The best things to do in Morocco.

Essaouira is the heart of Morocco's windswept Atlantic coast: a UNESCO-listed walled medina, a working sardine port, miles of open beach and the deepest Gnaoua music heritage in the country. These fourteen experiences cover the ramparts, the souks, the surf and the wider coast, and form the base for every day trip and onward route along this shore.

Marrakech is the gateway most travellers pair with Essaouira — about two and a half hours inland by road, and the nearest international airport to the coast. A walled medina of souks and palaces opens onto serene gardens, rooftop cafés and the snow-capped Atlas beyond. From the nightly theatre of Jemaa el-Fna to the Saadian Tombs, here are the experiences worth building into your Essaouira trip.

Continue down the Atlantic coast from Essaouira and you reach Agadir, Morocco's big-resort beach city. Rebuilt after the 1960 earthquake, it pairs a six-kilometre crescent of sand with world-class surf, a hilltop kasbah, busy souks and easy access to the wild Souss-Massa coast and Paradise Valley — the natural onward stop for travellers heading south from Essaouira.

Down the coast from Essaouira, past Agadir, lies Taghazout — Morocco's surf capital and the favourite onward stop for travellers chasing waves after the windsurf bay at Essaouira. Once a sleepy fishing village, it now strings reliable Atlantic point breaks, laid-back yoga retreats, argan groves and golden beaches along the Souss-Massa coast.

Head inland from the Essaouira coast through the argan country and you reach Taroudant, the walled market town often called 'little Marrakech'. Its earthen ramparts encircle bustling souks, palm-shaded squares and artisan workshops in the fertile Souss Valley, with the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas rising on either side — a quieter, authentic onward stop on the way south from the coast.

Essaouira rewards a slow pace. Two days are enough to walk the walled medina, watch the fishing fleet come in, feel the Atlantic trade winds on the beach and still have time for an argan cooperative or a sunset on the ramparts. Here is a relaxed two-day plan for Morocco's windswept port town.

Essaouira is the most popular day trip from Marrakech — about two and a half to three hours each way across the argan plains to the Atlantic. A long day, but a rewarding change of pace from the Red City. Here is what the trip involves and how to make the most of it.

Essaouira is known across Morocco as the 'Windy City' (Mogador), and its steady Atlantic trade winds have made the bay one of the country's great wind-sports destinations. Here is an honest guide to surfing, windsurfing and kitesurfing on this stretch of coast — and who each spot suits.

Essaouira is one of Morocco's easiest towns for families: a flat, walkable, traffic-light medina, a long beach, a harbour full of boats and a gentle pace. Here are the things that work best with children on the windy Atlantic coast.

With a single day on the wind-scoured Atlantic, Essaouira rewards a loose plan and comfortable shoes. The walled town is small, flat and roughly square, so you can taste the ramparts, the port, the souks and the sea without rushing. This is how we thread the highlights from a slow morning coffee to a sardine-grilled dusk.

Essaouira's medina is a rare thing in Morocco — a fortified old town you can actually navigate. Designed in the 1760s by the French engineer Théodore Cornut for Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah, it follows a near-grid of straight avenues behind ramparts, and it has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2001. This is a route through its gates, souks and squares.

The coast around Essaouira is long, wild and reliably windy — less a sunbathing strip than a place to walk, ride and chase the breeze. From the town's own great crescent to the surf villages north and south, here is what each stretch of this Atlantic shore is actually like.

Few towns in Morocco eat as well from the sea as Essaouira. The blue sardine fleet lands its catch within sight of the medina, the argan forests press an oil found almost nowhere else, and the cafés on Place Moulay Hassan have been refilling mint-tea glasses for generations. This is what to seek out on the plate along the windy coast.

Essaouira is built for a camera: blue boats against bleached walls, gulls over the ramparts, and the long Atlantic light that drew painters here for decades. The town is compact enough to shoot on foot, and the trade-wind weather keeps the skies dramatic. These are the frames worth chasing through the day.

Just south of Essaouira, across the Oued Ksob river, the sands rise into low dunes and the small Amazigh village of Diabat. It is a short, scenic escape — known for its 1960s hippie history, a half-buried fortress and some of the easiest beach riding on the coast. Here is what the walk and the village hold.

