Backpacking Morocco on a Budget From the Atlas Mountains to Surfing in Essaouira

hello guys welcome to another episode of this miniseries here in Morocco right now I'm in a grand taxi and we are on our way from the Atlas Mountains down to Marrakesh in the surf town of essa where I thank you for episode salam alikoum and welcome to the third and final episode of this mini series here in morocco in just two weeks time me and Damon here we're gonna try and show you as many cool sides of Morocco as possible we're gonna prove that you can travel Morocco on the cheap budget ear style and help you discover all variety of things this Islamic country has to offer from experiencing the local life in ancient cities trying out the public transport tasting the Moroccan cuisine tracking the highest summit in the Atlas

Mountains and exploring the coast of the Atlantic Ocean so be sure to check out this mini-series the budgeteers this episode is sponsored by Skillshare if you want to join the online learning community for creators with more than 25,000 classes in design business and more then click our special link below the first 500 budget ear followers would get a two-month free trial so start learning today previously on a budget tear in Morocco after just nine days in Morocco Damian and myself we managed to travel across hundreds and hundreds of kilometres and visit three very unique Moroccan cities by cheap public transport by bus and by train and even crossed the desert and far away in to the Atlas Mountains where we pushed

ourselves to the limit and made it to the summit of the highest mountain Mount Cook though it has been an insane and crazy journey so far with the track of mud soup golf as a high player in every sense of the word but if they take all the energy we had left to finish the tent our descent back to England luckily this amazing view greeted us the next morning and we were ready to begin our next adventure hello good morning guys we just left our amazing cha-cha-cha we just left our amazing accommodation here in Lille it's called a plasma Zeek sheets or lodge they have two places we are now walking which is hurting us extremely because yesterday we arrived to really late after a full day of walking but we slept about 7 8 hours and now we're up bright

and early to take a gown taxi all the way to Marcus and from there we're gonna try either take a bus or a train to a sweeter that's the plan we have ahead we've had like a tiny breakfast all on the go they're all are already late so yeah we're now we have to get you have to go to a grand exit contact see the Texas will bring us to Marrakech but we first have to negotiate a price like everywhere in Morocco yet to negotiate every yeah but we also have to wait until the taxi is full yeah good the taxis here between the smaller villages are like buses you know they fill every taxi with a lot of people and you have to wait until they're full or you have to pay for every for every empty seat yeah we're

not gonna do that because but Cheers all right so yeah so we're a bit behind schedule so we hope we can feel the taxi as fast as possible they're already calling after us one thing is for sure it's gonna be a long ass I'll be so close to a suspense long as they it's gonna be long as they know Maya screaming okay we've already found another guy who's going to Marrakesh so v3 now we're still negotiating prices and a direct route to market patience is the name of the game okay he was asking with the ratio rent a sink or swim is this into CS you can almost power the citrus Presonus since the Quinton is pushing hard negotiator option well yeah if you wanna if you want to strengthen your haggling skills come to Morocco yeah

the sheep seem to have better luck fixing a ride than us but after another half an hour of waiting we settled on a decent price and got a private taxi or 50 dirham beach on the drive we had one last chance to take in the Magnificent beauty of the mountains but the heavy rain storm of yesterday who seemed to have caused some damage to the road so we drove slowly ahead until we were out of the box it was a smooth and easy ride once you were out of the Atlas so we chatted and chilled along the way sharing stories and enjoying news and soon we arrived okay our taxi dropped us off right outside here in Marrakech it is a lot hotter

here than in the mountains we forgot that this is actually a desert but we are only here for a couple of hours here mother Monica SHhhh because we are just passing through but we know a really good place that has really good falafel and so that's why we're carrying our backpacks for another kilometer with our with our tired legs all the way across this busy square giving the extra time we're gonna try and rest up because staying in the Sun all day here it's not a good idea so melting not me and after a quick bite in the busy city of Marrakech we had to get back on the move in the Hot Desert Sun and fix a taxi to get us to the bus station today we didn't have anything booked in advance so we were actually really

really lucky to get the very last seats on the bus to s area and with some cooler freshman's this four hour bus ride and the last leg of our journey today when along ferries sitting in the back you Iike AC in this bus time all right we just got off the bus over there we are now in esse wera my finally Coast time we've already seen a sea out of the windows of the bus so that means four feels like we're on the holiday now finally we can chill finally we can chill that's what we came here to do on this episode see how we can chill relax and a half more of these yeah post times five in berapa trying to completely different from the atlas we're trying to give you as much experience as different experiences in

