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
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?
How Morocco became a Destination
From Traveller to Tourist: How Morocco Became a Destination Travel existed long before tourism. Morocco knew the traveller centuries before anyone thought of packaging Marrakech, Fez, Meknes and Rabat into an itinerary. The traveller was a familiar figure. He might have been a merchant crossing the Sahara, a scholar travelling from one centre of learning to another, a pilgrim beginning the long journey eastward toward Mecca, a diplomat carrying a message from a sultan, a craftsman seeking work, an exile escaping persecution, an explorer driven by curiosity—or even a spy gathering information for a foreign ruler. People travelled because they had somewhere to go, something to seek, something to exchange, something to learn, or sometimes something from which to escape. The journey was rarely the product. It was the road toward something else. Perhaps no Moroccan embodies this older meaning of travel better than Ibn Battuta. When he left Tangier in 1325, at about the age of twenty-one, he was not a tourist departing on an organised journey. He was setting out on pilgrimage. Yet that first intention carried him into one of history's most extraordinary journeys. For centuries, Moroccans moved through a world connected by pilgrimage, scholarship, diplomacy, commerce and migration. Fez communicated intellectually with centres far beyond Morocco. Caravans travelled south across the Sahara. Mediterranean ports opened toward Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. Pilgrims moved eastward toward the holy cities. Morocco was never isolated. It was already a country of travellers. What changed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not the discovery of travel. Something subtler happened. Morocco itself became the reason for travelling. When Morocco Entered the European Imagination Before Morocco became a tourism destination, it became an imagined destination. European diplomats, military officers, writers, painters, adventurers and explorers had been coming for centuries. But during the nineteenth century, Morocco increasingly occupied a particular place in the European imagination. It offered proximity and difference at the same time. Europe was only across the Strait of Gibraltar, yet Morocco seemed to many European visitors to belong to another world. Its medinas, souks, clothing, architecture, horses, ceremonies, landscapes, light and public life fascinated painters and writers searching for subjects different from industrialising Europe. Eugène Delacroix's journey to Morocco in 1832 became particularly influential. Later came other artists associated in different ways with the European fascination for Morocco: Benjamin-Constant, Henri Matisse, Hilda Rix Nicholas and many others. Tangier became one of the great doors through which this encounter took place. For the painter, Morocco offered colour. For the writer, mystery. For the adventurer, the unknown. For European society increasingly fascinated with what it called the Orient, Morocco offered exoticism remarkably close to home. But we should be careful when looking backward. These visitors did not all see the same Morocco, nor did they arrive with the same intentions. Some approached the country with genuine curiosity and admiration. Others inevitably carried the prejudices and hierarchies of nineteenth-century Europe. The intellectual climate of the period often divided humanity into categories such as civilized and primitive, advanced and backward, modern and traditional. Orientalism could produce extraordinary art and scholarship, but it could also turn living societies into objects to be observed, classified and romanticized. And colonialism added another dimension. Europe no longer merely wanted to encounter other worlds. Increasingly, it believed it had the authority to reorganise them. Travel, scholarship, commerce, military expansion and colonial ambition sometimes walked disturbingly close together. Morocco stood at the intersection of all of them. Tangier: The Door Tangier occupied a special place. Geography had already decided much of its destiny. Standing at the entrance to the Mediterranean and looking toward Europe across one of the narrowest maritime crossings between the two continents, Tangier had long been diplomatic, commercial, and strategic. By the beginning of the twentieth century, its international character intensified. The arrangements surrounding the establishment of the French and Spanish protectorates in 1912 left Tangier under a special regime, and in 1923 the Tangier Protocol established the framework for the International Zone. The result was one of the strangest urban experiments of the twentieth century. Diplomats, businessmen, artists, writers, adventurers, expatriates, wealthy visitors and people seeking freedoms unavailable elsewhere all passed through Tangier. It became international before international tourism had acquired its contemporary meaning. Tangier was not simply visited. It was imagined. And imagination is one of tourism's most powerful engines. Before someone purchases a journey, they must first desire a place. Marrakech: The Exotic City If Tangier was the door, Marrakech became one of Morocco's great promises. The ochre walls, palm groves, Atlas Mountains, souks, gardens, storytellers, musicians and great square offered precisely the visual language that early twentieth-century European travellers associated with an exotic Morocco. Yet modern tourism requires more than desire. A destination needs access. It needs transportation. It needs accommodation. It needs information. It needs someone to tell the prospective traveller: Come. This is what you will see. This is where you will stay. This is how you will get there. Under the French Protectorate, these pieces increasingly came together. Hubert Lyautey understood the political and economic value of presenting Morocco to European visitors. Tourism could demonstrate accessibility, order and stability while generating economic activity and strengthening the image of the Protectorate abroad. The gaze of the Orientalist was gradually being joined by something more systematic: destination marketing. Building the Infrastructure of the Tourist The traveller of earlier centuries adapted himself to the road. Modern tourism increasingly adapted the road to the traveller. That distinction matters. Transport companies connected cities. Roads became more reliable. Shipping companies promoted access from Europe. Railway and motor transport expanded. Guidebooks explained what should be seen. Posters created desire. Hotels offered an environment in which affluent European visitors could encounter Morocco while retaining familiar standards of comfort. The creation of the Central Tourism Committee in 1918 signalled that tourism was no longer merely happening spontaneously. It was becoming something to be organised and promoted. The Guides Bleus helped transform a complicated country into something legible to the visitor: routes, monuments, hotels, distances and recommended circuits. Transport networks performed the same function physically. The establishment of CTM in 1919 helped connect Moroccan cities by modern road transport. Maritime companies such as Compagnie de Navigation Paquet connected Morocco with European ports and helped promote the destination visually. Then came the great hotels. La Mamounia opened in Marrakech in 1923. Palais Jamaï in Fez, created from a former palace, became another prestigious address associated with elite travel. These establishments were more than places to sleep. They represented a new compromise between two worlds: the experience of Morocco with the comforts expected by wealthy international travellers. A visitor could spend the afternoon wandering through a medina and return in the evening to an elegant hotel. Morocco was becoming accessible without becoming entirely familiar. That balance, comfort surrounded by difference, would become one of the enduring formulas of international tourism. The Birth of the Imperial Cities The expression “Imperial Cities” did not create the historical importance of Fez, Marrakech, Meknes and Rabat. Each