Marrakesh. Beautifully Chaotic.
Intense, beautiful, interesting & stressful all at the same time. Full of wonders, culinary delights, culture and history at every turn.
Morocco was high on my ‘to visit’ list for years and years before I finally pulled the trigger and booked a trip. I booked it at fairly short notice, mostly because my trip to Japan was postponed for the 2nd time (it finally happened the following year, Nov 2023. More on that later). The dates just worked out and before I knew it, I was packing my bike and jumping on a plane.
Turns out, Morocco is one of my favorites. I have traveled a fair bit, with the mindset that for the time being, I won’t be revisiting countries (unless I need to). The goal is to explore as much as possible, and categorize locations to three categories:
Revisiting is not a priority
Revisit if schedule, finances, etc align
Must go back, revisit all my favorite spots and explore even further
Morocco is in category 3 (for what it’s worth, out of 30 countries, there are currently 6 countries in that category).
The purpose of the trip was mostly riding bikes around the Atlas Mountains and I took my gravel bike for the 5 day mixed terrain, point to point ride (It was a fully supported trip). I added a few days for exploring Marrakesh both before and after the riding part, and I am happy that I managed to see a lot of the Medina several times over, as well as some parts the new city.
I am comfortable riding with a camera on my back and taking photos while riding, but street photography, which is what I mostly did in Marrakesh, is very much out of my comfort zone… Marrakesh was an interesting place to practice my street photography skills because its so crowded! I was a bit hesitant carrying a pricey camera/lens combo around, especially as a solo female traveler, but I used a smaller and cheaper lens, leaned into a bit of common sense, and shot ‘from the hip’, so the camera was a bit more hidden. Practicing my best resting bitch face helped too, haha.
You can find my experience exploring Marrakesh on my website. I highlighted some of the best places to visit and to be fair, there are more photos than words!
Below are a few of my favorites. You can see the full gallery of my Marrakesh and Atlas Mountain cycling trip HERE (you can even ❤️ your favorites so you can come back to them if you would like). For the full post, with the words and photos, click the button!
Next up, we will naturally flow to the stories, route maps (and Strava links) and of course lots of photos of the 5 days of riding around the Atlas Mountains.