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We provide our clients with advice on responsible travel behaviour and encourage them to share their cultures with the people they meet as a way of improving understanding of our two very different lifestyles. The trip begins with a brief language lesson to learn a few words of Arabic (or Berber, depending on the background of your leader), which will enable to you talk to locals when at shops and restaurants or exchange some words of Arabic with locals on the bus.
Our leaders are all Moroccans from a wide variety of backgrounds, and they are very proud to share their country and culture with their groups. Throughout the trip, they will share with you their favourite local restaurants and food specialties, from cous cous and tagines to berber pizza and picnic lunches with food bought from roadside markets.
Throughout this fantastic trip, there are many opportunities to really experience how Moroccan people live, eat, and travel. We stay in locally run hotels, dine in local restaurants and use public transport whenever possible. Life is always locally flavored, whether it be by drinking an avocado juice at a local bar, or trying Kefta (minced lamb mixed with spices and then grilled) at a roadside stall. The emphasis on this trip is on building and enjoying relationships within the communities we travel and throughout the trip you will stay in a variety of accommodation, all of them locally owned and run. We enjoy a homestay and home cooking in the Atlas mountains and a small family-run riad in Essaouira.
We have our breaks at local cafes selling mint tea or café au lait and if we are feeling hungry, we can snack at street stalls selling chickpeas, nuts and even snails. Souqs (markets) sell olives, preserved lemons, dates and spices and our desert safari sees us sharing a meal with the Berber people. Even when we go shopping we like to get our travellers to shop at cooperatives where the artisans receive a fair price for their wares, therefore cutting out the middle man.
This trip also supports various organisations along the way. In the Middle Atlas mountains, we visit Kasbah Myriem, an organisation run by Franciscan nuns who educate and train local women to weave and use traditional patterns for their carpets and other hand-made products. Their mission is to give unmarried woman an education and guaranteed paid employment, and have the support of the local communities since they buy all their wool and dyes from nearby farmers. Passengers learn about the project and have the opportunity to buy some of their high-quality products.
In Tinerhir, we visit our foundation's supported organisation which works with physically and mentally handicapped people who learn to read, write and work with computers at school, and learn the basic skills to function in day-to-day life. They also receive professional instruction by local artisans on weaving, ceramics, woodwork and metalwork, so that they can become useful and valuable members of society and earn an income of their own.
We invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
