MOROCCO 

17 – 26 October 2025

It felt like we had just come back from holidays. If it wasn’t for the colder weather, shorter days and changing colour of the leaves you could have convinced us it was still summer. 

The first Autumn half term had gone by in the flash of an eye.

Jessie had had an amazing start to her time at Alleys – making friends, joining into everything she could possibly do and loving her new classes. She couldn’t be happier and we couldn’t be happier for her. 

Ellie was leaning in to the first half of Year 11, already preparing for her GSCE mocks which would be on us in no time, and the ‘full’ 26 exams which would follow in May. The level of work had stepped up markedly and she was already in full exam prep (particularly as we were planning to be travelling in December, February and April!. 

Sena was similarly consumed by Year 6, her School Captain responsibilities and continuing to represent the school at anything and everything. 

…and then of course there was the shadow of 11+ and 16+ exams, and the opportunity/compulsion that English people seem to feel to move schools all the time. Something we were still trying to get our heads around. 

And then, of course, there were cricket trials, carried out to the predictable tune of everyone – especially Liz – not unreasonably asking ‘when does the cricket season actually finish?’ (Answer: in a country where sports don’t stay in their seasonal lanes, never). By the time holidays came around, both Jessie and Sena had been selected for Kent Regional teams, and Ellie’s county trials were ongoing. 

Before we knew it, it was the last week of half term and we were wondering when we would have time to pack for our next trip.This rush was probably not helped by a particularly busy ‘outings’ week for Ant at work leading up to our trip – including the annual black tie Lord Mayor’s London Market dinner at the Guildhall. 

Anyway, our trip to Morocco was slightly last minute – at least by Liz’s standards. We’d only booked it a month or so ago, wanting to see how we felt post summer. So it fell to Ant to do the planning – and a quick bit of research (thanks ChatGPT) laid out a pretty awesome itinerary. In a week we could combine Marrakesh (cool North African, UNESCO world heritage  souqs, High Atlas mountain hiking and great surfing. What wasn’t there to love about that. Even better, the flight times meant that there was very little wasted travel time. 

By the time departure day came around we were ready to go. 

Only Jessie had had time to do her presentation – so we had the facts about Marrakesh but everything else was to be a journey of discovery. 

We hustled the kids straight from school + cadet days to get everyone to the airport in time for our 7pm flight.

An easy 3 hours later we were touching down in Marrakesh.

So easy. Despite some pretty lengthy entry queuing, we were still in a taxi and at our Riad overlooking the main Jemaa El Fnaa square before 11. This leaving on Friday night thing was clever. 

The following morning after an excellent Moroccan breakfast on the square (including introducing the kids to Moroccon mint team – an immediate hit),

we joined a walking tour to understand a bit more about the city, its history and its many, many cats (and very few dogs – they must have been chased out of town). We wandered around most of the UNESCO Medina and saw the massive souq along with the various mosques, hammans and – most impressively – beautiful riads and palaces hiding behind large walls.

Only the ornate door to the street would give an indication of the splendour that lay beyond. This is where the rich hung out with the harems hidden behind the privacy of the walls. This idea of relatively decrepit, unkempt ‘outdoor space’ (eg roads, footpaths etc) hiding well kept, ornate interiors was to be a theme of our time in Morocco. 

One of the many interesting things about Moroccdo’s history is it’s time as a French colony. Whilst this only lasted 50 years or so (until 1956) French continues to be the second language after Arabic (along with a Berber language) and there are clearly French influences in the food (particularly the bread), and Marrakesh is teeming with French tourists.

Liz and I spent the afternoon wandering around the souq and drinking tea; the girls chilled out and sought some recovery from the rush of the last couple of weeks

Dinner was spent on a rooftop watching the sunset and tucking into our first tagine and all learning how to communicate in French again.

It really does take a while until the words start to flow without sounding like you’ve got your jaw in a brace. Brutal. After that we took the girls around the souq and explored the chaos that is Jemaa el Fnaa – particularly on a Friday night. 

And that was Marrakesh. A great stopover and super interesting – a real hive of humanity. Not quite Cairo crazy, but certainly in that direction. Enough to make the kids feel something different, not enough to break them (like downtown Cairo did!) 

