Riad or hotel: where should you stay in Morocco?

A riad is a traditional Moroccan house built around an interior courtyard, usually with a small pool or fountain, converted into a guesthouse: typically found inside a medina, with a handful of individually decorated rooms rather than dozens of identical ones.

Staying in a riad means being inside the medina itself, often reachable only on foot from where a car can park, with rooftop terraces, home-cooked breakfasts, and a level of individual character that larger hotels don't usually offer. It also means narrower, sometimes noisier surroundings, and fewer amenities like gyms or full room service.

Modern hotels, more common outside medina walls or in newer parts of cities like Casablanca and Agadir, offer more consistency: larger rooms, pools, easier vehicle access, at the cost of some of the atmosphere a riad provides.

Most of our itineraries default to riads in Marrakech, Fez, and Essaouira, where the medina experience is a real part of the trip, and hotels or kasbah-style properties in places like the Atlas foothills or Ouarzazate, where a riad-style stay isn't the natural fit: though we're happy to build a trip around either preference.