had already served as a seat of Moroccan power under different dynasties and periods of the country's history. What changed during the early Protectorate was the way these cities were presented to the foreign traveller. Resident-General Hubert Lyautey, deeply impressed by Morocco's historic cities, pursued a policy of preserving their old medinas while developing new European quarters alongside them. Within the emerging tourism strategy, these former capitals came to be presented collectively as the Villes Impériales — the Imperial Cities. Early Hachette travel literature, including the Guides Bleus, documented and promoted the circuit, while tourism posters presented it visually to prospective visitors abroad. Roads, motor transport, hotels and guidebooks made it possible to transform four historically distinct capitals into a journey that could be organised, repeated and sold. Moroccan history had created the capitals. Modern tourism turned them into a circuit. That circuit proved remarkably durable. A century later, “The Imperial Cities of Morocco” remains one of the country's best-known itineraries. The Imperial Cities. The expression fascinated me for years. Fez, Marrakech, Meknes and Rabat were unquestionably historic centres of royal power. Each had served as a capital under different periods and dynasties of Moroccan history. But Moroccans did not create these cities as a tourism circuit. History created four capitals. Tourism connected them into one journey. An old French Guide Bleu from the early 1920s that I have kept among my materials presents the Imperial Cities as an organised circuit. I also possess an early tourism poster promoting the Imperial Cities itinerary. These documents are particularly interesting because they show us something happening almost in front of our eyes. A tourism product was being born. Marrakech could represent the exotic south and the great imperial traditions of the Almoravids, Almohads and Saadians. Fez offered the ancient medina, scholarship, craftsmanship and the legacy of the Idrisids and Marinids. Meknes evoked Moulay Ismail and the ambitions of the early Alaouite state. Rabat combined older dynastic monuments with its new position as the administrative capital. Each city possessed its own history. Tourism gave them a shared name. The Imperial Cities of Morocco. Roads connected them. Guidebooks explained them. Hotels accommodated their visitors. Posters romanticised them. Transport companies moved travellers between them. And tour organisers transformed them into a repeatable itinerary. The importance of this innovation is easy to overlook because the itinerary became so familiar. A century later, travellers are still purchasing variations of essentially the same journey. Sarah Tours itself has offered Imperial Cities journeys. The route survived empires, independence, aviation, package tourism, the internet and social media. That tells us something about the extraordinary durability of a well-created travel narrative. The Invention of the Destination This is where we should distinguish carefully between history and tourism. The French did not discover Fez. They did not create Marrakech. They did not give Meknes its imperial history. They did not make Rabat historically important. These cities possessed their civilizations long before modern European tourism existed. What the emerging tourism industry did was something different. It selected. Connected. Named. Interpreted. Promoted. It transformed places into destinations and destinations into itineraries. That process is still at the heart of tourism today. A country contains thousands of places. Tourism chooses which ones the visitor is told to desire. Edith Wharton and the Written Morocco Writers also played an important role in this transformation. Edith Wharton travelled through Morocco in 1917 as the guest of Resident-General Lyautey. Her subsequent book, In Morocco, introduced the country to a substantial English-speaking readership. Her Morocco is fascinating precisely because it sits at the intersection of travel literature, Orientalist fascination and the political environment of the Protectorate. This is why travel writing deserves attention in the history of tourism. Before photographs fill websites and videos circulate instantly around the world, someone must create the Morocco that exists in the imagination of the person who has never been there. Writers did that. Painters did that. Later photographers and poster designers did it. Today Instagram, YouTube and travel websites do it. The technology changed. The principle did not. We travel twice: first in imagination, then in geography. From Exploration to Organisation By the early twentieth century, therefore, many of the essential components of modern Moroccan tourism were appearing together. There was an international image of Morocco. There were gateways. There were transportation networks. There were prestigious hotels. There were guidebooks. There were tourism institutions. There were posters. And increasingly, there were defined itineraries. The traveller was becoming a tourist. This did not mean curiosity disappeared. Nor did it mean every visitor suddenly became superficial. It meant that travel could increasingly be purchased as an organised experience. Someone else had selected the route. Someone else had identified the monuments. Someone else had chosen the hotel. Someone else had calculated the time. Someone else had decided what constituted the Morocco worth seeing. The uncertainty of travel was gradually being replaced by the architecture of tourism. Then Another Traveller Appeared But history rarely moves in a straight line. By the 1960s and 1970s, another generation began arriving in Morocco. They were young. They travelled cheaply. They came in Citroën 2CVs, Volkswagen campers, vans, motorcycles, converted buses and those extraordinary overland trucks that fascinated me as a teenager. Many rejected precisely the highly organised tourism their parents' generation had embraced. They wanted the road again. They wanted unpredictability. They wanted contact. They wanted to stay longer and spend less. They wanted to cross borders rather than fly over them. And, once again, Morocco was waiting at Europe's doorstep. I know this generation intimately because it was through them that tourism entered my own life. One morning, when I was still a schoolboy in Fez, I found young European travellers camping near the entrance to our family farm. Later, our farm became informally known among travellers as a place where one could camp. The instructions were apparently simple: “Go there and ask for Hamid.” Then came the overland trucks at Bab Khokha near my high school. Guerba, Sundowners, Insight, Capricorn, Contiki and later Topdeck are among the names I remember from that remarkable period. I stared at those vehicles and dreamed of travelling in them. Eventually, I did. I became a licensed guide in 1974, travelled throughout Morocco and later across Africa, and led journeys that sometimes lasted for months. That generation taught me another meaning of travel. The traveller did not have to stand outside a culture and look at it. He could walk inside it. Anthropology Before Anthropology Years later, I formally studied anthropology. But the road had already begun my education. Travelling slowly taught me to listen. Camping taught me that comfort and richness of experience are not the same thing. Crossing borders taught me that cultures appear much simpler from a distance than they do when you live among people. Guiding taught me something else. I did not enjoy standing in front of travellers and asking them to follow me. I preferred walking beside them. Eventually I understood why. I wasn't showing them Morocco. I was sharing my culture with them. That distinction would eventually become central to my philosophy of travel. When Tourism Became an Industry The decades that followed transformed tourism again. Commercial aviation made distant destinations accessible to millions. Package tours reduced uncertainty. Large hotels expanded. International brands arrived. Cruise ships grew. Online booking changed distribution. Review platforms changed reputation. Low-cost airlines changed geography. And finally smartphones