Morocco as we can give you like yeah we've recovered the city's recovered the Atmos month is now recovering because host Beach life means life hashtag beats fine I say I speak quite easy just to show you that there's multiple ways of backpacking around Morocco and we are on we're only seeing half of it give us another two weeks it'll show you way more crazy we didn't cover the desert yet yeah for another ya letter seriously serious the reason why we came here is because he had two weeks off and he was saying like well I want to do something different I want to do something cool that's why I said when Damon if you're traveling you do something cool I want to film it hence this mean but you see your series is born and it has been going pretty well yeah

the less lighting kinks it so the curse we still need to find a hostel yeah we seem to have luck on our side while we were making our way through the medina in search of a hostel and unlike Marrakech we were not scammed this time we've actually had two people now that have shown us the right directions we have been really kind to us unlike in Marrakech and then yeah follow me I trust me this way so we ended up finding some cheap bunk beds and as the Sun was setting over essaouira we hopped onto the roof to get a good look at this quiet town and enjoy the views the salty sea breeze and the cold winds made us realize that we were starving and craving for some fish so we quickly hopped into town in search for some

typical Moroccan fish dishes we found our way to the fish market which was really cool it was really authentic and full of life and it had some strange creatures you don't get to see in your average supermarket we bought some fish and at a local restaurant really for us and we devoured our meals sadly no leftovers for these beggars and afterwards we treated ourselves to a Moroccan beer in a fancy bar his water foes beer before heading to bed ready to explore Essaouira properly the next day it felt great to wake up in this beautiful town on such a beautiful day and we were so happy to finally have a chance to rest and sleep in because we were still hurting from climbing to become so we wanted to take things really slow

today an esse wera turned out to be the perfect place to do just that we strolled around town and really liked to calm atmosphere here life just seems to go a bit slower here and people in the streets are way more relaxed afterwards we headed to the beach and saw that there were tons of different activities going on here this place is really popular for watersports as it has a steady wind blowing most of the year but we were just chilling today but we vowed to go surfing the next morning good morning we are up and about once again very early because we need to get breakfast because we will need all the energy we can get because we are going surfing right now we dragged ourselves out of bed everyone in the hostel is still sleeping

but we want to make as much advantage as we can out of this day so that's why I want to go out early and surf Cowabunga dude yeah I'm not so much in a California mood actually oh well everything is still sore but yeah we're gonna I sound so old we're just fine yes once we found some breakfast Daymond was starting to feel much better these local shops aren't the best have really good taste trees and they're plus you can wash them down with some fresh pressed pomegranate juice so now we're ready to face the waves all right we're in our wet suits we just rented Ward's and a wet suit here at Explorer we're ready to go into the Atlantic Ocean it's my first time so I'm quite excited yeah and first time

surfing freaking out at the same time it'll be alright it'll be fun but first we need to switch to GoPro we finished surfing your first lesson how did it go oh my god it was a really nice experience I loved it but dude it's so hard it's not as easy as I thought but I managed to like stand up on my board four five times yeah so that's apparently that's a good thing that's a good thing surfing is sport it takes a while to learn and we had some fun the waves weren't really that good today is there's a lot of wind but it was fun the girls were really good as well could they take up the hang

of it and we heard that's here in s wera SL we de there's something really special and I bet you can't believe it there are fix taxi prices here I've hurts yes seven eight did him and they don't haggle about the price so let's put it to the test let's put it to the okay we're gonna test it out and because we're too tired to walk and we need to go back to our hostels cross ASAP because we need to check out 10:00 a.m. it's already yeah seven doing shut down I can't believe it they didn't this is unique Morocco the myth is true a taxi in a Sarita because seven theorem which is seven euros 70 euro cents not even one euro we're speechless where we are speechless this is amazing so swear as

an example for us a waiter okay you have just become so much better for being honest we asked they mean ask the taxi driver how much is it and we were like let's see what he says he was just really honest said like 7:00 p.m. for two yeah fill your panic mode it turns out that my phone fell out of my pocket in the taxi so he ran back to get it a bit more good fortune on her side we found her driver and got my phone back in no time we were so relieved when we walked back to the hostel but we still had to pack and check out of the hostel so we rushed it to make it in time for sunset at the Arbor Day has flown by guys here in esse we're so chill but right now we're in the fish market

