Marrakech Is Getting Noisier. The Rest of Morocco Is Not.

The medina and the rooftop bars and the famous hotels are as good as ever, but the country's most interesting travel is now happening elsewhere. The Draa Valley in the south, where kasbahs rise from palm groves above a river that barely reaches the sea, is almost empty of foreign visitors. The Souss-Massa coast between Agadir and Tiznit has some of the best Atlantic surf in Africa and a fraction of the infrastructure that drives prices up elsewhere. Essaouira remains what it has always been: a wind-battered, blue-walled port city on the Atlantic that operates entirely on its own terms. Morocco rewards the traveller who arrives with a car and no fixed plan.