changed the traveller's relationship with the unknown. Tourism became one of the world's great industries. This brought enormous benefits. Millions of people who could never have undertaken the journeys of Ibn Battuta—or even the overland travellers of the 1970s—could encounter other countries and cultures. Tourism created employment. It supported hotels, restaurants, guides, drivers, artisans and countless small businesses. It connected people who otherwise might never have met. But scale also introduced dangers. Places could become products. Cultures could become performances. Hospitality could become transactions. Communities could receive visitors without receiving a fair share of tourism's benefits. Nature could become scenery to be consumed. And the traveller could return home with thousands of photographs without ever truly encountering the place photographed. The tourist had conquered distance. But sometimes distance remained between people. Can the Tourist Become a Traveller Again? This, for me, is the question facing tourism today. I do not believe we should romanticise the past. The old roads were uncomfortable. Travel could be dangerous. Information was scarce. Many people simply could not afford to travel. Modern tourism has democratised experiences that were once available only to aristocrats, adventurers or people willing to endure considerable hardship. I do not want to return to 1923. Nor do I want to recreate 1973. I want to preserve something both periods can teach us. Curiosity. The willingness to encounter rather than merely consume. The humility to enter another person's country as a guest. The patience to listen before judging. The understanding that the people serving our meal, driving our vehicle, weaving our carpet or opening their village to us are not part of the scenery. They are our hosts. And they have as much right to benefit from the journey as we do. From Tourist to Guest Perhaps, then, the next evolution of tourism is not technological. Perhaps it is human. We began with the traveller. We created the tourist. Perhaps now we need to rediscover the guest. A guest arrives with curiosity but also respect. A guest understands that hospitality creates obligations on both sides. A guest does not ask merely: What can I take from this place? but also: What relationship am I entering by being here? That is where responsible and sustainable travel begin for me. Not with slogans. With relationships. The traveller should benefit. The guide should benefit. The driver should benefit. The hotel and restaurant should benefit. The artisan and farmer should benefit. The local community should benefit. The natural environment should not pay the price for everybody else's profit. And the culture should remain more than a performance staged for outsiders. Travel succeeds when the encounter leaves both host and guest richer. A Century After the Imperial Cities There is something wonderfully circular about this story. A century ago, an early traveller could open a Guide Bleu, discover the Imperial Cities and set out toward Marrakech, Rabat, Meknes and Fez. Today, someone can open a telephone thousands of kilometres away and book essentially the same route in minutes. The roads are better. The hotels are more comfortable. The vehicles are faster. The information is almost limitless. But the fundamental question has not changed: Why are you travelling? If the answer is simply to collect places, tourism can provide them efficiently. But if the answer is to understand something beyond ourselves, then we must recover some of the spirit of the traveller. Morocco has been receiving strangers for centuries. Pilgrims passed through it. Merchants traded in it. Scholars studied in it. Diplomats negotiated in it. Painters imagined it. Colonial administrators reorganised it. Tourists photographed it. Overlanders crossed it. And millions of visitors continue to arrive every year. Each generation invented its own Morocco. But Morocco was always more complicated than the image created for it. Perhaps that is the responsibility of travel today: not merely to see Morocco, but to allow Morocco to reveal itself. That is the kind of travel I still believe in. It is the reason I remained in tourism. It is the reason I created Sarah Tours. And after more than half a century of travelling, guiding, studying and listening, I find myself returning to something I learned almost accidentally as a young man in Fez: The best journey is not one in which the guide walks ahead and the tourist follows behind. It is one in which we walk beside one another. Perhaps tourism does not need another invention. Perhaps it simply needs to remember the traveller from whom it came.
Golden Age of Overland Travel
The Almost-Vanished Golden Age of Overland Travel How a teenager in Fez discovered travel, anthropology, and a philosophy that would eventually become Sarah Tours Sometimes we choose our profession. Sometimes our profession chooses us. Tourism entered my life almost by accident, long before I imagined that one day I would create Sarah Tours, travel across continents, study anthropology, or spend a lifetime thinking about what it really means to travel. I was still a teenager in high school in Fez. One morning, I woke up and prepared to go to school as usual. When I stepped outside, I discovered two cars camped near the entrance to our family farm. One was a beautiful Citroën DS carrying a well-off young French couple—what we would then have called hippies. The other was the unmistakable little Citroën 2CV, with two young men travelling in it. They had simply arrived. There was no reservation. No reception desk. No online review telling them where to stay. They were travellers. We welcomed them. That encounter became a friendship that lasted for years. I did not know it that morning, but travel had just knocked on my door. When Our Farm Became a Campground This was the late 1960s and early 1970s, an extraordinary period in independent travel. Young Europeans were crossing borders in cars, vans, campervans, trailers, old buses, and whatever vehicles could survive the journey. Volkswagen campers seemed to be everywhere. Travel was slower then. Perhaps because it was slower, encounters lasted longer. Somehow, word began to circulate among young travellers passing through Fez that there was a farm near Ben Tato where they could camp. The directions were wonderfully simple: “Go there and ask for Hamid. He is a generous young guy.” And so our farm gradually became an unofficial free campground. Nobody designed it as a tourism project. There was no business plan. There was simply space, hospitality, curiosity, and the pleasure of meeting people who had travelled from places I knew mostly from maps and books. They wanted to know Morocco. I wanted to know the world. We met somewhere in between. From Practising Languages to Becoming a Guide Then another coincidence occurred. At a surprise party, I met an old acquaintance from my neighbourhood who had become a student guide. He began encouraging me to accompany visitors through the Medina of Fez. At first, my motivation was simple: I wanted to practice my French and improve my English. Then I discovered I could also earn a little pocket money. More importantly, I discovered that I enjoyed it. My high-school teachers soon learned that I was good at showing people around Fez. When relatives or friends came from France to visit them, they would sometimes ask me to take their guests through the city. I knew history well. But I also knew Fez in another way. I knew its streets. I knew its neighbourhoods. I knew its people. I knew which alley led where, who worked behind which door, how people spoke to one another, where craftsmen gathered, and how the city changed from one hour of the day to another. I knew Fez, as we say, like my pocket. Without realizing it, I was learning one of the first lessons of guiding: Knowing facts about a place is not the same as knowing the place. The Strange Trucks at Bab Khokha Then something appeared that fascinated me. Near my high school, Moulay Rachid, there was a parking area at Bab Khokha. Beginning around the early 1970s, I started noticing unusual vehicles arriving there. They were high off the ground, rugged, almost