Morocco : Exploring the magical souks of Marrakech

I’ll be sharing a full travel guide to Morocco on the blog next week, but in today’s post I wanted to share a quick photo diary of one of our favorite days in Morocco – exploring the magical souks of Marrakech. The heartbeat of Marrakech is it’s vibrant souks in the Medina and exploring them is a sensory experience like no other! Being the largest market in Africa it can be overwhelming and chaotic at first, due to the crowds, never ending stalls and the honeycomb maze of alleys within. But within a few minutes both Anush and I felt right at home, especially cos it reminded us so much of being back home in India. I absolutely loved the bustling atmosphere, the thrill of a good bargain and the overload on all five senses – it was certainly the highlight of our time in the city.

The souks are all divided into different sections based on what items they sell – carpet souk, slippers souk, spice souk, leather souk and so much more. While exploring the souks on your own is always an option, doing it as a guided tour is a much better experience. We did the Marrakech Guided Experience with Mohamed from Marrakech trip tours and absolutely loved it. We opted to do a private souk tour with him and it was incredible. He was extremely knowledgeable, professional, courteous, patient and also catered the tour towards how we would like it (I had told him how I wanted to concentrate on certain parts of the souk more than others). I also must note that he was very responsive via whatsapp if I wanted to make any last minute changes. Aside from showing us all the top tourist spots around the souk, I absolutely loved that he also showed us around some of the hidden gems in the souk – spots where most tourists would have totally missed without having a helpful guide like Mohammed. If you are looking to book him you can always book via Tripadvisor (no surprise why they have the best reviews for their tours here!) or you can also send him a DM via Instagram.

Aside from everything I mentioned above I highly recommend doing a private guided tour for many reasons :

exploring the souks on your own can be very overwhelming. Some shopkeepers are known to be super agressive, they haggle and even get annoyed if you try and snap even an iphone pic ( even a photo without you in it!) Before we met Mohamed, I tried snapping a pic of a fruit stand and was yelled at – full disclaimer :)!
Having someone who knows the language as well as the way around is super helpful. There are some scammers in the souks that tend to take advantage of tourists that might look lost (and trust me google maps wont be your bff here lol – it failed on us multiple times!)
A guide will know certain shops where you are more than welcome to take photos at.
Aside from top tourist spots – the hidden gems is why you would need a guide like Mohammed. The souks are so much more than just the beautiful shops. He showed us wonderful cultural traditions like – how Moroccan rugs are weaved, how scarves are made in a small factory, how bread is made, how the oldest Hammam is heated and so much more.

Now without further adieu, here is a photo diary from our time exploring the colorful souks of Marrakech !