Wintering on a motorcycle in Morocco

I came to Morocco looking for somewhere warm and dry where I could spend the winter on short notice — I couldn’t get out of Europe before November. The North African kingdom seemed like the kind of place where I wouldn’t freeze, wouldn’t burn through my savings too quickly, and could finally tick off an old dream of mine: riding a bit of Africa.

This is my small collection of observations about what Morocco currently feels like from the saddle of a motorcycle.

Roads and riding

Judging by the bikes and gear of most Europeans I’ve seen here, Morocco is still widely imagined as a land of dusty off-road adventures and endless tracks without asphalt. Reality today is quite different. It’s perfectly fine to ride across the entire country — including the Western Sahara region — without ever leaving paved roads. An adventure bike, off-road skills, or even the desire to ride dirt are optional extras.

There’s clearly been a lot of money going into road infrastructure in the past decade or two. Motorways and main highways are in great shape, with modern rest areas, 24-hour fuel stations, shops and cafés. Major streets in the cities often don’t just match Europe — sometimes they actually feel ahead of it. How often do you see solar-powered flashing lights embedded directly in the road markings in Europe? At night, riding through some of these newer Moroccan cities honestly feels a bit futuristic. That said, once you leave the main arteries, things change quickly. Smaller streets in residential parts of towns and villages are often still just packed dirt.

As for traffic, I didn’t expect massive differences compared to Europe — and I didn’t really find them either. Of course there are moments and places where things feel chaotic and exotic. Especially around markets and busy streets with cafés, shops and restaurants. Cars and scooters parked everywhere in loose clusters. Pedestrians crossing wherever it makes sense to them. They move with incredible instinct and timing, but they leave very little room for mistakes, so keeping your eyes open and covering your brakes is a must. One thing I learned quickly — mainly to avoid getting rear-ended — is that pedestrian crossings here are mostly decorative. Very few drivers seem to notice them, let alone respect them.

Speaking of learning — phone use while riding is just as common here as anywhere else in the world… maybe even more creative. The other day I was slowing down before a big roundabout in Agadir when I spotted a guy on a motorcycle calmly circling it. Phone in hand. No helmet. Head completely buried in the screen. Not even pretending to care about the world around him. I regularly see guys cruising along the shoulder — sometimes the wrong way — happily texting or scrolling. But watching someone calmly loop six lanes of roundabout traffic during afternoon rush hour without even glancing up? I was like: How??!

Despite moments like that, though, people generally ride and drive surprisingly well here. Traffic has its rhythm and its logic. Some manoeuvres are improvised, sure, but people watch out for each other — and give way when needed. Most importantly, the kind of aggressive high-speed driving that makes my hair stand up back in Europe is almost absent here. Simple reason, I suspect: smashing cars for no reason is just too expensive for most Moroccans.

Another factor might be the very visible police presence. Police control the entrances to cities and towns, traffic officers seem to guard almost every major roundabout, and checkpoints appear regularly even in remote areas — deserts, mountains, you name it. At times the phrase “police state” tries to sneak into your head, but from a traveller’s perspective the whole system actually feels more reassuring than oppressive. In almost three months of riding here I’ve only been stopped two or three times — and that was just for a quick passport check.

Fuel, motorway tolls, cash, and cards

“No card. Only cash,” the attendant told me at a Shell station on the outskirts of Guelmim when I pulled out my bank card. I glanced around to double-check that the orange-and-red station really was Shell. I’d chosen this place partly because I wanted to save my cash. ATM withdrawals here can swallow a few euros in fees at once (the only fee-free ATMs I found were Maroc Post / Barid Bank). The guy didn’t even follow my gaze. He’d already turned away like it wasn’t his problem whether I could pay or not. As I pulled my last 20-dirham note from my wallet, I wondered whether he really couldn’t take cards — or just didn’t want to. Wouldn’t be the first time. Cash still rules here. And the further south you go, the more that seems to be true. Still… I didn’t expect it so blatantly at a Shell station.

Fuel prices vary depending on the region. From the Mediterranean coast down to Agadir, a litre of petrol costs around 12 dirhams (about €1.15). Further south it gets cheaper. In the Western Sahara region I rarely paid more than 9 dirhams per litre.

Motorways in the south are free as well. The toll roads are only north of Agadir, linking the bigger cities like Tangier, Rabat, Casablanca, Fez, Agadir and Marrakech. During rainy days in December I used them gladly for long transfers across the fairly monotonous agricultural landscapes northwest of the Atlas Mountains. Prices didn’t seem bad at all — between 15 and 35 dirhams for longer stretches.

Motorcycling stuff

Motorcycles in Morocco are primarily everyday transport, not weekend toys. Most of the two-wheeled traffic consists of small semi-automatic underbone bikes, scooters and mopeds — usually between 50 and 150 cc. The most common ones are from the local brand Docker or basically the same machines imported from China.

That has practical consequences. Most mechanics simply don’t have the experience, equipment or reliable access to parts needed for servicing larger European or Japanese bikes. There are exceptions, but usually only in the really big cities like Casablanca, Rabat, Agadir or Marrakech.

In Laâyoune, the largest city in the Western Sahara region, I saw some nicely kept Hondas and Yamahas around town. But when I asked a local mechanic to fix a leaking fork seal on my ER-6n, he just shrugged and told me to go to Agadir. The skills were there. The parts weren’t.

In practice, Agadir is the last reliable place heading south where I managed to find parts and consumables for my Kawasaki. Beyond that the availability drops sharply. If I were planning serious riding in the southern desert — or heading further toward Mauritania — I’d definitely carry basic spare parts with me: cables, levers, filters and so on.