military-looking trucks. They came mainly from Britain and northern Europe, carrying small groups of perhaps fifteen to twenty-five young travellers. These were not the conventional tourists arriving in air-conditioned coaches and staying in luxury hotels. These people were crossing countries. Sometimes continents. Some of the overland routes of that era stretched from Britain through Europe, North Africa and Asia, and eventually toward Australia and New Zealand. I would stand near those trucks and stare at them. And I dreamed. One day, I thought, I am going to travel in one of those vehicles. At first, I became acquainted with two Moroccan guides who worked with these groups, Ghali and Aziz. They encouraged me. “Learn English,” they told me. “When several trucks arrive at the same time, come and help us.” So I did. I remember names from that remarkable overland era—Guerba, Sundowners, Insight, Capricorn, Contiki, and later Topdeck, among others. Some were British, some Australian, and perhaps some American. At the time, I was less interested in where the companies were registered than in those extraordinary trucks arriving at Bab Khokha carrying young travellers who seemed to have crossed half the world. These companies were part of a very different tourism culture. You carried your life with you. You camped. You cooked. You crossed borders. You broke down. You repaired things. You got lost. You met people. And somehow the difficulties became part of the journey. 1974: Becoming a Guide In 1974, I passed the examination of the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism and became an officially licensed local guide in Fez. I had found my world. Most guides naturally preferred conventional tourism: luxury hotels and organised coach groups arriving from France, Spain, Italy, Germany and elsewhere. There was nothing wrong with that kind of travel. It simply wasn't me. I loved camping. I loved walking. I loved mountains. I loved sitting around a fire. I loved the informality of the young overland travellers. Their clothes were casual. Their expectations were different. They were curious, adventurous and usually willing to accept a little discomfort in exchange for discovery. Perhaps because I felt comfortable with them, they felt comfortable with me. Soon I was no longer merely guiding them through Fez. They began asking me to travel with them throughout Morocco. The teenage boy who had once stood at Bab Khokha staring at those enormous trucks was suddenly riding in them. I Wasn't Showing Them Morocco This period taught me something that has remained with me throughout my life. I never felt that I was showing Morocco to tourists. That language never felt right. I was sharing my culture with fellow travellers. There is a difference. If I stand in front of you and lecture, I am the guide and you are the tourist. But if we walk together, something else happens. You ask questions. I ask questions. You discover my country. I discover something about yours. We eat together. We become tired together. We laugh. Sometimes we disagree. Sometimes the vehicle breaks down and everyone has to help. The distinction between host and guest begins to soften. That was the kind of travel I loved. I wanted travellers beside me, not behind me. I did not know the academic vocabulary for any of this yet. I had not studied anthropology. But I was already practising it. Anthropology Before University Eventually I worked extensively with Capricorn and travelled far beyond Morocco. North Africa opened into the rest of the continent. Journeys that began as two-week adventures became expeditions lasting months. Some tours extended as long as thirty-two weeks. Imagine what happens when you travel with people for thirty-two weeks. You don't simply visit countries. You live together. You encounter borders, languages, food, illness, generosity, misunderstandings, landscapes, villages, cities, celebrations and unexpected acts of kindness. Every day becomes fieldwork. Every meal becomes cultural exchange. Every roadside stop becomes an anthropology lesson. Years later, I returned to university and formally studied anthropology. But in some ways the road had reached the classroom before I did. Overland travel taught me anthropology before I knew to call it anthropology. The university gave me theories and methods for understanding experiences I had already been living for years. Sarah Tours Time passed. I travelled. I studied. Eventually I earned my PhD. Yet something inside me remained unsettled. The road kept calling. In 1994, I finally answered it by creating my own company in Alexandria, Virginia. I called it Sarah Tours, after my wife and my daughter, who both carry the name Sarah. But although the company was new, its philosophy was already decades old. It had begun at our farm outside Fez. It had grown in the narrow streets of the Medina. It had climbed aboard those strange overland trucks parked at Bab Khokha. And it had travelled with me across Africa. Overland journeys, hiking, trekking in the Atlas Mountains, Sahara expeditions, camping, discovery and active travel naturally became Sarah Tours specialties. That was where I found my energy. That was where I felt alive. What Travel Used to Mean I was fortunate to experience an era when travel still contained a large element of uncertainty. We did not always know exactly where we would sleep. We could not consult a smartphone before entering a village. There were no online ratings telling us whether an encounter was worth having. We travelled to discover. Of course, tourism has changed enormously since then, and many of those changes have made travel safer, more accessible and more comfortable. But something valuable can also be lost when travel becomes merely another commodity. When every encounter is packaged, every minute scheduled, every experience priced and every destination reduced to something to consume, we risk forgetting why human beings travelled in the first place. ![] Travel can be a business. Sarah Tours is a business. Guides, drivers, hotels, cooks, artisans and suppliers deserve to earn a dignified living from their work. But travel should never become only a business. There must remain curiosity. Respect. Fairness. Wonder. Human encounter. Responsibility toward the places we visit. And enough humility to remember that when we enter another person's country, village or home, we are guests before we are customers. Call Me Old-Fashioned Perhaps I am old-fashioned. If so, I accept it gladly. I want to preserve something of the spirit of travel that first found me in the narrow streets of Fez. Not the discomfort for its own sake. Not nostalgia for old trucks or broken roads. The spirit. The willingness to discover. The willingness to walk. The willingness to listen. The willingness to accept that the person we meet along the road may be as important as the monument we travelled thousands of kilometres to see. That spirit has guided my life. And as long as I remain involved with Sarah Tours, I want it to guide the company. I hope Sarah Tours will outlive me. Perhaps someday another young guide will inherit something from what we have learned. Perhaps another traveller will discover that the purpose of crossing a border is not simply to arrive somewhere else, but to understand another human being a little better. If that happens, then the legacy will have been worthwhile. I entered tourism almost accidentally as a teenager. More than half a century later, I realise that tourism did not merely give me a profession. Travel educated me. It introduced me to anthropology. It introduced me to the world. And, strangely enough, the farther it carried me from Fez, the more deeply it taught me to understand where I came from. So call me old-fashioned. I will continue travelling this way for as long as I can. And I will continue believing that the best journey is not one in which a guide walks ahead and tourists follow behind. The best journey is the one in which we walk beside one another. Long live responsible travel. Long live sustainable travel. Long live ethical travel. And above all, long live the simple human curiosity that makes us leave home, cross a border, meet a stranger, and return understanding our shared world a little better.
