March 10 – 21, 2017

In the spring of 2017 my college roommate and dear friend, Arielle, my Aunt Jenny and I headed out for a trip of a lifetime to Africa! It has been a life long dream of mine to travel to Morocco. As a middle school-er I remember being infatuated with the Moroccan architecture. With the help of Anthropologie I tried to recreate that look in my bedroom growing up. I always knew a trip to this wild country was in my future and this year I had to make it happen.

We spent months planning with the help of two co-workers who took a similar trip months before. We set out 10 days and mapped out our route of all the places we wanted to see.

Route

Planning for the weather was a bit challenging. Being in the middle of the winter in Georgia (winter, a joke right) it was hard to image 70degrees again. On top of planning for warm and then cold temps in the desert, there was also the factor of Morocco being a conservative Muslim country. So, like India, this means head to toe coverage. Pants, skirts and dresses to your ankles is a must. Not only is it respective to their culture, but it’s also important to not stand out as a tourist any more than you already will!

And we were three blonds….so there’s that….

Weather: High of 76 low of 52

Currency = Dirham

1 USD = 9.85 MAD

This app is instrumental in helping you do the conversions. Most everything is done in cash, so make sure you have some on you. It’s a bit difficult to get smaller bills, but that helps when your market shopping and need some negotiating power.

We actually contacted our local bank and ordered Dirhams prior to leaving. We found that the exchange rate was really great and then you avoid the ATM fees you encur over there.

On important thing to note is most hotels prefer cash as well. If you chose to pay by card, they tack on a 5% fee.

I actually took my dirhams from the bank and split them in to envelopes for each hotel to make sure I had exact change when paying. That way that cash never interfered with my spending cash for foods and the market.