Morocco After 50:Sensory Overloadin the Best Way
The spice markets, the riads, the mint tea pressed into your hands by strangers. Morocco is not a gentle destination — and that's exactly why you should go.
Layla Hassan
Food & culture travel writer
I have been writing about food and travel for twenty years. I have eaten my way through Southeast Asia, navigated the wine regions of France, and spent a month cooking in a Tuscan farmhouse. Nothing prepared me for Morocco.
Morocco doesn't ease you in. From the moment you step out of the Marrakech airport and into the chaos of the medina, it demands your full attention. The colors, the sounds, the smells — cumin and rose water and diesel and something sweet you can't identify — arrive all at once. Your nervous system doesn't know what to do with it. And then, slowly, it does.
Morocco teaches you to be present. Not because it's peaceful — it's not — but because the alternative is impossible. You cannot be anywhere else when you're in the souks of Marrakech.
The Food Is the Point
I went to Morocco primarily to eat, and Morocco did not disappoint. Moroccan cuisine is one of the great underrated food traditions in the world — complex spice blends, slow-cooked tagines, pastilla (a sweet-savory pigeon pie that sounds alarming and tastes transcendent), and the best preserved lemons you will ever encounter.
A few things I ate that I am still thinking about:
- Lamb tagine with prunes and almonds at a family-run restaurant in the medina — three hours of slow cooking, served with bread still warm from the communal oven.
- Harira soup at a street stall at dusk, eaten standing up, for about 50 cents. Rich, tomato-based, fragrant with coriander and lemon.
- Bastilla at a riad dinner — layers of warqa pastry, spiced pigeon, almonds, and powdered sugar. It should not work. It absolutely works.
- Argan oil everything. On bread, in salads, drizzled over amlou (a paste of argan oil, almonds, and honey that I brought home in quantity).
Staying in a Riad
A riad is a traditional Moroccan house built around a central courtyard. From the outside, they are anonymous — a plain door in a narrow alley. Inside, they open into something extraordinary: tiled fountains, orange trees, hand-painted ceilings, the smell of jasmine.
Staying in a riad rather than a hotel is not optional. It is the difference between visiting Morocco and experiencing it. The owners of my riad in the Marrakech medina had lived there for three generations. Breakfast was served on the rooftop terrace. The mint tea arrived without asking, all day long.
The medina will disorient you. Get lost on purpose. The best things I found in Morocco — a ceramics workshop, a women's cooperative selling argan products, a rooftop cafe with a view of the Koutoubia — were all found by accident.
Practical Notes for Women Traveling Solo
Morocco is a Muslim-majority country with a conservative culture in many areas. Solo women travelers are common and generally welcomed, but a few things make the experience smoother:
- Dress modestly in the medina. Covered shoulders and knees are respectful and reduce unwanted attention.
- Hire a guide for your first day. The medina is genuinely labyrinthine. A half-day guided walk gives you your bearings and context you won't get from a guidebook.
- Negotiate everything. Haggling is expected and part of the culture. Start at a third of the asking price and enjoy the process.
- Learn a few words of Darija or French. "Shukran" (thank you) and "la, shukran" (no, thank you) will serve you constantly.
I went to Morocco expecting to eat well and come home with beautiful things. I did both. But I also came home with something I hadn't anticipated: a recalibration. A reminder that the world is vast and strange and generous, and that the best way to remember that is to go somewhere that makes you feel like a beginner again.