Morocco Development
Morocco Today — Part One A Country Turning Inheritance into Possibility Twelve centuries of Moroccan statehood. These three horizons, history, friendship, and possibility, help tell the story of Morocco today: a country deeply rooted in its inheritance, yet confident enough to reinvent itself. Under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, history is not merely where Morocco rests. It is where Morocco begins. For the traveler, Morocco is often first encountered through its ancient medinas, imperial cities, sacred landscapes, music, craftsmanship, hospitality, and living traditions. These are among the country’s greatest treasures, and they remain essential to understanding its soul. But Morocco cannot be understood only through its past. Beyond the walls of Fez, the palaces of Rabat, the souks of Marrakech, and the kasbahs of the south, another Morocco is taking shape: industrial, technological, environmentally ambitious, and increasingly connected to Africa and the wider world. It is a Morocco attempting to transform potential into value, and value into shared progress. From History to Industry The figures matter, but only because they reveal the direction in which the country is moving. The 2025 Africa Industrialization Index, published by the African Development Bank in 2026, placed Morocco at the forefront of industrial development in Africa. The index evaluates countries across manufacturing performance, infrastructure, investment, labor, economic stability, and the environment in which industries can grow. This achievement did not appear overnight. It is the result of years of investment in infrastructure, education, ports, logistics, industrial ecosystems, international partnerships, and a deliberate effort to connect Moroccan production with global supply chains. The transformation is especially visible in the automotive industry. Morocco has become one of Africa’s principal automobile manufacturing and export centers, with production capacity approaching one million vehicles annually. Around factories in Tangier, Kenitra, and other industrial zones, entire ecosystems of suppliers, engineers, technicians, logistics companies, and training institutions have emerged. The aerospace sector has followed a similar path. Morocco now hosts around 150 aerospace companies, producing components and providing specialized services for major international manufacturers. Plans to deepen the sector include work connected with next-generation aircraft engines, cabin equipment, and landing-gear manufacturing. But numbers alone do not tell the full story. Behind every vehicle assembled, every aircraft component manufactured, and every container shipped is a human life: A worker acquiring new skills. An engineer developing expertise. A family gaining greater security. A young Moroccan beginning to imagine a future without having to leave home. Industry becomes meaningful when national progress enters the household. Preparing for the Industries of Tomorrow Morocco’s ambition is not limited to existing industries. The country is also investing in the production chains of the future, including electric vehicles, batteries, renewable energy, digital infrastructure, green hydrogen, and other technologies that will shape the coming decades. The development of an integrated battery industry is particularly significant. A country that manufactures automobiles must also prepare for the transition from combustion engines to electric mobility. By attracting investment in battery materials and production, Morocco is seeking not merely to participate in technological change, but to anticipate it. This is an important distinction. A country can wait for the future to arrive and then attempt to adapt. Or it can prepare its people, institutions, infrastructure, and industries before the transformation is complete. Morocco is attempting the second path. Confronting Water Scarcity Industrial development cannot be separated from the environmental realities facing the country. Morocco is already experiencing the effects of climate change through prolonged drought, declining rainfall, pressure on groundwater, and increasing water scarcity. The response has included a substantial expansion of desalination capacity, alongside investment in water conservation, wastewater reuse, more efficient irrigation, and the gradual improvement of national water infrastructure. Desalination is not a complete answer. It requires energy, investment, careful environmental management, and equitable distribution. But for a water-stressed country with long Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines, it has become an increasingly important part of national resilience. The challenge is not simply to produce more water. It is to develop a wiser relationship with water. Agriculture, tourism, urban development, industry, and household consumption must all become part of the same national conversation. Progress cannot be measured only by what Morocco builds, but also by how carefully it protects the natural resources upon which that progress depends. Energy from the Sun and Wind Morocco has also become widely recognized for its investments in renewable energy. Solar complexes, wind farms, hydropower installations, and emerging projects in green hydrogen and green ammonia are helping the country reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels and prepare for a lower-carbon future. The national objective is for renewable sources to represent 52 percent of installed electricity capacity by 2030. This ambition is both environmental and economic. Clean energy can help reduce emissions, strengthen energy security, support new industries, and make Moroccan products more competitive in markets that are increasingly concerned with the carbon footprint of production. Here again, the meaning extends beyond infrastructure. A solar complex is not merely a field of mirrors. A wind farm is not merely a row of turbines. They are signs of a country trying to reconcile development with responsibility. That reconciliation will not always be easy. Renewable-energy projects must respect landscapes, biodiversity, communities, and local livelihoods. Green development should not repeat the mistakes of older forms of development by ignoring the people who live closest to the land. Sustainability is not achieved simply because a project is called green. It is achieved when environmental responsibility, economic value, and human dignity are protected together. From Phosphate to Knowledge Morocco possesses most of the world’s known phosphate reserves. For many countries, the possession of such a resource might encourage a simple economic model: extract it, export it, and depend upon it. Morocco has increasingly sought a different path. The greater value lies not only in the mineral itself, but in the knowledge added to it: fertilizer research, soil analysis, precision agriculture, customized products, farmer education, and solutions adapted to the needs of different crops and environments. This represents a larger national principle: Morocco must not merely export resources. It must create value. Through OCP and its agricultural programs, Morocco has expanded its engagement with farmers across Africa, linking fertilizer production with soil knowledge, agricultural training, and food-security initiatives. This African dimension is essential. Morocco’s progress should not be understood only as a national achievement. Its geography, history, and future place it within a continent where population growth, climate change, food security, employment, and industrialization will shape the lives of generations to come. The most meaningful form of leadership is not the ability to rise alone. It is the ability to create pathways through which others can rise as well. Ports as Bridges The story of Morocco’s transformation can also be seen at Tanger Med. Situated near the Strait of Gibraltar, the port has developed into one of the world’s significant logistics hubs. It connects Morocco with more than 180 ports and, in recent years, has handled more than ten million containers annually. Yet Tanger Med is more than a port. It is a bridge between Africa and Europe, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, national industry and international markets. Around it has grown a much larger industrial and logistical ecosystem. Vehicles, textiles, food products, aerospace components, and other Moroccan goods can move from factory to international market with increasing efficiency. Further east, the development of Nador West Med is expected to add a new port, energy, logistics, and industrial capacity to the Mediterranean coast. These ports reveal something important about Morocco’s contemporary vision. Geography alone does not create opportunity. Geography must be understood, connected, and served by infrastructure. Morocco has always stood at a crossroads. What is changing today is its ability to convert that crossroads into productive relationships. What Do These Achievements Mean for the Traveler? A traveler may reasonably ask: What do automobile factories, renewable-energy projects, fertilizer research, desalination plants, and container ports have to do with visiting Morocco? They have everything to do with understanding the country one is visiting. Travel should not freeze a destination in the past. Morocco is not a historical stage created for the visitor’s pleasure. It is a living country whose people are working, studying, inventing, building, questioning, and preparing for the future. To admire an ancient medina while ignoring the aspirations of the young people who live beyond its walls is to see only half of Morocco. To photograph a traditional artisan while remaining indifferent to whether that artisan can earn a dignified living is to mistake appearance for understanding. To praise the desert while ignoring water scarcity is to admire the landscape without listening to what it is telling us. At Sarah Tours, we believe meaningful travel must bring the visitor into contact with both inheritance and change. The Morocco of the past gives the country its depth. The Morocco being built today gives it movement. And the relationship between the two gives it meaning. Progress Must Be Shared Industrialization, infrastructure, technology, and energy are not ends in themselves. Their value must ultimately be judged by the human lives they improve. Do they create dignified employment? Do they open opportunities for women and young people? Do they strengthen rural communities rather than emptying them? Do they protect water, soil, landscapes, and biodiversity? Do they allow artisans, farmers, small suppliers, and local enterprises to participate in national progress? Do they reduce inequality between regions? Do they deepen cooperation with Africa and with international partners such as Australia? These questions are not criticisms of progress. They are what give progress its moral direction. Morocco’s greatest opportunity is not merely to become more industrial, more connected, or more technologically advanced. It is to demonstrate that modernization can remain faithful to culture, that economic development can respect human dignity, and that national ambition can be joined to environmental responsibility. The task is not complete. No serious national transformation ever is. There remain difficulties, inequalities, environmental pressures, and legitimate questions about how the benefits of development are distributed. But Morocco today is no longer waiting for others to define its possibilities. It is building, experimenting, investing, learning, and looking forward. Twelve centuries of statehood have given Morocco roots. Morocco’s history is long. But its future has already begun.
