can cross countries in hours. We fly over landscapes that once took days to traverse. We arrive in one city, photograph its monuments, sleep in a beautiful hotel and fly to the next. Travel has become easier. But I sometimes wonder whether, in making travel easier, we have also made it easier to miss the country itself. The Country Between the Destinations Morocco makes me think about this often. A traveler can visit Fez, fly or drive quickly to Marrakech, continue to the Sahara and return home having seen some of Morocco's most celebrated places. But Morocco is not only Fez, Marrakech and the Sahara. What happens between Fez and Marrakech? The road climbs into the Middle Atlas. The climate changes. Architecture changes. Agriculture changes. Cedar and oak forests appear. Shepherds move through landscapes very different from the plains surrounding Fez. Towns such as Ifrane and Azrou introduce another Morocco before the road eventually descends again. The distance between two cities is not empty. It has a personality of its own. And that is what overland travel lets us discover. Overland Travel Does Not Have to Mean Hardship Perhaps one reason overland travel lost some of its appeal is that we still imagine it as it once was. I remember another era of overland travel: long journeys, simple campsites, basic facilities, communal cooking, breakdowns, dust and considerable improvisation. I loved much of it. But I am not suggesting that we reproduce the discomforts of forty or fifty years ago merely because we survived them. Living in Australia has shown me another possibility. Here, I have encountered campsites and roadside accommodations that maintain a close relationship with nature while providing remarkably good facilities. Some combine camping areas with cabins or bungalows. There may be excellent shared kitchens, clean bathrooms, hot showers, places to cook and eat together, and comfortable accommodation for people who do not wish to sleep under canvas. The lesson is simple: Being close to nature does not require being uncomfortable. And comfort does not necessarily require isolating ourselves from nature. An interesting space exists between the primitive campsite and the luxury hotel. Perhaps that space deserves exploration. Could Camping Become Part of Travel Again? Not camping simply because it is inexpensive. And not “glamping” that recreates a hotel room under canvas. I mean small-scale nature accommodation designed around the place itself. Imagine traveling through Morocco and spending one night in a riad in Fez, another in a small lodge among the mountains, another in a simple bungalow near a village, and another beneath canvas on the edge of the desert. Good beds. Clean bathrooms. Hot water. Good food. Shade. A communal kitchen or gathering place. And outside the door: the landscape you came to experience. This kind of accommodation could also make tourism possible in rural places where constructing conventional hotels would make little environmental or economic sense. A small camp or nature lodge can employ local people, purchase food nearby, use regional building traditions, support guides and craftspeople, and allow travelers to remain longer in communities they might otherwise simply drive through. Then accommodation itself becomes part of responsible travel. The Return of the Road Technology does not have to be the enemy of this kind of journey. We can have GPS and still become curious about where we are. We can carry a telephone and still put it away. We can travel in a comfortable vehicle and still stop at a village market. We can sleep in a good bed and still hear the wind outside. Perhaps the question is not whether we should bring back the overland travel of the past. We cannot. The world has changed, and travelers have changed with it. The more interesting question is whether we can create a new form of overland travel suited to the world we live in now, comfortable enough for today's traveler, responsible toward the places we cross, but slow enough to allow discovery. Traveling Through, Not Flying Over For me, the great gift of overland travel was never simply adventure. It was continuity. When you travel across a country by land, geography begins explaining culture. You understand why a town grew beside a river. Why people built with earth in one region and stone in another. Why food changes as the landscape changes. Why markets appear where roads meet. Why mountains separate communities, and sometimes connect them. Gradually, a country stops being a collection of attractions. It becomes a relationship between land and people. That is something I believe travel still has the power to reveal. Perhaps the future of overland travel will not look like its past. Perhaps it shouldn't. But I hope we never lose the curiosity that once made us take the long road simply because we wanted to know what was there. And perhaps the next generation of travelers will discover something some of us learned many years ago: Sometimes the road between two destinations is the destination. I have spent much of my life traveling, but some of the journeys I remember most clearly are not the places I reached. They are the roads that took me there.