The next morning, after another excellent breakfast, we were back to airport to pick up a car for the rest of our adventures. (Wisely, Ant had decided not to hire a car in downtown Marrakesh – looking at the chaos of the traffic this felt like a good decision). 

After a decent amount of time filling out forms and paying away a fortune in bonds, we rolled gingerly out of the car hire place and onto the main road. The insurance situation was at best opaque and what was sure was that any damage to the car would result in a massive amount of hassle if nothing else. 

After navigating through the busy major roads between Marrakesh and the airport, we soon found ourselves on quite N roads heading south towards the mountains. Within half an hour we were free of the traffic and winding our way steely up, the roads getting narrower as the scenery got more spectacular. 

Within 90 mins we were crawling through the village of Imlil, navigating barrows of food, pedestrians, small trucks and the ever present mule – laden with freight and willing and ready to go places where cars couldn’t (which, in this area, is a lot of places). 

We were heading for the Kasbah du Toubkal, located at 2,000m in the shadow of Mount Toubkal, at 4100m the highest mountain in North Africa. From the websites and reviews it looked amazing and we were super excited at the idea of a couple of days hiking in the mountains. 

After successfully navigating the village of Imlil we climbed further until the road stopped and Google Maps announced we were ‘here’. We could see the Kasbah, but it was on the other side of a large ravine with no obvious path between the two. Not ideal, particularly as Liz was travelling with a wheelie bag to carry the wetsuits for our next stop … not exactly ‘trekking ready’. 

A call to the Kasbah confirmed that this was, in fact, as far as the road could take us and an offer to send a mule. No thanks – we’ll be OK. A quick repack later and we made our way down an unmarked path and eventually came to a small, non descript door in a wall (this one had a small brass sign announcing the place). 

We went inside and were greeted with a stunning garden and beautiful surrounds of the old Kasbah – complete with swimming pool, hammam and some of the nicest views we’ve ever had from a hotel. We don’t normally stay in places like this but this one looked special. 

After a lovely lunch on the terrace we kitted up and made our way out for our first walk – the plan was a couple of hour hike today and a full day tomorrow. 

We had our directions from the staff – head up to the waterfall, up the zig zags, through the village, along the ridge and follow the paths to the Kasbah. 

Great. 

We assumed there would be paths, signs and other people. 

We made our way to the waterfall. Lots of people, Obvious places to walk. Spirits were high. Tick. 

We then sought the path to the village via the zig zags. No paths. No signs. Differing advice from people we asked. We ended up hiking through the forest, through thick undergrowth and up steep slopes … lots of negative feedback from the kids as we eventually found our way to the village in question – clearly by a more ‘agricultural’ route that we had initially envisaged. From there, getting to the ridge and around it was easy; finding the route down back through the ravine to the Kasbah resulted in another hour of searching, bush bashing, passing through a wedding and asking the odd local we found for directions. 

Learning: get a guide. The paths are not well established and not at all marked. Whilst the geography of the place is easy to manage, the specifics of getting for A to B are not. 

We eventually found our way back to the Kasbah, a little tired and frustrated. Nothing that a cold drink, some time in the hamman and knowledge that we had booked a guide for tomorrow wouldn’t fix. 

Over dinner that night we met a bunch of lovely people as we sat playing cards. We ended up spending most of the evening chatting to Peggy and Brian from New York.  One of the great things about this place was the type of people it attracts – a mix of climbers on their way to Toubkal and others just exploring the trails below. The patchiness of the internet encouraged people to put down their phones and talk … it had a very youth hostel/mountain refuge vibe to it that we all loved.

After dinner we went up to the rooftop and watched the stars. 

Unfortunately Liz was sick the following day, so had to opt out of the hike. The rest of us met with Mohammed who would guide us around for the morning – exploring further afield than we had yesterday. Our guide let us confidentially through unmarked paths between trees, occasionally onto trails, sometimes navigating through little alleyways of the villages we passed through. There was no way we could have done this without a map or a guide. 

We went up through 3 of the villages that are scattered in the Imlil Valley, climbing up to 2,500 meters and being rewarded with stunning views over the valley and the Kasbah. This area was the epicentre of the 2023 earthquakes which killed some 3000 people – as we passed through the villages we could see a bunch of residual damage and slow moving construction projects that were still in progress 2+ years later. 

