I'm a Morocco expert who has explored every corner of the country. These are my favourite spots away from the tourist traps... and the ones you must avoid
After completing my studies in French and Arabic, I booked a one-way flight and spent a month in Morocco's capital, Rabat, before travelling around the country for another month.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
TOM UTLEY: From the bliss of my own bed to a decent cuppa... why the best part of any holiday is the heart-lifting relief of coming HOME
Oh, how heartily I agree with the 52 per cent who say one of the best parts of going away on holiday is returning to the comforts of home. My only quibble is that it's the best part, bar none. We may look forward all year to getting away from it all for that summer break, studying the travel pages, thumbing through the brochures and counting the days until we can pack our bags and head for the heaven of our dreams. But on average, apparently, it takes only five days away for us to start missing everything we've left behind, from the bliss of our own beds to our familiar routines, gardens and pets and our favourite TV programmes – or simply a decent British cuppa, with proper British milk. So says a survey of 2,000 holidaymakers from the UK, published this week by the sofa retailing firm, DFS. True, there was a time in my younger days when I wished that my holidays could go on for ever. I longed to explore the whole wide world, absorbing new sights, sounds, tastes and experiences, while going home just meant the start of a new term or, later, returning to the grind of the office. But since money was always tight in my bachelor days, I never got round to venturing beyond Europe. And when marriage and the four boys came along, further clipping my wings – except on the handful of occasions when my employers sent me abroad for work – I resigned myself to putting my wilder ambitions on hold until our finances looked up and our sons were old enough to fend for themselves. These days, with the boys now grown up, the school fees behind us, the mortgage paid off – and Rachel Reeves's dreaded Budget still weeks away – I can at last afford to take the two of us just about anywhere in the world we may fancy. Yet this summer, we found five days on the Isle of Wight more than enough. The trouble is that my feet stopped itching years ago, and Mrs U seems to feel much the same way. Far from yearning to travel, I find my heart sinking at the very thought of going through all the palaver, inconvenience and discomfort of another holiday abroad. I'm not a bit proud of the death of my spirit of adventure. On the contrary, all those people who say life starts at sixty or seventy – and spend their retirement swimming with dolphins, going on safari in Africa or sailing round the world – make me feel terribly inadequate. It's just that when I look back over a lifetime of holidays, I remember only a litany of disasters, and almost constant anxiety. There was the time in Pompeii, which I've mentioned before, when our then three-year-old eldest fell, bottom-first, into an enormous Roman wine-jar of the first century AD, with only the top of his head and the soles of his shoes visible. For several interminable minutes, as we heaved on his shoulders and ankles, I feared that we'd have to smash this priceless artefact to get him out, and I'd have to answer for the consequences to my bank manager (not to mention the Italian police). Then there was the holiday a couple of years later, at a friend's villa in Tuscany, where the same boy broke his arm on day two, after laughing so hard at a funny book that he fell on to the stone floor from his perch on the arm of a sofa. I still shudder at the memory of our long drive in the hire car to the nearest hospital, with the poor boy screaming in pain in the back. Indeed, trips to hospital feature prominently in my memories of holidays abroad. There was the time in Normandy when son Number Two suddenly developed a mysterious illness. He wouldn't eat or sleep, and when he tried to walk he developed a terrifying limp. Frantic with worry, and fearing he had picked up something like polio (all right, neither of us is medically literate), we drove him to hospital in Bayeux. As he hobbled round the consulting room, in apparent agony, two doctors said they were as baffled as we were. It was only when they told him he'd have to stay there a couple of nights for tests that he miraculously recovered in an instant, and walked down the hospital corridor without a trace of a limp. I'll never forget what one of the doctors said to his colleague, in French, presumably thinking I wouldn't understand: 'These stupid English. They watch far too much television!' Then there was the time near Toulouse, when I managed to skewer the top of my head on a spike hanging down from a chandelier. Blood gushed from my head like a Roman candle, and our gite soon looked like the set of a gruesome Quentin Tarantino movie. Before I knew it, I was lying in an antiquated ambulance – a converted Citroen Deux Chevaux, I seem to remember, though I wouldn't swear to it – on my way to have my wound stapled up in A&E. As for lesser holiday disasters, these include suffering a blow-out on our way to Saint-Malo, when we were already running late for the ferry home and, like so many other muppet tourists, having my pocket picked in Rome. (To adapt the famous saying: 'When in Rome… cling on to your wallet for dear life.') Yes, such disasters and mishaps can also befall us in dear old blighty. But the stresses are multiplied a hundredfold when they happen abroad, with an unfamiliar language and bureaucracy to contend with. Indeed, even when everything goes smoothly on a foreign holiday, I find the anxiety kicks in from almost the moment we leave home. Have we locked the rear bedroom window, cancelled the papers and remembered to turn off the gas? Which