it is a perfect place to check out the sensor this is a cool place man all these shipyards this is like a fish market I think they like fishermen who are like I think they sell their fish here but they couldn't sell at the bigger fish market yeah leftovers a little leftovers yeah you know Fred I agree cheap fish I think stuff they're selling here like and sharks and rays in there yeah stings like hell though mm-hmm it's a really cool place you can really feel the local drives yeah man we were lacking the vibes here in this era I loved it like I love the city more like yesterday I loved it but today I loved it more oh yeah I keep in love tomorrow the longer I stay its be really cool that we've got that we've gotten more

time to explore this city even these little outside corners of the medina Oh perfect what a crazy sunset was this rock is beautiful so diapers guys come visit Morocco it's not far away this day it was a success some days were really hard with all the bus travel change alcohol but this is worth it great sunset I'm so glad we kept this for last yeah mellow chill our kind of vibe it's working out well but the next thing we need to do now because we checked out of our hostel right now we need to go and meet our car surfing hosts first caution couchsurfing hosts in Morocco yeah right yeah if we can only stay with him for one day so we're gonna try and do as many things with him as possible yeah everyone's here as well this is the local spot

what's up guys we just met this guy Fabio hey what's up he's a subscriber as well we found him here did you regular nice you didn't recognize me XP we found a really cheap place to eat here behind the mosque the main street is right up there and you eat there it cost three times as much but in here is where the locals eat we have a dinner for like 25 p.m. 30 determine well yeah oh it's a good price so a buncha - your meal in the middle of the street not bad actually so waiting for my fish go after that delicious Moroccan wheel said goodbye to Fabio and made our way through the city to finer couch surfing hosts and now just outside of Modena got our bags we're gonna go into another cheese taxi

okay good morning guys we woke up at our car surfing host place he left his place unfortunately we were not allowed to film him I wasn't really keen on being on camera shy but which is totally okay we just wanted to stay with him and be respectful to him and now filming but we will say how it was anyway what were your thoughts my thoughts there was an awesome guy he was an awesome guy really friendly really chill we had some really deep conversations with him yeah it was really you know he was really good for is always really good for his guests you know we offered her you offered us food they offered us tea some good advice great guy yep that being said it's our last day and in sa winner right

now we were really glad that we couch surfed but we need to fill up this day and we wanted to do some more surfing actually afterwards we will head down and take a bus to Casablanca yeah we really long but we'll enjoy the last few year use here in a so era we love this place we leave this place but as the weather is amazing yeah all good things come to an end and as you can tell we are really impressed by a cholita the beaches the streets the amazing atmosphere and another high point for sure yes exactly but we had to get going in the end and catch our evening bus so we made ourselves comfortable and enjoy Morocco's beautiful countryside taking long bus journeys like this really makes you realize how big this

country is it's massive so after a long drive late into the night we made it the largest city of Morocco Casablanca okay good morning guys today after now we've arrived in Casablanca late last night for the bus and we got into this the only hotel where you were able to find any only room that was available the only room that was available for a reasonable price reasonable some blankets but there's no hostels here no there are no how far like cheap hostels doesn't exist here we wanted to get this hotel room anyway because we wanted to divide up our six-hour bus trip which was really exhausting so now we got some sleep which was worth it and now we have just two hours to check out the city before we have to go to the airport to catch

her flight home so we want to check out downtown Casablanca in that time but this city is massive coming from SL wera this city is bursting with people and with cars so we don't know if we've got enough time to actually explore the center center of it but we'll try apparently casablanca is well known for its traffic and more specifically for his traffic jam look at this roundabouts great it has some Southeast Asian vibes or a bit like Enya okay this is a budgetary first we are actually finding like hitch hitchhiking cab we've stood there for more than 15 minutes we've seen plenty of taxis pass by and they don't want to pick us up normally sexy stuff immediately even if they have someone in the back even if I

don't need it cabbages this city apparently has over ten thousand maybe eleven thousand taxi or although we can find none we want to take never go we stood there for a long time and saw there are a last hour to visit the biggest tourist attraction in Casablanca was running out and we couldn't miss it but eventually we got picked up and drove across town as fast as possible in this traffic we have just arrived at hassan ii mosque so guys what you gotta know about this mosque is the only mosque in morocco that we as non-muslims can enter it's also the largest mosques in the largest mosque in morocco and it's one of the seven highest mosques in the world beautiful

this mosque gets even more impressive when you stand next to it all covered in beautiful marble and mosaics unfortunately it's $30 entry fee and due to our budget and time limit we thought it would be nicer just to sit outside relax and sports Instagrammers with this final thing of our lists and our time in Morocco all gone we made our way to the train station where the train stations gotta get your drain I think we have like about how many means we have like ten minutes I don't know gotta go we just heard the airport was actually another hour outside of the city so he were quite late and got worried we might not make it in time so we rushed through the airport and hoped we could still catch our flight all right we made it back to Belgium