Morocco Diversity
To Understand Morocco, Embrace Its Diversity Every time I return to Morocco, I become more convinced that one of the country’s greatest treasures is its diversity. You can feel it before anyone explains it to you. In the height of summer, you may spend a night in Fez turning restlessly beneath the heat, unable to sleep without a fan or cooler. Yet after travelling only thirty kilometres toward Imouzzer, you may find yourself reaching for a blanket as the mountain air settles over the evening. The distance is short, but the climate has changed. The landscape has changed. The rhythm of life has changed. This contrast does not trouble us. It increases our admiration for the country. Morocco reveals itself through differences: Atlantic coastlines and Saharan horizons, cedar forests and fertile plains, imperial cities and mountain villages, Arabic and Amazigh languages, Mediterranean influences and deep African roots. To travel through Morocco is to move continually from one world into another, without ever leaving the same homeland. A Country Formed by Many Rivers Morocco, as we know it today, is not the creation of one people, one language, or one historical moment. It is the result of a long civilizational journey. The Amazigh peoples have lived upon this land since antiquity. With the arrival of Islam came profound spiritual, linguistic, political, and cultural transformations. Arab communities became part of the country’s human landscape. Andalusian families brought memories, music, craftsmanship, scholarship, cuisine, and architecture from across the Mediterranean. African, Saharan, Jewish, Mediterranean, Arab, Amazigh, and European influences also contributed to the Morocco we recognise today. These influences did not remain neatly separated. They met. They traded. They argued. They learned from one another. They shared neighbourhoods, markets, farms, celebrations, hardships, and hopes. They intermarried, borrowed one another’s words, adopted one another’s customs, and gradually created a society in which identity could rarely be reduced to a single origin. Morocco is not a collection of sealed compartments. It is a confluence. Like rivers meeting before continuing toward the sea, its many histories have flowed into one another. The Illusion of Purity People naturally wish to know where they come from. Understanding our ancestry can help us understand our families, our communities, and ourselves. But knowledge of one’s origins should never become a claim of superiority. No one chooses the family, ethnicity, region, or language into which they are born. These things can be loved and honoured, but they should not become reasons for contempt. If ancestry alone produced greatness, civilizations would never rise or decline. History teaches us otherwise. Nations are not built by the blood flowing through their veins, but by the ideas flowing through their minds, the values residing in their hearts, and the work carried out by their hands. My own story has taught me this. I come from Fez, where my family traditionally considered itself Arab and where Moroccan Arabic—Darija—was the language of everyday life. In the world in which I grew up, people often distinguished clearly between Arabs and Amazighs. Yet our family’s life extended into the countryside of Mesdoura, Beni Sadden, and the surrounding villages. Even the name Mernissi connects us to the Rif and carries traces of Amazigh geography and language. So where does one identity end and another begin? After centuries of coexistence, migration, intermarriage, and cultural exchange, can any of us speak with certainty about complete ethnic purity? Perhaps the more honest answer is that many Moroccans carry several Moroccos within them. Languages That Belong to the Same Home Arabic occupies a special spiritual place for Muslims because it is the language of the Qur’an, prayer, and many acts of worship. But this religious importance should never be turned into ethnic nationalism or used to diminish Amazigh languages and cultures. Love for Arabic does not require hostility toward Amazigh. Pride in Amazigh identity does not require contempt for Arabic. A language does not become more beautiful by silencing another language. Each language carries a way of seeing the world. It holds memories, humour, poetry, family expressions, local knowledge, and ways of naming things that may not exist elsewhere. When a language is respected, the people who speak it feel respected. No Moroccan should feel like a stranger in their own country because of the language they inherited from their parents. Arabic-speaking and Amazigh-speaking citizens alike deserve to communicate, learn, and conduct their affairs with dignity. Linguistic rights are not gifts granted by one community to another. They are part of justice and belonging. But rights should bring people closer together, not become new walls separating them. Identity Cannot Be Imposed There is also a difference between ancestry and lived identity. A person may discover Amazigh roots yet feel culturally closest to Arabic language and traditions. Another may come from a largely Arabic-speaking family yet choose to rediscover and embrace an Amazigh heritage. Both should be free to do so. No one should tell another person: “You are Arab whether you accept it or not.” Nor should anyone say: “You are Amazigh whether you accept it or not.” Identity is not merely something found in a historical document. It is also something lived through language, family, memory, affection, experience, and personal belonging. We may discuss history, but we should not use history to imprison people inside identities they have not chosen. What Comes After the Debate? There is a simple question that should accompany every argument about ethnicity, ancestry, and language: What comes next? Suppose every historical dispute were resolved tomorrow. Suppose we agreed upon the origins of every tribe, family, dialect, and community. Would that alone build better schools? Would it create justice? Would it protect the environment? Would it provide meaningful work for young people? Would it strengthen rural communities or preserve the dignity of farmers, artisans, guides, musicians, and workers? Nations do not rise merely because they settle arguments about the past. They rise because they learn how to build a shared future. They advance through knowledge, morality, justice, creativity, responsibility, and respect for human dignity. When most of a society’s energy is spent fighting over identity, children may inherit more disputes than achievements. The past is important. It gives us roots. But roots exist to nourish the tree, not to prevent it from growing. What Travel Can Teach Us This question extends far beyond Morocco. Every country contains differences—of ethnicity, language, religion, region, tribe, culture, class, or historical memory. Travel places us directly before these differences. A responsible traveller does not arrive merely to photograph buildings or collect destinations. Travel offers an opportunity to listen, to question assumptions, and to understand that a country is always more complex than the labels placed upon it. This is one of the reasons we believe travel matters at Sarah Tours. A journey should not reduce Morocco to camels, souks, palaces, or desert sunsets, beautiful as these may be. It should introduce travellers to the human relationships that hold the country together. The traveller should encounter the Arab and Amazigh dimensions of Morocco not as opposing worlds, but as parts of a wider national story. They should hear Darija, Tamazight, Tarifit, Tashelhit, Hassaniya, French, Spanish, and perhaps other languages spoken along the way—not as evidence of confusion, but as testimony to centuries of movement and exchange. They should understand that diversity is not an obstacle to knowing Morocco. Diversity is the way Morocco must be known. Diversity as a Sign The Qur’an presents human difference not as an error to be corrected, but as one of the signs through which creation becomes known: “And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your languages and