About 25 kilometres south of Essaouira, Sidi Kaouki is the coast at its most elemental — a long, near-empty beach, big Atlantic wind and a lone marabout shrine watching the surf. It draws surfers, windsurfers and anyone after a slower, wilder day than the town offers. Here is what makes it the easiest escape down the shore.

Essaouira is the spiritual home of Gnaoua, the hypnotic, trance-driven music born of sub-Saharan, Amazigh and Sufi roots. The town's whole rhythm bends toward sound — the clatter of metal qraqeb castanets in the lanes, the deep pulse of the guembri, and every June the streets filling for one of Africa's great festivals. Here is how to find the music.

The countryside around Essaouira is the heartland of the argan tree, a thorny, drought-hardy species that grows almost nowhere else on Earth and gives this coast its golden oil. Women's co-operatives on the roads inland turn the nuts into culinary and cosmetic oil by hand, and a visit is one of the most rewarding half-days from town. Here is what to see and how to buy well.

Essaouira makes a fine base for exploring this corner of Morocco. The coast unrolls north and south into surf villages and empty beaches, the argan country climbs inland, and the great red city of Marrakech sits a couple of hours over the hills. This is an honest overview of where you can realistically get to and back in a day, with rough drive times.

Inland from the Essaouira coast, beyond Marrakech in the Middle Atlas, the Ouzoud Waterfalls drop more than 100 metres in a triple cascade — the tallest in Morocco and one of the country's great natural sights. Travellers based on the coast usually pair them with Marrakech, the gateway city. Here is what the falls and the gorge below them offer.

Halfway down the coast between Essaouira and Agadir, the small fishing harbour of Imsouane has become a quiet legend among surfers for 'The Bay' — one of the longest, mellowest right-hand waves in Morocco. It stays far simpler than the bigger resorts, all blue boats, surf camps and slow days. Here is what draws people to this stretch of shore.

Far down the Atlantic below Agadir, the old Spanish town of Sidi Ifni and the red cliffs of Legzira beach mark a wilder, less-travelled south coast. It is a long haul from Essaouira, more an onward journey than a day trip, but for those drawn to faded Art-Deco streets and dramatic shoreline it rewards the drive. Here is what defines this stretch.

Essaouira is quietly one of Morocco's most romantic towns — small, slow and salt-aired, with sunset ramparts, candlelit riads and long empty beaches just south. It trades the intensity of the big cities for something gentler. Here is how to spend an unhurried few days together on the windy Atlantic coast.

Essaouira earned its old nickname Mogador and its modern reputation as the 'Wind City of Africa' for one reason: the cross-shore Atlantic trade winds that funnel down this coast almost every afternoon in summer. Those steady winds, combined with a wide protected bay, have made the town one of the most reliable windsurfing destinations anywhere on the Atlantic. This guide goes deeper than the general wind-sports overview, focusing on what makes Essaouira a true windsurfing spot, where to sail by ability, and when the wind delivers.

For its size, Essaouira has a remarkably deep artistic life. The town gave its name to a whole school of self-taught painters, its workshops are the centre of Morocco's fragrant thuya-wood marquetry, and the spiritual rhythms of Gnaoua music ripple through its visual art. Add the long pull of the blue-and-white medina on painters and photographers, and you have one of Morocco's most rewarding places to look at and buy art. Here is where to find the real thing.

The Skala de la Ville is Essaouira's great sea bastion — a broad rampart walk along the medina's western wall, lined with a row of old European cannons and open to the Atlantic crashing below. It belongs to the star-shaped fortifications laid out in the 1760s by the French engineer Théodore Cornut for Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah, part of the UNESCO-listed medina. This is a guide to walking the cannons, catching the sunset and finding the thuya woodwork ateliers tucked into the arches beneath.

Essaouira's working fishing port is one of the town's most atmospheric and photogenic corners — rows of bright blue wooden boats crowded along the quay, the daily catch landed and sorted in the open air, gulls wheeling overhead and the smell of grilling sardines. It sits beneath the Skala du Port, the harbour bastion with its sea gate (the Porte de la Marine), part of the 18th-century fortifications that frame the UNESCO-listed medina. This is a guide to the blue boats, the fish auction, the grill stalls, the port ramparts and the boat-builders still working timber on the slipway — distinct from the Skala de la Ville city ramparts above the medina.