Bab Segma in Fez
Bab Segma in Fez: The Historic Gate, Marinid Gardens and a City's Memory Fez is often described through its medina, mosques, madrasas, souks, and famous gates. But some of the city's most interesting stories survive in places that are easily passed without notice. Bab Segma is one of them. Located north of Fez el-Jdid, near the New Mechouar and Kasbah Cherarda, Bab Segma is remembered today principally through two massive octagonal towers. At first, they may appear to be simple remnants of Fez's old fortifications. Their story, however, leads us into something much larger: a vanished royal garden, an extraordinary medieval water system, the Marinid rulers of Fez, and eventually a woman whose name became attached to the place. Bab Segma and the Marinid Royal Gardens The origins of Bab Segma date back to the Marinid period, when Fez was transformed by the creation of Fez el-Jdid, the new royal city founded in the 13th century. The two great octagonal towers associated with Bab Segma are believed to have formed part of an entrance to the Mosara Garden, an enormous royal garden created around 1287 under the Marinid Sultan Abu Ya'qub Yusuf. The garden has disappeared, but Bab Segma allows us to imagine something of its scale. This was not simply a small ornamental garden beside a palace. It occupied a substantial area north of Fez el-Jdid and was enclosed within its own walls. And, as so often happens in Fez, the story of architecture soon becomes a story about water. Water, Architecture and the Intelligence of Fez The Mosara Garden required a sophisticated water supply. An elevated aqueduct carried water from the area of Bab Dekkakin toward Bab Segma, passing through the great octagonal towers before continuing into the royal gardens. Openings still visible in the towers show where this water system once passed. This small architectural detail tells us something important about historic Fez. A city cannot be understood only through its monuments. Behind its gardens were irrigation systems. Behind its fountains were water networks. Behind its hammams, houses, workshops, mosques, orchards, and agricultural lands was an extraordinary understanding of how water could be collected, distributed, shared, and used. Bab Segma therefore belongs not only to Fez's military architecture but also to the history of its landscape and urban engineering. Where Did the Name Bab Segma Come From? The name came later. Historical accounts associate it with a pious woman named Amina Sagma, who was buried near the site in 1737. Her memory became so closely connected with the place that the name Bab Segma survived as a local place-name and was eventually associated with the gate and surrounding area. There is something particularly Fassi about this. Cities are officially built by rulers, architects, craftsmen, and engineers. But people rename them through memory. A woman buried beside a monumental structure created centuries earlier eventually gave the place the name by which generations would remember it. The monument belonged to history. The name belonged to memory. Bab Segma Through an Old Photograph Old photographs and postcards of Bab Segma allow us to see more than architecture. Look carefully, and the monument becomes only part of the image. Clothes, gestures, roads, animals, walls, shadows, people entering and leaving, and the landscape surrounding the city appear. What appears to be a photograph of a gate becomes evidence of how people once occupied the space around it. This is why historical photographs of Fez are so valuable. They do not merely show us what has disappeared. They show us how the city was lived. Fez: A City That Can Be Read Through Its Gates Bab Segma belongs to a much larger family of gates, walls, towers, kasbahs, and passages that developed as Fez expanded over the centuries. But the gates of Fez were never simply holes made in defensive walls. A gate could tell you where a road was going, which community lived nearby, what trade took place there, what landscape lay beyond the walls, or which political authority controlled that part of the city. Some names remembered professions. Others remembered tribes, saints, neighborhoods, markets, geographical directions, or particular events. To study the gates is therefore to begin reading the geography of historic Fez. And Bab Segma gives us an especially beautiful example because so much of what once surrounded it has vanished. The royal garden disappeared. The medieval landscape changed. The aqueduct ceased carrying water. The city expanded around it. Yet the towers remained. And so did the name. Preserving More Than Stone When we speak about preserving the architectural heritage of Fez, we often think first about restoring walls, gates, houses, madrasas, fountains, and monuments. That work is essential. But preservation must also protect the stories that explain why those stones matter. Without those stories, Bab Segma becomes two old towers beside a modern road. With them, we begin to see a Marinid royal garden. We imagine water moving along an aqueduct. We encounter centuries of changing urban life. We remember Amina Segma. And suddenly a fragment of architecture reconnects us with the people who lived around it. Perhaps this is one of the great pleasures of discovering Fez. The city rarely reveals everything at once. Sometimes we must stop before two old towers and ask a simple question: What happened here? And Fez begins to speak.