Consumables follow a similar pattern. Chain lube is available even in Western Sahara, but chain cleaner isn’t. In Boujdour I ended up cleaning my chain with diesel from a fuel station. And the legendary WD-40? Never saw it anywhere. Chinese and Turkish substitutes are available though — and they work well enough.

Another interesting discovery: in the entire city of Agadir, with over a million people, I found exactly one fuel station with self-service wash bays — something we're so used to in Europe.

Camping

Wild camping is generally tolerated, except near military zones and sensitive infrastructure like wind farms, refineries, radar stations or transmitters. Not everything that’s off-limits is clearly marked. Sometimes you only find out when the police or military politely but firmly ask you to move along. That hasn’t happened to me personally, but a friend recently cycling the length of the country from Mauritania said it happened to him quite regularly. Police will often stop by simply to check if everything is okay. Locals also tend to wander over out of curiosity — sometimes with genuine hospitality or offers of help.

Personally, I usually retreat to campsites for the night. Mostly because I enjoy a peaceful evening and a proper toilet in the morning. The cheapest campsite I stayed at cost 40 dirhams per night (Camping Tamhroucht in Sidi Ifni). For nearly two weeks I stayed at Sahara Line Camping in Boujdour. As the only campsite along a long stretch of desert coastline between Laâyoune and Dakhla, it’s a great place to meet other travellers crossing Western Sahara. It doesn’t have amazing reviews, but my experience was very good. Spacious pitches, electricity and hot water. The bathrooms could use a bit of renovation, and the tap water there is slightly salty, but the guy at reception cleaned everything daily and everything worked fine. I paid 60 dirhams per night. Campsites in more touristy areas usually cost between 80 and 130 dirhams.

Camping also quickly taught me one thing: the screw-on gas cartridges common in European Decathlon stores simply don’t exist in Morocco. I only found the click-on Campigaz system. In Boujdour I ended up using a cheap Turkish camping stove sold in grocery shops for about 120–150 dirhams. The gas cartridges cost around 10–12 dirhams and are sold everywhere. If the wind picked up even a little, boiling water for coffee became an exercise in patience. But it still beats having no fire at all.

Hostels and hotels

When it rains or when I simply don’t feel like camping, I stay in hostels. There are plenty of them and with Booking or Google Maps reviews it’s easy to find clean, friendly and comfortable places. Along the Atlantic coast in southern Morocco many of them are called “surf houses”, since the area is a seasonal hotspot for European surfers. So far I’ve paid around 100 dirhams per night and always been satisfied.

In Tangier, Rabat and Marrakech I discovered that the cheapest hostels often don’t have parking — and sometimes not even legal access for motorcycles. That’s because they’re located inside the medinas, the old city centres full of narrow alleys, markets and mosques. Great for backpackers. Not so great for motorcycles. In Rabat I managed it for two nights. In Tangier, Marrakech and Laâyoune (which doesn’t really have any hostels) I opted for hotels instead. Tangier cost 280 dirhams per night, Marrakech around 250 and Laâyoune 200. In Afkhenir, Western Sahara, I paid 150 dirhams for a very basic room with cold water and a sink in the hallway. In hindsight I probably overpaid — today I wouldn’t give more than 100 for it.

Outside hotels locals often offer to “watch your bike” for a few dirhams. Parking in front of a hotel is usually safe though, and politely declining never caused any problems.

Daily essentials

Besides local products, grocery shops stock familiar brands like Nestlé or Danone. Local food is usually cheaper and just as good, if not better. Pasta, rice, lentils and beans are commonly sold by weight, as are fruits, vegetables and spices. One thing I still haven’t figured out: why processed triangle cheese always sits on regular shelves while long-life UHT milk is kept in refrigerators. Either way, a kilo tub of spreadable cheese for 45 dirhams and a litre of thick Moroccan yoghurt for 10 dirhams are hard to beat calorie-wise. Most fruit and vegetables are cheaper than in Europe.

A few items from my regular shopping list:

• flatbread – 1-2 dirhams
• baguette – 1–2 dirhams
• pasta – 6 dirhams/kg
• dates – 20–40 dirhams/kg
• peanut butter – 26–30 dirhams
• tuna – 14 dirhams
• good ground coffee – 30-40 dirhams
• cigarettes – 35–50 dirhams (or 2 dirhams per cigarette)

Eating out often makes more sense than cooking. Small local restaurants serving Moroccan food — soups, tajine, couscous, meat plates or hot sandwiches — are usually very affordable. My rule: eat where locals eat. Restaurants catering mainly to tourists and foreign visitors are usually unnecessarily expensive. Coffee for 10 - 12 dirhams is strong and good even in the smallest roadside bar. And of course it didn’t take long before I got hooked on strong mint or wormwood tea served in a metal teapot.

A quick note about mobile internet: right after arriving from Spain I bought a local SIM card (Orange Maroc) for 20 dirhams. I top it up once a month with 100 dirhams and get about 11 GB of data — which I haven’t even managed to use up yet thanks to occasional WiFi.

Morocco works

As I said at the beginning, for me, Morocco was a place where I wanted to slow down, conserve energy, and prepare for what comes next. And it has ticked pretty much all my boxes so far. Before I leave, I’d like to venture deeper into the Atlas Mountains and ride through the eastern half of the country. Do I expect to be reporting something I haven’t already? Not likely. I expect breathtaking scenery, not breathtaking surprises around practicalities.

So, Morocco works for me. Not perfectly, not uniformly, but well enough for daily life to become predictable and calm, no matter where you're from. Moroccans are genuinely welcoming. The landscapes are unique. The food is delicious. Accommodation is affordable. And the beaches are insanely long, spacious, and uncrowded.

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