your colours. Indeed, in that are signs for those of knowledge.” —Qur’an 30:22 The verse does not ask humanity to erase its differences. It invites people of knowledge to contemplate them. Our languages and colours are signs. Our responsibility is to ensure that these signs become opportunities for recognition rather than excuses for domination. Diversity without justice can produce resentment. Diversity without wisdom can be manipulated. Diversity without mutual respect can be turned into division. But diversity guided by justice, knowledge, and compassion becomes strength. The Morocco We Leave Behind Morocco does not need one of its components to triumph over another. It does not need Arabic to defeat Amazigh, or Amazigh to defeat Arabic. It does not need one historical narrative to erase all others. It needs every component to contribute to the country’s wellbeing. Let communities compete in service, creativity, education, hospitality, environmental protection, and care for the vulnerable. Let pride be measured not by who can speak most loudly about the past, but by who works most sincerely for the future. Fifty years from now, our children may not care who won today’s arguments about ancestry. They may ask us a more serious question: What kind of Morocco did you leave behind? Did we leave them a country exhausted by identity conflicts? Or did we leave them a Morocco that transformed diversity into strength, difference into cooperation, and cultural inheritance into shared prosperity? I fear for Morocco, but not because it is diverse. I fear that we may fail to care wisely for that diversity and turn a blessing—one that God describes as a sign—into a source of division. My hope is that Morocco will remain what it has long had the capacity to be: A homeland spacious enough for everyone. A country proud of all its roots without becoming imprisoned by any one of them. A place where differences are not merely tolerated, but understood as part of the beauty of the whole. For the traveller, this may be Morocco’s greatest lesson. The country does not ask us to choose between the mountain and the desert, the Arab and the Amazigh, Africa and the Mediterranean, the ancient and the modern. It asks us to see how all of them can inhabit the same landscape. That is not a weakness. That is Morocco. By Hamid Mernissi All rights reserved
History of Navigation from Fez
Was Fez Once a River City and an Inland Port? "And on the sea we were daring pirates, sailing from Fez to Catania… and aboard the flagship there were eighty oarsmen." These surprising words were written by the great French poet Victor Hugo in Les Orientales and later brought to life by the singer Claude Nougaro. For anyone who knows Fez, the verses seem almost absurd. Fez lies hundreds of kilometers from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. There are no ships waiting outside Bab Boujloud, and no sailor has ever hoisted a sail from Bab Ftouh. So was Victor Hugo simply taking poetic liberties? Perhaps. But perhaps not entirely. The more one explores the history of the Sebou River, the more one discovers that Fez once enjoyed a remarkable connection with the Atlantic Ocean. While it was never a seaport in the conventional sense, historical evidence suggests that during several periods of history, vessels were indeed able to navigate between the Atlantic coast and the outskirts of Fez. The Forgotten River The Sebou River, known to the Romans as Subur, rises in the Middle Atlas Mountains southeast of Fez before flowing more than 600 kilometers westward to the Atlantic Ocean at Mehdia. Nearly two thousand years ago, the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, described the Sebou as "a great navigable river." At first, this statement seems difficult to believe. Yet Roman archaeology, medieval chronicles, and modern historical accounts all point in the same direction: the Sebou was one of the few rivers in North Africa that served as an important waterway for transport and commerce. During the Roman period, ships could travel inland from the Atlantic to Thamusida and Banasa, where roads continued toward Volubilis, Tangier, and the fertile interior of Morocco. Goods produced throughout the province of Mauretania Tingitana eventually found their way to Rome, while caravan routes connected the region eastward through Taza toward present-day Algeria. Ships Built in Fez One of the most fascinating pieces of evidence comes from the Marinid period. The French researcher Georges Colin, quoting a fourteenth-century historian of Fez translated by Alfred Bel, records that between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ships were actually constructed near the city at the meeting point of the Oued Fez and the Sebou. Among them was a two-masted vessel capable of transporting 120 warriors, alongside another carrying sixty soldiers. Once completed, these ships were launched into the river and sailed downstream to Mehdia, where the Sebou reaches the Atlantic. It is a remarkable image. Today we picture Fez as an inland city of scholars, artisans, and merchants. Centuries ago, it was also connected to the sea. European Travelers Confirm the Route Historical accounts continued to support the navigability of the Sebou well into the sixteenth century. In 1514, the King of Portugal secretly commissioned explorers to determine whether the river could be used for navigation. Their conclusion was straightforward: "During the winter season, small boats can ascend the river all the way to the city of Fez." A few decades later, in 1560, the French traveler Geoffroy de Buade described leaving Fez aboard a merchant vessel carrying goods toward the Atlantic. After several days of navigation, the ship reached a coastal port before the passengers were unexpectedly captured. Although historians still debate the exact location of this port, the account provides another independent testimony that navigation between Fez and the Atlantic remained possible during that period. The Last Great Experiment Interest in the Sebou revived in the early twentieth century. As French forces prepared to enter Fez in 1911, military planners considered supplying the city by river. Several expeditions attempted to navigate upstream from Mehdia toward Fez. The most successful was led by the naval officer Le Dantec in the winter of 1911–1912. Using a small motorboat powered by a 25-horsepower engine, his team slowly worked its way upstream. The journey was anything but easy. Villagers living along the river were recruited to pull the boat through rapids and shallow sections. The vessel struck rocks repeatedly, leaked twice, and became stranded numerous times on sandbanks and fords. After more than a month of effort, the expedition finally reached the Sebou Bridge near Fez on 29 January 1912, only a short walk from the city itself. The expedition proved that the journey could be made. It also demonstrated why it would never become commercially practical. Maintaining a regular navigation route would have required enormous engineering works that far exceeded any economic benefit. A Forgotten Chapter of Fez Today the Sebou no longer serves as a transportation route to Fez. Reduced water levels, seasonal variations, and natural obstacles have erased much of this chapter from public memory. Yet history tells a different story. From Roman times through the Almohad and Marinid dynasties, from Portuguese explorers to French travelers and twentieth-century expeditions, the Sebou repeatedly linked Fez with the Atlantic world. Fez was never a maritime city in the usual sense. But neither was it completely cut off from the sea. Its river was its highway. Its boats carried soldiers, merchants, and goods. Its waters connected one of the world's greatest inland cities to the wider Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds. Perhaps Victor Hugo knew none of this. Or perhaps, somewhere behind his poetry, there lingered an old historical memory.Either way, his famous verse no longer sounds quite so impossible: "We were daring pirates, sailing from Fez to Catania..." History, it seems, occasionally allows poetry to tell the truth.