Sarah Tours and Discoveries
Sarah Tours: Thirty Years of Experience, A New Digital Journey The way we travel is changing. Not so long ago, travellers discovered destinations through guidebooks, travel agents, newspaper articles and recommendations from friends. Today, the journey often begins differently. We search Google, watch videos, explore social media, read stories online and increasingly use artificial intelligence to help us imagine where we might go next. At Sarah Tours, we have watched these changes with great interest. For more than thirty years, our work has been built around something very simple: bringing travellers and destinations together through meaningful journeys. We began long before social media, smartphones or artificial intelligence became part of everyday travel. Our reputation grew through experience, personal relationships, trusted partners and travellers who returned home and recommended Sarah Tours to others. Today, we are preparing Sarah Tours for another generation of travellers. A New Sarah Tours Over recent months, we have been quietly renewing ourselves. Our destinations now reach across Africa, Europe and Asia. We are improving the way travellers discover our journeys, expanding our cultural and educational programs, developing new small-group and private experiences, and creating a richer collection of stories about the places we visit. You will see some of those changes throughout our website. But this is not a new Sarah Tours replacing the old one. It is thirty years of experience learning to speak through the tools of today. Technology allows us to communicate faster, reach travellers around the world and introduce destinations in ways that were unimaginable when our first journeys began. Yet the reason we travel has not changed. We still travel because we are curious. We travel to encounter landscapes different from our own, to hear another language, taste unfamiliar food, walk through history, meet people and occasionally discover that those we thought were very different from us are not so different after all. The World Behind the Destination This is also why our website is becoming more than a collection of tours. Through the Sarah Tours Journal, we want to share the world behind the destinations: their history, music, architecture, agriculture, spiritual traditions, food, people and stories. A traveller considering Morocco should be able to discover something about Fez before arriving there. Someone travelling between Spain and Morocco should understand why the history of Al-Andalus did not simply end at the Strait of Gibraltar. A traveller crossing the Sahara should know that the road beneath the wheels was once part of a much older world of caravans, trade and human movement. Travel becomes richer when curiosity begins before departure. Modern Tools, Human Journeys Sarah Tours welcomes the new technological world. Google, social media, YouTube and artificial intelligence are changing how travellers discover the world, and we intend to be part of that future. But technology will remain a doorway. On the other side of that doorway are still people. A guide. A driver. An artisan. A farmer. A musician. A family. And somewhere among them, a traveller arriving with curiosity. After more than thirty years, we remain convinced that this is where the most meaningful journeys begin. Sarah Tours is changing with the times. The reason we travel is not.
