Best Seller9 Days / 8 Nights
Destination
Essaouira
Tours visiting Essaouira — the fortified Atlantic port, its ramparts and windswept beaches.
2 tours in Essaouira
10 Days / 9 Nights
Planning a trip to Essaouira
Essaouira is a walled Atlantic port about three hours west of Marrakech, and it feels nothing like the rest of the country. The medina was laid out in the 1760s to a European grid — straight streets, low white buildings with blue shutters — which is why it is easy to walk and hard to get lost in, the opposite of Fes or Marrakech.
The wind is the other defining feature. Steady trade winds blow along this coast for most of the year, which made Essaouira a kitesurfing and windsurfing centre and also keeps it cool when the interior is baking. That is the trade-off: pleasant in July when Marrakech is unbearable, but often too blustery to lie on the beach.
On our itineraries Essaouira appears on the longer routes, usually as a two-night stop that breaks up the inland driving. It works well at the end of a desert circuit, when a couple of slow days by the sea is exactly what people want.
Questions about Essaouira
Is Essaouira worth a night, or is a day trip enough?
A day trip from Marrakech works but gives you about four hours in town after six hours in the car. If the coast appeals at all, one night turns it into the most relaxed part of the trip — the town is at its best early in the morning and after the day-trippers leave.
Can you swim there?
You can, but the Atlantic here is cold and usually choppy, and the beach is more of a walking and watersports beach than a swimming one. For warm calm water you would want a different coast.
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