Khenifra: The Hidden Heart of Morocco
Khénifra: The Hidden Heart of Morocco Most travelers know Morocco through its imperial cities, deserts, and coastlines. Few realize that the true heart of the country beats quietly in the Middle Atlas Mountains. Nestled among cedar-covered mountains, rivers, springs, and highland pastures, Khénifra remains one of Morocco's least appreciated treasures. While many travelers pass through on their way to other destinations, those who stop discover a region that has shaped Morocco's geography, economy, culture, and environment for centuries. Khénifra is not simply another mountain town. It is the water tower of Morocco. It is the lungs of Morocco. It is one of the country's most important reservoirs of natural wealth. A Land of Water Water is life in Morocco, and much of that life begins in the mountains surrounding Khénifra. Just twenty kilometers from the city lies the village of Ain Leuh, whose name means "Spring of Timber." This remarkable region is home to dozens of natural springs that emerge from the heart of the Middle Atlas. These waters give birth to the Oum Er-Rbia River, Morocco's second-longest river. From its mountain origins, the river begins a long journey westward across the country, irrigating millions of hectares of farmland before reaching the Atlantic Ocean near Azemmour. To the south, another great river begins its journey. Near Ksabi, not far from Khénifra, rise the springs of the Moulouya River. Unlike the Oum Er-Rbia, which flows toward the Atlantic, the Moulouya travels north and east, nourishing vast agricultural lands before reaching the Mediterranean Sea. Together, these river systems sustain communities, farms, orchards, and ecosystems across much of Morocco. To understand Khénifra is to understand where Morocco's water begins. The Lungs of Morocco The Middle Atlas surrounding Khénifra contains one of the largest cedar forests in North Africa. More than 84,000 hectares of magnificent Atlas cedar cover the mountains, creating an ecological treasure of immense importance. These forests are far more than beautiful landscapes. They regulate water cycles. Protect fragile mountain soils. Provide habitat for wildlife. Store carbon. And support traditional pastoral communities that have lived among them for generations. The Atlas cedar is among Morocco's most prized timbers. For centuries it has been used in the construction of palaces, mosques, riads, and traditional homes. Its fragrance, durability, and beauty have made it one of the country's most valued natural resources. Walking through these forests is one of Morocco's most rewarding outdoor experiences. Ancient cedar trees, mountain trails, hidden valleys, and panoramic viewpoints offer visitors a side of Morocco rarely seen by conventional tourists. A Land of Marble and Stone Beneath the forests and mountains lies another source of wealth. The region around Khénifra contains significant deposits of red and gray marble, prized for their quality and beauty. For generations, this stone has supplied Moroccan craftsmen, architects, and builders. From private homes to public buildings, from traditional architecture to modern construction, the marble of the Middle Atlas has helped shape Morocco's built environment. Today, this marble is exported around the world, carrying a piece of Khénifra far beyond Morocco's borders. The Homeland of the Zayan Khénifra is also the cultural heartland of several important Amazigh tribes, including the Zayan, Beni Mguild, and Ait Ishaq. These communities have shaped the identity of the Middle Atlas for centuries. Known for their hospitality, resilience, courage, and deep connection to the land, they developed a way of life perfectly adapted to mountain environments. Many families continue to practice forms of seasonal transhumance, moving livestock between summer and winter grazing grounds according to ancient rhythms that long predate modern borders and roads. Their traditions remain visible in everyday life. In the architecture of villages. In the seasonal movement of shepherds. In the weaving of rugs. In the preparation of food. In the poetry, music, and oral histories passed from one generation to another. The famous carpets of the region, woven from mountain wool and decorated with symbolic Amazigh motifs, are among Morocco's most distinctive artistic traditions. A Paradise for Nature Lovers For travelers seeking authentic experiences, Khénifra offers extraordinary opportunities. Mountain trekking. Forest walks. Wildlife observation. Birdwatching. Rural tourism. Traditional pastoral life. Photography. Cultural encounters. The landscapes change constantly with the seasons. Spring transforms the mountains into a mosaic of wildflowers and green pastures. Summer brings cool mountain air and long days for exploration. Autumn covers the forests with rich colors, while winter often blankets the higher elevations with snow. This is Morocco at its most natural. It's most authentic. It's most overlooked. Discovering the Hidden Heart In a country celebrated for its imperial cities and deserts, Khénifra remains one of Morocco's best-kept secrets. It is a region that asks visitors to slow down. To listen to the rivers. To walk beneath ancient cedars. To share tea with shepherds. To discover traditions that have endured for centuries. Khénifra may not appear on every travel itinerary. Perhaps that is precisely its greatest strength. For those willing to venture beyond the familiar, Khénifra reveals another Morocco. A greener Morocco. A quieter Morocco. A Morocco where rivers are born, forests breathe, and mountain cultures continue to thrive. The hidden heart of the Kingdom.
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