Tetouan, the White Dove: An Andalusian City Reborn
Tetouan, the White Dove: An Andalusian City Reborn There is an old Moroccan saying: “The tagine of Fez, the water of Chefchaouen, and the elegance of Tetouan.” In a few words, the proverb gives each city its crown. Fez is celebrated for its kitchen, where centuries of refinement transformed cooking into an art. Chefchaouen is blessed with the fresh waters descending from the Rif Mountains, particularly around Ras El Maa, surrounded by the green landscapes of northern Morocco. And Tetouan? Tetouan receives the prize for elegance. Perhaps that is why its famous name, al-Hamama al-Bayda—the White Dove—has always seemed so appropriate to me. Tetouan possesses a certain whiteness, cleanliness and quiet refinement that distinguishes it even among Morocco's historic cities. But behind that elegance lies a remarkable story. A City Reborn We know Tetouan today as one of northern Morocco's great cultural centres, yet it is easy to walk through its medina without realizing that much of the city's identity was shaped by people who arrived carrying the memory of another homeland. Tetouan suffered severe destruction during the fifteenth century. Its revival is closely associated with Ali al-Mandri, an Andalusian who came to Morocco during the final decades of Muslim rule in Granada. Under al-Mandri and the Andalusian families who settled there, Tetouan rose again. They did not simply reconstruct walls and houses. They brought with them knowledge, craftsmanship, habits, music, cuisine, architecture, and memories of the civilization they had known across the Strait of Gibraltar. Gradually, Tetouan developed into something much greater than a defensive settlement. It became an Andalusian-Moroccan city. Its narrow streets, whitewashed houses, enclosed courtyards, mosques, fountains, workshops, and fortifications reflected the meeting of two traditions that were already deeply related: Moroccan craftsmanship and the Andalusian urban culture carried south by migrants from Iberia. When Refugees Rebuild More Than Houses This is perhaps the part of Tetouan's story that interests me most. When people are displaced, they do not travel only with what they can carry in their hands. They carry invisible things. They carry recipes. Songs. Ways of arranging a house. Ways of planting a garden. Words and expressions. Memories of streets. Ideas about beauty. Even ways of preparing a table or welcoming a guest. The Andalusians who came to northern Morocco could not bring Granada, Seville, or the other cities they had left behind. But they could preserve fragments of that world in the places where they began again. Tetouan became one of those places. And this is why travelling through its medina should be more than sightseeing. Look carefully at the houses. Notice the proportions of the streets and courtyards. Observe the doors, tiles, ironwork and white façades. Listen to the music. Taste the food. Even the particular refinement for which Tetouan's people became known belongs to a much longer cultural memory. The city became not a copy of Andalusia, but something more interesting: a Moroccan city in which Andalusian memory was allowed to take root again. The White Dove Perhaps we can now return to our old proverb: The tagine of Fez. The water of Chefchaouen. The elegance of Tetouan. Moroccan folk wisdom sometimes compresses an entire anthropology into a sentence. Fez developed its reputation for refinement around the table. Chefchaouen was blessed by the waters and mountains of the Rif. And Tetouan cultivated an elegance felt in its architecture, its homes, its crafts, and even in the reputation of its people. Whether or not this is historically why Tetouan came to be called the White Dove, the name has always seemed perfect to me. White for the city that rises against the mountains. A dove for something graceful that crossed from one shore to another and found a place to land. And perhaps that is the deeper story of Tetouan. It is not simply a city that was rebuilt. It is a city where a displaced civilization learned how to make a home again.
The Boy from Fez book
Everyone Has a Fez Why I Wrote The Boy from Fez My new memoir, The Boy from Fez, will be published on October 15, 2026. I have wondered how I should announce it. I could tell you that it is a book about my childhood in Fez, Morocco. I could describe its chapters, its people, its houses and streets. I could tell you about the city in which I was born and the family that raised me. All of that would be true. But it would not tell you why I wrote the book. I wrote The Boy from Fez because I began to understand that when people disappear, entire worlds can disappear with them. Not the great events recorded by historians. Those usually survive. I mean the smaller things. The way a grandmother held a child's hand. The smell coming from a kitchen before noon. The baker who knew every family in the neighborhood. The voice of the water carrier in the street. The sound of a door opening. A proverb repeated so often that nobody remembered who first said it. The particular silence of a house in the afternoon. The rituals around a meal. The songs women sang while working. The way people greeted one another. The stories children heard before they were old enough to understand that one day they would become the custodians of those stories. These things rarely enter history books. Yet perhaps they are the