Just off Essaouira's coast — roughly two kilometres out across the bay — lies a small archipelago known as the Îles Purpuraires, dominated by the Île de Mogador. The name carries deep history: in Phoenician and Roman times these islands were tied to the production of Tyrian (royal) purple dye, extracted from murex sea-snails, and the dye works are why they are called the 'Purple Islands'. The main island holds the ruins of an old fortress and prison and a small mosque, and today the whole group is a protected nature reserve and one of the most important breeding sites for the rare Eleonora's falcon. For that reason landing is restricted and generally not permitted — you usually admire the islands from the shore, the ramparts and the beach rather than setting foot on them. This is a guide to the view, the purple-dye history, the fortress ruins, the falcon reserve and how to experience the islands responsibly.

Few Moroccan towns wear their Jewish past as openly as Essaouira. When the planned port of Mogador was built in the 1760s, Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah invited Jewish merchants to settle and run the kingdom's Atlantic trade, and for a time the community made up a large share of the town — at points close to half its population. They lived in two mellahs in the medina's northern quarter, worshipped in dozens of small synagogues, and left a heritage that the town has spent recent years restoring. This is a walking guide to the Mellah, the synagogues, the Bayt Dakira heritage house and the old cemetery — a side of Essaouira that sits quietly within the UNESCO medina.

Essaouira is Morocco's centre for thuya (thuja) woodwork and marquetry. Craftsmen here work the aromatic, richly grained root-burl of the thuya tree — which grows in the hinterland around the town — turning it into boxes, chess and backgammon boards, trays, lamps and furniture, often inlaid with lemonwood, ebony, walnut and mother-of-pearl. Many of the workshops are famously built into the vaulted arches beneath the Skala de la Ville ramparts, where you can watch the carving, sanding and oiling and buy direct from the maker. This guide covers the wood, the inlay technique, the rampart-arch ateliers, how to spot quality, the heritage and responsibility note, and shipping larger pieces.

The Gnaoua World Music Festival (Festival Gnaoua et Musiques du Monde) is Essaouira's famous annual music celebration and one of the events that turned the walled coastal town into a music capital. It honours Gnaoua — the spiritual, trance-driven music of Morocco's communities of sub-Saharan descent — and fuses Gnaoua maâlems (master musicians) with international jazz, world and contemporary artists. The festival is usually held around June, but the dates change every year, so always check the current official programme before planning. It mixes large free street, square and beach stages with some ticketed concerts, and it packs the town with huge crowds — which makes booking accommodation and transport well ahead essential. This guide covers what the festival is, its hedged timing, free versus ticketed stages, the atmosphere and crowds, the basics of Gnaoua music, the town's heritage and practical tips for enjoying it respectfully.

Essaouira is not a club town, and that is rather the point. Its evenings are laid-back and music-led — in keeping with the town's arty, bohemian, Gnaoua-soaked character. Think sunset drinks or mint tea on the western ramparts, a slow seafood dinner near the port, the floodlit medina to wander, and a handful of bars and small venues where you can catch live Gnaoua, world, jazz or reggae. The wind that defines Essaouira's days usually drops at night, and the town feels relaxed and safe once the sun is down. This is a guide to how the evening actually unfolds here.

Essaouira's long, wide Atlantic beach sweeps south from the medina around Essaouira Bay, and riding it by camel or horse is one of the town's most relaxed and scenic activities — a coastal alternative to a full desert trip, with the sea breeze on one side and low dunes on the other. Most rides head south along the firm sand toward the village of Diabat, the sand-drowned ruins of the Borj el Berod fort and the Oued Ksob estuary, typically running for around one to two hours and at their most beautiful near sunset. This is a guide to what the ride is actually like — camel versus horse, the route, sunset timing, the famously windy beach, and the welfare and price points worth knowing before you climb on.

Most of Morocco's medinas grew up slowly over centuries — Essaouira did not. The walled town you walk today was a planned port, laid out in the 1760s on the orders of the Alaouite sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah, who wanted a fortified harbour to channel the kingdom's Atlantic and trans-Saharan trade through a single royal gateway. The result is a rare thing: a deliberately designed 18th-century fortified town, with straight streets, sea-facing bastions and a cosmopolitan merchant population, that UNESCO inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2001. This guide traces how Mogador came to be — its older roots, the sultan's grand plan, the European-influenced fortifications, the merchant trade that made it rich, and where you can still read that history in the streets and ramparts.