of us has the passports and the tickets – and where the hell did I put the booking reference for the hire car at the other end? Then there's that exhausting business at the airport – the endless, snaking queues at the check-in desk, passport control and customs, and that ridiculous rigmarole with the belts and the shoes at security. It's another interminable wait at the other end, for Mrs U's suitcase to appear (generally last) on the carousel. Then the hassle at the hire-car kiosk and that first, nerve-racking hour of getting used to driving a strange vehicle, on the wrong side of a strange road. That's not to mention the constant demands on our mental arithmetic, as we struggle to translate foreign currencies into pounds and pence. (One of the few things Mrs U and I have in common, apart from 45 years of marriage, four sons and five grandchildren, is that we're both completely hopeless at maths). Enough to say, oh, the heart-lifting relief of that first glimpse of the Isle of Wight or the White Cliffs of Dover, from the aeroplane window or the deck of the ferry on the journey home. And, oh, the joy of ordering a favourite takeaway and cracking open the duty free on our arrival in our own dear house, with our own familiar kitchen, our own telly and our own comfy bed. No, there's no question that this is the best bit of any holiday. It's just such a shame that we have to go through all the worries and bother of travel before we can fully appreciate it.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Tourist is left paralysed after being thrown from 'kamikaze' seat on Devon sea safari
A female tourist has been paralysed for life after being thrown from a 'kamikaze' seat on an inflatable boat hit by a high wave as it left a harbour. The RIB Lundy Explorer had left Ilfracombe harbour in North Devon for a sea safari trip in June 2023. A Marine Accident Investigation Board inquiry said it encountered a high wave as it left the harbour, which caused it to slam into an oncoming wave. The report says that a passenger was sitting in a 'jockey' seat in the front of the RIB, where the highest shock loads were experienced. The passenger was dislodged from their seat and suffered a fracture of their spinal column, resulting in permanent paralysis. The MAIB report said local weather conditions had deteriorated quickly, which resulted in choppy seas and bigger waves, which the RIB skipper had not expected. The position of the jockey seats was unsuitable for single occupancy, the report added, as they exposed passengers to high shock load as the boat slammed into waves. And the pre-departure safety briefing did not include the use of the seats and the passengers were unaware of the risks. The MAIB also found that concerns were expressed by many people in the industry about the use of jockey seats on high-speed RIBs. It said: 'Several operators, manufacturers and skippers were consulted during this investigation, and all acknowledged that the front seats of a RIB could present comfort issues, often referring to them as 'kamikaze' or 'suicide' seats.' The investigation found that the boat was hit by three waves, which caused the bow of the boat to land on the water 'with force, bringing the RIB to a sudden stop'. The person on the jockey seat 'struck their face heavily on the handhold in front of them'. It added: 'The dislodged passenger was wedged between the jockey seat pedestal and the RIB's sponsor, in a twisted position with her right leg over the seat. The deckhand attended to the dislodged passenger, who said that she could not feel her legs.' The boat was turned around as soon as the waves allowed and the skipper tried to call the company owner by mobile phone but received no reply. The coastguard was not contacted via the road and the report stated that his 'might have delayed the emergency response and prevented medical advice on handling a suspected spinal injury'. The woman was carried ashore by the owner and skipper as her sister called an ambulance at 12.27pm. She was taken to the hospital in Plymouth by air after a lifeboat team and an air ambulance were dispatched. The Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents, Andrew Moll, said: 'This dreadful accident highlights that even when operating at slow speeds in harbour areas significant injuries can still occur on RIB rides when inappropriate seating arrangements are used. 'Despite being in good health and wearing appropriate safety equipment, she was dislodged from her seat and sustained a spinal injury that has resulted in permanent paralysis.' He urged all operators to take action and Ilfracombe Sea Safari Ltd is recommended to implement a safety management system. The MAIB report said that since 2001 it has been notified of 54 accidents during RIB rides that have resulted in lower back injuries, 17 of which caused spinal fractures. A spokesman for Ilfracombe Sea Safari told the Times: 'It was two and a half years ago and [we are] now under new management since early 2024. 'We have implemented all the safety guidelines outlined in the report and more. We work to the highest standards and go above and beyond to ensure safety for all of our passengers and crew.'
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
September Tube strikes could bring week-long travel chaos to London
London Underground workers will stage a series of strikes next month that could bring travel chaos to the capital. On 5 September some union members at the Ruislip depot in west London will walk out for 24 hours, then, from 7 September, various groups will walk out across the Tube network each day. The Independent 's travel correspondent, Simon Calder, explores the 'serious impact' the planned wave of strikes will have travellers and commuters. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said that management had refused to engage seriously with its demands over pay and conditions.
