Essaouira | Morocco
A lively port city where every day brings something unexpected
Getting there: A beachy escape from Marrakech
The road west cuts through argan country and small roadside towns before opening out toward the sea. With a private driver handling the distance, you arrive ready to walk the ramparts or head straight to the port, not worn down by the journey. It’s a simple addition to a wider route through Morocco, and one that changes the feel of a trip fast.
A Castle on the sea
Essaouira’s medina is compact enough to read quickly, but busy enough to reward lingering. Woodworkers shape thuya at open doors, fish is hauled straight from the port, and narrow lanes fill and empty with purpose throughout the day. With a guide to steer you past the obvious, you’ll spend less time circling and more time seeing how the city actually runs.
Coastal escapades
Step beyond the lively medina and the pace shifts. Beaches run long in both directions, used for riding, surfing, walking, or doing very little at all. Short excursions and half-day outings make it easy to leave the city behind for a few hours, then return in time for grilled fish and a late dinner.
What to See & Do in Essaouira
Unhurried days, salty air, and a multi-cultural historic city that leaves space for curiosity
Essaouira moves at its own pace. Wind, water, and work shape the day, whether you’re walking the ramparts, standing at the fish market, or drifting through the medina. Our favorite hideaway is the Mellah, where decaying sea-facing walls tell a beautiful story of the city’s Jewish heritage. We also adore the small, independent art galleries tucked into former grain lofts that showcase the town’s enduring creative spirit.
The artist's retreat
Three hours west of Marrakech, you'll discover one of Morocco's best-kept secrets
You feel it first—the wind off the ocean, cool and insistent, carrying salt and the smell of fish grills firing up along the port. Essaouira sits open to the Atlantic, its medina wrapped in pale stone and blue shutters, gulls cutting across the sky above the ramparts. Boats return mid-morning, nets still wet, their hulls painted the same cobalt as the doors lining the streets inland. The city is said to have inspired Jimi Hendrix' song, Castles Made of Sand.
The city moves calmly. Craftsmen plane thuya wood in small workshops, sawdust gathering at their feet. Cafés spill onto the pavement, chairs angled toward the sea. Inside the walls, lanes stay bright and navigable, the air washed clean by the breeze. Outside them, long beaches stretch north and south, dunes breaking into scrub and argan trees bent by years of wind. Essaouira is not a place to rush. It’s a place to walk, to watch, to sit with a glass of mint tea while the afternoon passes without announcement.
A haven beside the sea
Stone walls, Atlantic air, and a horizon that never quite sits still
Salt wind moves through the Skala before you do. Cannons line the stone edge, Atlantic water breaking hard below, spray lifting into the light. Walk the length of the walls where Mogador once faced the world — blue fishing boats stacked in the harbour, gulls cutting low, carpenters hammering hulls just beyond the gate.
If this feels familiar, you’re not imagining it: these ramparts stood in as Astapor in Game of Thrones. In Essaouira, curiosity is always rewarded — linger a little longer. After dark, the tempo shifts. Lights trace the walls, voices carry on the wind, and the city opens up to those who stay the night.
Port de Mogador
At first light, boats return, gulls descend, and the day announces itself loudly
The day starts early here. Men unload crates straight from the boats, scales flash silver on the ground, knives work fast over wooden blocks darkened by salt and age. Smoke drifts from open grills where the morning’s catch hits the fire minutes after landing — sardines, sole, sea bream — eaten standing, fingers slick with oil and lemon. It’s busy, loud, and unapologetically functional, the port doing exactly what it’s always done.
Shop Like a local
Spend the morning exploring Marché aux Poissons d’Essaouira – or "le port," as locals call Essaouira's lively fish market
Crates are hauled straight off the blue boats and dropped onto the quay, fish still slick with seawater. Sardines pile high, knives work fast, gulls hover low and impatient. Smoke curls up from charcoal grills where the morning’s catch is cooked on the spot — eaten standing, fingers shiny with oil and lemon, tables optional. It’s loud, fast, and unscripted, the port doing its job without pausing for anyone watching.
Artisanal Specialty | Essaouira, Morocco
Thuya woodwork from the forests of the Souss
Essaouira’s signature craft begins with the scent of resin. Thuya wood — native to the nearby forests — is worked into boxes, tables, and small objects using marquetry techniques passed down through generations.
Open workshop doors reveal lathes humming, fine sawdust collecting on tiled floors, geometric patterns assembled piece by piece. The designs are precise, never ornate for effect; the beauty comes from grain, weight, and balance. This is functional craft with discipline behind it, shaped by time rather than trend, and still made within the walls where it’s sold.
Of Alleys, art, and windy ramparts
Narrow streets twist, widen, disappear, and reappear somewhere unexpected in the city's large medina
The medina tightens suddenly, walls rising close enough to keep the sun out even at noon. Water is flung from upper windows; a washerwoman shouts when a camera lingers too long. An alley dead-ends into a shoebox-sized art gallery, then opens without warning onto a verdant courtyard where fish sellers work beneath nets, bread stacked nearby, gulls circling overhead. Walk far enough and the stone loosens into wider streets, Dutch-built boulevards, patisseries, and the sound of the Atlantic breaking against the ramparts just beyond.
Between walls and water
The beach runs the length of the city, stitching old stone to modern terraces in open air.
The beach unfurls directly from the medina ramparts, bridging the old city and the modern town without ceremony. Rooftop terraces line the promenade, glasses catching the light as the sun drops and the islands sit purple and low offshore.
Camels are led along the water by blue-clad Berbers while kitesurfers and paddleboarders work the wind just beyond the break. A man passes with a tray of doughnuts balanced on his head, weaving between bare feet, boots, bikinis, and full-length abayas. The Atlantic roars through it all, unconcerned with who’s watching.
Al fresco dining at its best
Street grills, white tablecloths, and a local cat that has already decided it's joining you for lunch.
Cafés hide in plain sight: behind blue doors, up narrow staircases, or wedged into corners where alleys briefly widen. Grills hiss with sardines and kefta, bread torn by hand, glasses of tea poured high and sweet.
Locals drift in and out—fishermen still smelling of salt, shopkeepers stepping away from their stalls, artists killing an hour between light changes. Nothing is curated, nothing asks you to linger, and somehow you always do.
Hand-pressed liquid gold
Argan oil, used in everything from cooking ingredients to beauty product is Made slowly, by hand, and part of moroccan daily life
Just outside Essaouira, argan trees spread low and wide, their trunks bent by wind and time. Goats climb into the branches to feed, balanced impossibly against the sky, while below, women crack the hard nuts by hand, stones tapping in a steady rhythm. The oil that comes from it — nutty, dense, faintly sweet — ends up everywhere: drizzled over bread at breakfast, worked into skin, carried home in small glass bottles that smell faintly of smoke and earth.
morocco's tree-dwelling goats
A roadside scene found nowhere else in the world
Between Essaouira and the interior, cars slow for a reason. Goats balance improbably in the branches of argan trees, picking at fruit several metres off the ground, horns silhouetted against open sky. It’s quiet, matter-of-fact, and oddly beautiful — an everyday sight tied to landscape rather than spectacle. Pull over if you like. The goats won’t move. They’ve been doing this longer than anyone remembers.