guys I wanna thank the Moroccan people for their hospitality especially making my first African travel experience so well it was really great well do we need to thank we need to thank you guys for watching this series I know this is a mini series and series 4 is bound to come soon with Patti and Lina again so you'll see their faces again which I cannot wait for so thank you and if you like what we've done here subscribe share and buy a t-shirt if you have the chance it really helps us out so I hope the next time I see you guys is in series 4 right now we're going home what do you think time for a beer yeah that's a picture oh nice and like the repeater another special thank you to our sponsor Skillshare is a really good

way to learn new skills on a budget for just $10 a month for an annual subscription if you want to start documenting your own travels now like Daymond I would recommend Jordi's class on the basics of editing follow our special in below to get a free premium membership trial for two months that gives you unlimited access to 25,000 classes many of whom are photography filmmaking editing and much more thank you and enjoy alright guys the editing is done thanks for watching the Morocco series if you want more specific advice on Morocco Jamie and I have included a special epilogue at the end of this video with good advice so go and watch that if

you're interested in our new series then you will have to click this square guys the destinations of our next series is gonna be da Sri Lanka guys we're going to Sri Lanka and this is an amazing island and we are gonna budget ear the out of it and this series is gonna be bigger than ever but actually penny aleena are already on their way and I still need to finish packing so I need to hurry see you guys series 4 alright let's go here's a special Morocco epilogue okay we found a nice little spot here by the side of the ocean the view of the mosque and I thought this was the perfect moment to talk about our experience and what our what these past two weeks have been like Damian what were your thoughts on the last two weeks here in Morocco it was a

experience this was the second time I've come to him too first time was in winter so was the cleaned experience still nice this is the first time I actually traveled through the country and saw all the diversity that's because that's also a word that you can use Morocco yeah like Morocco is not only a place where you can find you know the first thing you think about deserts camels the genes I don't know yeah that's about it that's about it that's the first thing that I thought about when I was came tomorrow I didn't know ya know that I didn't know that every city was different as well every city has its own cuisine every city has its own habits and we've explored a couple of them now we could stay here for

another month and discover some more so I think we were already saying this we want to come back in the future and explore it some more but we only have two weeks now so we have to go back to work and for those of you who are thinking of coming to Morocco it is a real country that will test you test your traveler's abilities so if you come here we prepared for haggling it'll be some sort of emotional rollercoaster not used to it but it will reward you in so many other ways as well we always say the harder it is to get somewhere the more rewarding it is and Morocco is definitely in that category the people what do you think about people I think yeah but it is just like they did one of this you're amazing there are a lot of

stereotypes about AF people and about in general have so many of the stereotypes they're not true yeah the stereotype that most closely linked to Moroccan people is that they're like bargainers and sellers like in Marrakech but everywhere we go people say this is not Marcus yeah like everybody says hello on the street here greets you very nicely and only Marrakech on the busy shopping streets in the Suk's yeah there you have handlers and people who actually harass you everywhere else we've been have been pretty nice try not to touch people we have done yeah the first thing we also did the first thing that you know that you will do when you hear Morocco you always say no to people you will always think they're trying to scam you but

we had a multiple times that we said like no we don't trust like we said no because we thought they were going to sell something and they were like upset and they said like yo I'm not from Marrakech they're trying to help you and they were actually genuine genuinely trying to help us try be wary yeah he asserted yeah look past the people that try to scam you and look at the other people actually are being nice don't let a few rotten apples I would generalize don't generalize never ever yeah don't do that it'll be a good lesson and yeah we recommend anyone coming here seriously Naropa has a lot to offer for everybody for people who are searching for adventure and sports Naropa has it all you can do surfing you can trekking in the Atlas Mountains and much more

then you have endless culture and history to explore if you like it more luck - luxurious well you're on the wrong Channel but that's possible - this country is very good if you want to do it on a budget we've done it now and I think on behalf of a half of a thousand dollars each we've we've had to cram a lot of things into these two weeks so we could have done it even cheaper like I think we've got to done it a lot cheaper if you have more time yeah so if you come here if you're a young traveler or old whatever and you don't have a lot of money Morocco is a good destination and we as the budgeteers totally approve it you gather round things up gotta say goodbye to the mosque and to Casablanca and the ocean

I buy with five waves language we would love to serve some more but we need to go to the airports if we go back we'll have to rush it okay and we'll see you at the airport let's go