things from which we are made. The Fez I Carry I was born in Fez, one of the world's ancient cities, but The Boy from Fez is not primarily about monuments. The Fez I wanted to preserve was alive. It had voices. It had fragrances. It argued. It laughed. It prayed. It cooked. It traded. It celebrated. It mourned. Its wisdom did not live only in libraries or mosques. It lived in kitchens, workshops, courtyards, markets and conversations. It lived in craftsmen's hands and grandmothers' sayings. It lived among people whose names will never appear in history books but without whom there would have been no history worth remembering. Among them was my grandmother, Mi Lalla. As a little boy, I often experienced Fez while holding her hand. I did not know then that she was teaching me. Children rarely know when they are being formed. We simply walk beside those we love. Only much later do we discover that their voices have somehow become part of our own. I travelled far from that little boy. I crossed countries and continents. I encountered other cultures, languages, religions, landscapes and ways of understanding the world. Yet the farther I travelled, the more I understood something strange: The boy had come with me. Fez had come with me. Everyone Has a Fez But while writing this book, I discovered something I had not expected. Fez does not belong only to me. Everyone has a Fez. Your Fez may not have ancient walls or narrow alleys. It may be your grandmother's kitchen in Sicily. A village in India. A neighborhood in New York that no longer exists. A farmhouse somewhere in Australia. A courtyard in Andalusia. A childhood in Senegal. It may be the smell of bread your mother baked, the tree you climbed as a child, a schoolyard, a song, a father's expression, an old neighbor, a family table around which people once gathered. Sometimes Fez is not even a place. It may simply be the sound of a mother's voice you have not heard for thirty years. We all come from somewhere. And that somewhere continues living within us long after geography has carried us elsewhere. This is why I have not written The Boy from Fez to tell readers that my childhood was more beautiful than theirs, or that the past was better than the present. I have no desire to compete with the present. I wanted only to remember. And perhaps by remembering my Fez, I might awaken yours. I shared my Fez to revive theirs. That, more than anything, became the purpose of this book. A Gift to My Daughter There is also one reader for whom this book carries a different meaning. My daughter, Asia. She was born and raised in America, in another country, another culture and another generation. She knows the man who became her father. But I wanted to leave her a way of meeting the boy who existed before him. I wanted her to know the houses that sheltered him, the grandmother whose hand he held, the parents and family who formed him, the streets he walked, the beliefs he inherited and questioned, the people whose kindness remained with him, the mistakes, laughter, customs, songs and silences from which her father slowly emerged. Not because she must become any of these things. Her life belongs to her. Her identity belongs to her. I ask nothing from her. The Boy from Fez is simply a gift waiting on a shelf. She can open it whenever she wishes. Perhaps I will be sitting beside her when she does. Perhaps I will not. That is one of the reasons we write. A human voice eventually becomes silent. A written voice can wait. Years from now, she may open the book and find a little boy waiting there. And perhaps he will take her hand and say: Come. Let me show you where your father came from. Why We Remember Writing this memoir has taught me that remembrance is not the same as nostalgia. Nostalgia sometimes wants yesterday back. I don't. Yesterday had its hardships, injustices, fears and limitations. I would not exchange the possibilities of today merely to recover the world of my childhood. But neither do I believe that progress requires forgetting. We can walk forward while occasionally turning our heads toward those who helped us reach the road. That is what The Boy from Fez has allowed me to do. I turned around. And there they were. Some had been gone for decades. Yet while I wrote, they returned. Mi Lalla returned. The houses opened their doors. The neighborhood began making noise again. Someone was baking bread. Someone was calling from another room. Someone was telling a story I had almost forgotten. For a few hours each day, through the strange mercy of memory, the vanished became present. Perhaps that is another reason human beings tell stories. Not to defeat death. But to refuse to let love disappear without leaving a trace. An Invitation On October 15, I will send The Boy from Fez into the world. After that, the book no longer belongs entirely to me. Every reader will bring something to it that I could never have written. His grandmother. Her father. Their childhood. Their street. Their kitchen. Their losses. Their laughter. Their Fez. And perhaps somewhere, someone will close the book one evening and suddenly remember something that has not visited them for fifty years. A face. A fragrance. A voice. A hand. If that happens, then the little boy from Fez will have accomplished what I hoped he might. I shared my Fez so that you might remember yours. Everyone has a Fez. Where is yours?
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