TRAVELWITHZOE

In September I decided to randomly go to Morocco, basically because there was a cheap flight and I wanted to go somewhere new that wouldn’t be cold and that wouldn’t be too expensive. The flight I’d found landed in Marrakesh, which was the only city in Morocco I’d really heard about before, because it seems like that’s where most English tourists go when they visit Morocco.

From what I’d read/heard, I had the impression that Marrakesh would be full of tourists and I’d even heard that it could be a bit unsafe for solo woman travellers, as I’d seen stories of men following women around, travellers being scammed and sellers being aggressive. Because of these factors, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to seeing Marrakesh, but I thought I’d spend a day there anyway before moving on to a different part of the country, so I could see what it was like for myself.

I landed on a Tuesday evening and the first thing I did once I was through immigration was to get a local sim card (this is usually one of the first things on my mind when I land somewhere). It was super quick and easy to buy a sim with data on it, but the ladies weren’t very friendly, and I found it strange that there was no official piece of paper showing the data packages. It made me wonder if the prices they were quoting were actually the real price or if they were keeping some of the money for themselves.

Anyways, I had booked a hostel for 2 nights in the medina of Marrakesh and I’d read online that the cheapest way to get there from the airport would be the bus. It was easy to find a bus stop and there was a super friendly staff member standing outside the bus who told me the price and which stop I’d have to get off at etc. The ticket was 30 Dirhams which was actually a return ticket (you can’t buy a one-way one apparently), and I used Google Maps to walk from the bus stop to my hostel.

I had chosen this specific hostel (Riad Jennah Rouge) because the bed was £5 and because the reviews were fairly decent. The only bad thing they said was that it’s located down a dark alleyway.

I thought people might have been exaggerating, but honestly it was so dark! I think it was around 9pm when I was walking there, and the setup of the medina means that some places really don’t seem to have any light at all, because it’s sort of walled/enclosed, and there aren’t any cars because it’s pedestrian access only.

Where I got off the bus was busy and there were lots of people going into shops and restaurants etc, but once I’d walked for 5-10 minutes and reached the tiny winding alleyways in the medina, I was pretty much by myself and it was super quiet. It crossed my mind that I didn’t really know if I was supposed to find it creepy/scary or not, but I was more focused on the fact that I was so tired and I just wanted to get in bed.

I found the hostel door (it had the name written above it and the Google Maps pin was accurate) and went inside to the sort of living room area, and there was no one there except a man sleeping (snoring quite loudly) on the sofa, who I assumed was the member of staff. I don’t know about you but I find it SO awkward trying to wake people up because I don’t want to touch them etc., so I just walked around in the room and purposefully made noise by loudly dumping my bag on a chair and watching Tiktoks out loud! (I had already said hello but that didn’t work).

After a few minutes he woke up and he seemed to already know that I must be Zoe. He took out an old falling-apart notebook which had a grid drawn inside with people’s names and check-in and check-out dates etc. My name was there and he confirmed the number of nights, and he said I had to pay in cash, even though the hostel’s profile on HostelWorld had said it offers a card machine. The price was quoted in euros on my HostelWorld booking but I only had Moroccan Dirhams, and the exchange rate he gave me was definitely quite bad so I feel like he kept maybe 10% for himself or something.

He poured me some tea (tea is a big part of daily life in Morocco) and showed me to my bed in a dorm on the first floor. I felt happy that I had safely reached my accommodation and that I could chill for the rest of the night.

The first picture is the beginning of the alleyway (it got way darker after that) and the other one is obviously just me having arrived at the hostel:

The décor in the hostel was beautiful, it was nice and quiet, the room was an okay temperature and the bathroom was quite clean, so I felt like I’d made a good choice. The only thing I found a bit weird was the positioning of the beds. In the picture below, my bed was the bottom left one, so my head was by the wall. The other bunk bed was so close to mine (I mean, they were touching), and I was honestly a bit worried that I might kick the other person in the head or feet during the night… the person in the other bottom bunk!

I was hungry but I just ate some snacks I’d brought with me on the plane, edited my Tiktok, did a bit of research about what to do in Marrakesh for the next day, and went to sleep.

If you’re interested in the hostel, you could watch the hostel tour video on my Tiktok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@travelwithzoe/video/7283809889074351392

I’m available for 1-to-1 video calls to help with trip planning – link below:

https://www.fiverr.com/zoereeve/give-you-solo-and-budget-travel-tips-and-help-plan-your-trip