The girls haven’t done a proper hike in a while and it was lovely to see how into it they were – and were already talking about coming back here to climb Toubkal one day. Maybe one for the next year or two! 

We were back for a late lunch, a quick hammam and time for cards in the afternoon. It was impossible not to be relaxed in this place watching the sunset. Another dinner spent talked to other travellers and just soaking up the vibe of this really special place. 

The next morning we said goodbye to the Kasbah and made our way back to the car (via a Kasbah mandated mule for our bags).

We navigated back down to the busy village of Imlil, praying that we woudn’t hit too much traffic on the narrow, treacherous mountain paths. We were mostly lucky, but had a couple of episodes of ‘car Tetris’ trying to pass oncoming trucks and tourist vans on paths meant for mules. Fair to say we were relieved to get through Imlil and onto more ‘normal’ roads. 

We had a 5 hour drive today from the Kasbah to the village of Imsouane – a recommended surf town with a famous point break (apparently the longest right hander Africa). Everyone was excited to see the sea and get wet. 

The drive itself down the mountains and across to the coast was spectacular and certainly not boring.

Minor roads wound their way through the mountains and onto arid plains that ran to the coast. We passed a few small villages and one or two towns, but for the most part the countryside was empty and there was almost no one on the road.

We arrived at Imsouane in the late afternoon. It was a small, run down town with a single supermarket, cash machine and pharmacy, an amazing surf break, and a few hostels and cafes to hous and feed the tourists. It is teaming with dogs (which we loved). Unfinished construction – seamingly abandoned – is everywhere. 

There is an absolute natural beauty to this place, and the vibe is wonderful, but it does take a while to get passed the poorly maintained infrastructure and signs of neglect. 

We checked into our apartment in the ‘Imsouance Magic House’ – which had jaw dropping views of the point break from the top of a cliff overlooking the beach.

Absolutely stunning. True to form, the complex itself was clean and well maintained (managed, it appeared, by 2 local 15 year olds), the areas in front + the back path down to the beach were rubble and rubbish. We were getting used to this by now. 

We settled in for our 5 nights here.  The days were spent surfing … there was literally nothing else to do here. It took a day or so to find our routine, but it ended up something like: 

A surf before breakfast – out the back, either with Ellie or just Ant. 

A massive breakfast courtesy of the hotel , shared with the ‘resident’ dogs and 2 cats, including ‘boss man cat’ who clearly owned the hotel. 

A morning session with the girls – starting in the break, increasingly getting out to the mid sets by mid week. 

Lunch at the cafe overlooking the beach. 

Maybe a quick post lunch surf if the tides were right – generally out the back. 

Afternoon chill out during high tide (the point break gets swallowed by the high tide) 

Pre sunset surf or playing in the waves. 

Sunset (if the sun is out) on the west facing beach. 

Dinner. 

Sleep. 

Repeat. 

The water was a lovely 20 degrees and the waves were fanstastic. Ellie was out in 4-5 feet, Jessie and Sena were in 2 foot + mid break. Some of the rides we were getting went for 100+ meters, some a lot more than that. 

By the end of the week they were all catching their own waves and had been firmly bitten by the surfing bug again. 

Ellie and I were able to just paddle out and go surfing – which was so much fun. In smaller conditions Jessie could do that now too; Sena is not far behind. 

Factoring in annual surfing holidays (alongside skiing and diving holidays) is now a thing. Bring on Byron Bay in April! 

By the time Sunday morning came around it feel like we had been in Morocco for weeks. We had covered a lot of ground and it felt like we had had 3 separate holidays in one. Having the extra days from travelling Friday night and Sunday makes a real difference too. 

We packed the car for the final time and headed south towards Agadir. We stopped for breakfast in Tamazhout to check out another surfing option (bigger town with a nice vibe, surf did not look as good) and then made our way back to the airport (via the Agadir Ironman 70.3 event) for our flight home. 

Unfortunately it was Anthony’s time to be sick… so we took it slowly and let him sleep at the airport!

Morocco had certainly delivered – from the crowded souqs and beautiful riads of Marrakesh to the stunning High Atlas Mountains to the amazing point break at Imsouane… all an easy 3 hour flight from London. It’s almost quicker to get here than Cornwall… so I dare say we’ll be back in the not-too-distant future!