Hello, I am a 42 year old woman traveling solo to Morocco for 5 weeks October/Novemeber. I would like to meet someone who can help me learn Moroccan Arabic and show me around the town. My budget will not allow me to pay as I am a teacher and have very limited financial resources. I am planning on spending no more than 500.00 American dollars in five weeks. I hope this is enough. I want to concentrate on exploring the history and culture of Morocco and what better way to that then with a Moroccan. Here are the cities and places I am going to be visiting.
Casablanca
Tangier
Rif Mountains
Ouarzazate
Agadir
Merzouga
Ziz Valley
Erfoud
Ait Benhaddou
Fez
Sijilmassa
Asilah
Rabat
Chefchaouen
Fez Morocco
Volubilis
Sahara Desert
Marrakesh
Todra & Dades Gorges
Ouarzazate
High Atlas Mountains
Toubkal
Essaouira
If you live in the area of one of the above places and would like to spend the day talking and exploring your city with an educated, interesting and fun person please send me an email. wishingwell1966@yahoo.com
mar7ba bik travles1966 ! :welcome:
There are many foreigners in Morocco and they are free to wear what they like as far as I know, but its maybe preferable to wear decent clothes.
I’ve never been to Morocco unfortunately so I can’t help.
Anyways I hope you enjoy your time there !
Hi travles. I am from the US, and I was in Morocco for a month last summer.
You definitely don’t have to wear a scarf in most places, especially if you will be in public spaces where other travelers are. The only time I was advised to wear a scarf was in a rural souq, just out of respect, and even then, the couple of women tourists there didn’t wear one. In some places it can get very hot but wherever you are it’s good to have at least a shawl to cover your shoulders out of respect.
I don’t know about the religious sites. I think there is a restricted access for most of them, but I’m sure someone else here will know better.
If you’re fortunate enough to find a family that is willing to host you, that would be fabulous but I don’t know how possible it is without planning in advance… ?
$500 is a pretty thin stretch for a month, especially with the dollar crashing as hard as it has. I had a Moroccan friend just return and he told me that his dollars disappeared fast. I strongly advise taking a credit card with you, and using it where you can, and saving most of your cash for at least the second half of the trip because getting sick/lost/whatever else is really awful to begin with but without cash it will be a whole lot worse.
Best of luck.
It will be very very hard to survive on $500 for one month in Morocco. This works out at approx 125 dirham per day. Even in a very very cheap hotel you will pay about 70 dirham per day, with food, travel etc on top of this, my opinion is that it is not sufficient.
I would advice conservative dress, but not a headscaf.
Non Muslims are not allowed to enter Mosques in Morocco
The bath houses are called ‘Hammans’, and women generally just wear their knickers/briefs, or so I am told. It is a real experience and it is NOT a spa.
Some English is spoken in main centres but the main foreign language spoken is French.
A better place for you to post this query would be the Trip Advisor Morocco Forum, which is set up specicially for travel queries. You can find at the link below. You will need to register to post a toipic, but that is straight forward.
Trip Advisor Morocco Forum http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g293730-i9195-Morocco.html
Thanks for all who replied. I am going to try to meet Moroccans while in Morocco and will learn Arabic while traveling. I am a very open minded towards other cultures and people.
Mar7ba bik travles1966!
I agree with the others US $ 500 is not enough. Don’t forget to allow a bit for beggars too.
For language and cultural exchange and possibly a free bed for the night, check out couchsurfing.com
Have a good time !
Welcome to the forum, travles1966.
I see that you edited your original message with all the cultural questions you had, so I am afraid I can’t help with that as I don’t remember them clearly.
I agree that 500$ for 5 weeks is a very tight budget. That’s 100$ for a week, and less than 15$ a day! Did you actually mean that this budget doesn’t include transport expenses? 500$ will cover 2 weeks, and probably slightly more… Let us know how your plans turn out to be.